Let's discuss zoning laws

[downtown]

Are there factories besides apartments in Houston? Does it make economic sense to open up a factory besides your apartment?.

I live in a totally different market. Chicago (and other rust belt cities) are *way* older, and more geographically constrained than a newer city like Houston. Geographically, the city of Houston is heeee-uge, and if I remember correctly, was also able to annex a few suburbs.

Having fairly heavy industrial and residential is not unheard of even in Chicago, in neighborhoods without a lot of clout (i.e, immigrant neighborhoods, poor people). I live in a a pretty working class, immigrant heavy hood, but my local alderman has enough juice to keep our open spaces for commerical or residential development (or parks). If there was nothing, the proximity to major streets or highway 90/94, plus the cost of real estate, could certainly drive undesirable developments into residential neighborhoods.

Do you drive much in Houston? I wouldn't exactly call it the pinacle of urban development in the US either.

 

[Tahuti]

Do you drive much in Houston? I wouldn't exactly call it the pinacle of urban development in the US either.

No one pretended it was. The point was that this city seems to do fine without zoning laws, so why bother wasting money and housing space by insisting on having them?

Are there factories besides apartments in Houston? Does it make economic sense to open up a factory besides your apartment?

Basically this. While it is theoretically possible to encounter such situations, I doubt a landfill owner would pick an expensive residential neighbourhood as its area of choice.

 

[Mise]

Planning laws in the UK are notoriously complicated and really need to be loosened. Part of the reason UK house prices rose so ridiculously during the boom was the belief that the long-term house prices were always going to rise, because demand for housing outstripped developers's abilities to build more houses. The reason for that was partly that planning laws were so complicated. Our house prices fell dramatically during 2007 and 2008, but nowhere near as much as in Ireland, Spain or the USA, and have since recovered. And that's partly because of those same forces above: more demand for new housing than construction of new housing.

This isn't really the same thing as zoning laws. As SiLL pointed out, there's a difference between industrial zoning and commercial/residential zoning, and in the UK, it's generally expected that a new 10-story residential tower block in London will have its ground floor dedicated to commercial space. And in older buildings, flats about shops are commonly rented out anyway. "Zoning" is not such a huge deal, I think.

 

[Farm Boy]

Light industrial near housing isn't really a problem. People see "industrial" and they immediately jump to a facility that belches smog and noise. Many of them don't produce much of either. You have to take it on an individual basis.

 

[Mise]

Yeah I lived across the road from a bunch of warehouses in an "industrial estate" that were certainly not bothersome at all. EDIT: I don't know if they were all warehouses, some of them could have been other things, including actual manufacturing. I wouldn't have noticed either way.

 

[warpus]

Light industrial near housing isn't really a problem. People see "industrial" and they immediately jump to a facility that belches smog and noise. Many of them don't produce much of either. You have to take it on an individual basis.

Light and/or noise pollution aren't the only considerations though. I wouldn't want to live beside a warehouse either - I'd prefer to live in a part of town with restaurants, bars, museums, parks, etc.

 

[downtown]

Basically this. While it is theoretically possible to encounter such situations, I doubt a landfill owner would pick an expensive residential neighbourhood as its area of choice.

No, but if land was cheap, they could move near poorer houses. Expensive houses would have residents with enough political clout to ward off undesirable development, with or without legal protection. Clearly deliniated zoning laws can project poorer residents from living next to a factory.

 

[luiz]

I live in a totally different market. Chicago (and other rust belt cities) are *way* older, and more geographically constrained than a newer city like Houston. Geographically, the city of Houston is heeee-uge, and if I remember correctly, was also able to annex a few suburbs.

Having fairly heavy industrial and residential is not unheard of even in Chicago, in neighborhoods without a lot of clout (i.e, immigrant neighborhoods, poor people). I live in a a pretty working class, immigrant heavy hood, but my local alderman has enough juice to keep our open spaces for commerical or residential development (or parks). If there was nothing, the proximity to major streets or highway 90/94, plus the cost of real estate, could certainly drive undesirable developments into residential neighborhoods.

Do you drive much in Houston? I wouldn't exactly call it the pinacle of urban development in the US either.

But there's a reason why most factories located within city limits in the likes of NYC, Chicago, etc. have shut down in the last 50 years. They're not economically viable places to build factories. You don't need any law to prevent people from building a landfill in Manhattan.

While some zoning regulations may be appropