One of the little surprises in the Antiplanner’s analysis of regional transportation plans was that the plan for Houston — which the Antiplanner normally likes to point to as a paragon of freedom and efficiency — proposed some of the most intrusive anti-sprawl measures. The good news is that Houston’s metropolitan planning organization doesn’t have much power over the cities in its region.
These dense, but non-pedestrian-friendly, townhomes are the kind of new development Houston is getting without zoning or intrusive regulation.
The bad news is that the city of Houston is proposing to regulate urban corridors (meaning rail transit corridors) to promote transit-oriented developments. The web site for the corridor plan contains the usual alarmist language about population growth, and suggests that corridor planning and regulation can do something “about all this growth.”
“We can seize the opportunity we have, knowing that Houston is going to grow considerably, to find ways to shape our city,” says the web page. At least some of the planning is supposed to be voluntary, but when planners write about “shaping our city,” residents should get nervous.
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In certain “core pedestrian zones,” the corridor plans will require the usual pedestrian-oriented designs, including extra wide sidewalks, buildings fronting on those sidewalks, and 75 percent of the fronts of those buildings must be “transparent.”
These are all recent urban planning fads, but I fail to see how they are going to help accommodate the 2 million people who planners predict will move to Harris County in the next 30 years. If it’s density the planners want, developers are already building lots of mid-rise and high-rise developments near Houston’s center, where land values are highest. They aren’t necessarily pedestrian oriented, but they will house lots of people.
In other corridors, these things will be optional but “incentivized” by allowing developers who meet pedestrian-friendly standards to waive other requirements. Now, I really don’t see the point. If the waivable requirements are so unimportant, then why are they required in the first place? It sounds to me like planners are keeping them on the books as a form of extortion, just so they can make developers comply with the pedestrian-friendly design.
The good news is that, even if Houston imposes these requirements, and they prove too onerous, developers can step outside the city and build for the market rather than the planners’ utopias. This, in turn, will pressure the city to minimize or relax any requirements it passes.
developers are already building lots of mid-rise and high-rise developments near Houston’s center
Why? I thought we were supposed to believe around here that people don’t like dense housing.
This website is supposed to be about the free-market and freedom of choice, and people getting “what the market demands”. I bet if you went around Houston and polled (yes, I’m betting, I don’t have a study to back this up, I’m just betting on human nature), most residents would at least like the option of safe sidewalks to walk or bike or play on instead of roads where they have to walk in the gutter inches away from traffic(common throughout most suburbs).
The problem is that the Antiplanner is not supporting what people want in Houston, he supports what developers want. He constantly harps on “choice”, but it’s the choice of the new landed gentry, the developers who control thousands of acres and homes.
I don’t know whether government planning is the answer, but I do know this: under the current system, a small, powerful group of people (developers) has control of many of the land and most of the design and development decisions made. Under government regulation, a small, powerful group of people regulate many of the design and development decisions made. Yes, the developers have more of an incentive to please the people because they must pull a profit or fail. However, it becomes extremely easy to sell your less-than-desired product when you and the others who own everything are producing the same thing.
Anyone that posts on this blog should understand, some people prefer living in the middle of nowhere, some prefer high density developments. The rest of us prefer somewhere in between and it would be nice if the Planners didn’t tell us where that has to be. Or mandate, rezone our property without our consent to archive their goals.
Re zoning around transit or pedestrian corridors, ignore the property owners that are already there.
All to achieve the planners goals
I can pretty much guarantee you that the overwhelming majority of zone changing in the US is done at the request of developers to achieve developers’ goals. Planners don’t have the power that Antiplanners (for some reason) think they have.
hkelly1 writes: “the Antiplanner is not supporting what people want in Houston, he supports what developers want”
Of course! Because we all know a successful business plan is based on thwarting the will of the consumer and giving people what they don’t want!
I swear, the pretzel logic required to believe in Smart Growth is dumbfounding!
Developers have to please their customers or they will not sell any lots, houses , apartments or condos. And risk going broke.
The problem is when government planners starts to give some developers special tax breaks or concessions, just for them.
Government planners (especially in Portland) plan, zone, rezone and build, they risk the taxpayers money and often add tax breaks, abatements, low interest loans when their projects don’t sell.
The planners keep their jobs.
Developers have to please their customers or they will not sell any lots, houses , apartments or condos
The problem with this line of thinking is that it assumes that customers would rather live on the street than in a house/apartment/condo that doesn’t meet their standards. I don’t buy that.
If I don’t like a pair of jeans or a candy bar, I won’t buy it. If I don’t like all the available housing, I’ll still choose to live in something I don’t like because it beats living on the streets.
Developers know that the demand curve for housing is essentially inelastic, and they know they can get away with cheap, crappy, boring housing because we’ll buy it/rent it anyway.
BTW: Would the Antiplanner say that the lack of “intrusive regulation” in Houston has had a positive or negative impact on Houston’s air quality?
If you don’t like what a developer builds or develops, you can build your own.
If you don’t like what a developer builds or develops, you can build your own
Exactly. Developers know we have little choice but to buy their product. We’re pretty much at their mercy. They can build whatever cheap crap a local government lets them get away with and we have little choice but to buy/rent it from them.
“If you don’t like what a developer builds or develops, you can build your own.”
Where is this supposed to occur in a land of controlled subdivisions and gated communities where there is a limited variety of homes and only one official builder?
“Of course! Because we all know a successful business plan is based on thwarting the will of the consumer and giving people what they don’t want!
I swear, the pretzel logic required to believe in Smart Growth is dumbfounding!”
It’s not pretzel logic at all. It’s the same logic Wal-Mart uses when it builds outside a small town, watches the small hardware stores and markets in the town fail and move away, and then says “Why look, everyone loves us! They’re all shopping here now!” What choice do they have?
I like it that Randal judges the plan without talking to anyone in Houston.
DS
1. Again, I think the usual suspects on this site are afraid that there are folks who will move out of the McSuburb and into denser housing; this would repudiate their ideology, which has institutions that tell them constantly that McSuburbs are the American Dream and that’s what evvvvrybody wants! What would be worse is if this were a significant fraction of the populace (say, the ~1/3 who say they would if they had the choice).
2. Houston has a large number of development regulations: setback, lot coverage, etc. Why is everyone here arguing as if they don’t?
DS
Houston  which the Antiplanner normally likes to point to as a paragon of freedom and efficiency
Now why would you do such a silly thing like that? As I’ve pointed out in every post you make about Houston – and as you ignore in every single post – Houston has a planning code in all but name. An excerpt from an article entitled “Zoning Without Zoning”:
So why does the Antiplanner never mention these regulations? I’ll take a stab: they don’t jibe with his worldview that planning generally increases density and makes life difficult for the automobile, not the other way around.
Dan says: “I think the usual suspects on this site are afraid that there are folks who will move out of the McSuburb and into denser housing”
Personally, I’d love it. If demand dropped in the suburbs, so would the price then I could supersize my McMansion! Some of us – Dan et al – don’t give a flip if people live in the cities or burbs, just as long as it’s a result of their free choice and not due to some planner’s scheme. The control-freaks are decidedly on your side, not mine.
“Personally, I’d love it. If demand dropped in the suburbs, so would the price then I could supersize my McMansion! Some of us – Dan et al – don’t give a flip if people live in the cities or burbs, just as long as it’s a result of their free choice and not due to some planner’s scheme. The control-freaks are decidedly on your side, not mine.”
Then you should be calling for an end to minimum parking requirements, minimum setbacks, maximum density, use-based zoning, etc. That is just as intrusive a type of government planning as any other, and what’s worse, it’s masquerading as the “free market”. Why don’t we ever see calls on this site to remove those requirements as well?
rationalite wrote:
“Houston’s parking regulations also create automobile dependency by encouraging driving and discouraging walking. Under Houston’s city code, virtually every structure in Houston must supply plenty of parking. For example, apartment buildings must have even more parking spaces than residents; landlords must supply 1.25 parking spaces for each efficiency apartment and 1.33 parking spaces for every bedroom. Offices, supermarkets, and other businesses are subject to similar restrictions.”
These regulations are well-meant. It means that the property will accomodate all of the parked cars, without cars ending up on the streets. The road to hell, though, is paved with good intentions, and this is another case of this.
The standard for parking is the USA is almost always ITE. ITE have surveyed many business to see how much parking they have provided. Municipalities provide their own parking standards, but these are too often just the ITE survey data with a local gloss – sometimes, not even that. As the parking must *exceed* the ‘standard’, more people drive to the location, and the next time ITE surveys the location the amount of parking has gone up. Round and round and round in a wild and merry dance.
Close Observer wrote:
“Personally, I’d love it. If demand dropped in the suburbs, so would the price then I could supersize my McMansion! Some of us – Dan et al – don’t give a flip if people live in the cities or burbs, just as long as it’s a result of their free choice and not due to some planner’s scheme. The control-freaks are decidedly on your side, not mine.”
Some of us plan for the future – try to work out what mortgage we can afford, what to buy in the shops, and so on. Planning in important. The McSuburbs, for example, may soon end up on the receiving end of peak oil. It is a pity that nobody planned for this, but then ‘planning’ is a dirty word in some parts.
Antiplanner wrote:
“The bad news is that the city of Houston is proposing to regulate urban corridors (meaning rail transit corridors) to promote transit-oriented developments.”
If the intention is to locate housing, offices, and shops around transit stops, then I would want to know what proportion of the trips made are internal to the transit network, and what proportion is external – for example, from doing a gravity model calculation. Increasing the density, without removing the need to drive outside of the transit cordon is likely to increase congestion on the road. I would also be concerned about induced traffic – if the generalised cost of driving falls, due to some people moving to transit and reducing congestion, will more people fill up the traffic stream again? I can thus see two separate mechanisms for why this approach may fail.
“Then you should be calling for an end to minimum parking requirements, minimum setbacks, maximum density, use-based zoning, etc. That is just as intrusive a type of government planning as any other, and what’s worse, it’s masquerading as the ‘free market’. Why don’t we ever see calls on this site to remove those requirements as well?”
I call for their removal. Even though I am a municipal planner and this might cost me my job, I’d still be able to find work as a planner because all developers plan to some degree, but larger projects usually have several teams of land planners, entitlements planners, transportation planners, environmental planners, etc. working on them because it makes for a good product.
Why don’t we ever see calls on this site to remove those requirements as well?
You do. From me. When I say ‘end Euclidean zoning’. Every week, seemingly.
DS
The standard for parking is the USA is almost always ITE.
And the stalls are always too high.
But there are numerous municipalities that waive ITE if you can give a traffic and use study by someone with a credential.
Trouble is, these cost money and time and often developers just say f— it and build to the code number, which is usu based on ITE. IME the break-even point for someone doing their own study is ~80k sf of ground floor space.
DS
For that matter, O’Toole might as well say that suburban trains are anti-suburban or the like.
“most residents would at least like the option of safe sidewalks to walk or bike or play on instead of roads where they have to walk in the gutter inches away from traffic(common throughout most suburbs).”
Most suburban streets I’ve encountered are plenty wide. There’s no “inches away from traffic”. You can take your walk on them and the occasional car that does come by has plenty of room even when the rare opposing traffic doesn’t allow them to swing extra wide.
Aside from the ecological issues of 50ft width pavement serving few TPDs, you’ll want to contact a buncha traffic engineers, public health officials, police, fire, sociologists, psychologists and sand public safety officers.
See, they are under the impression that there are many streets that have traffic and connected sidewalks. They are trying to increase the safety in these areas.
Apparently they are wrong and all streets are wide and traffic free (why all the complaining about congestion on this site? one wonders).
DS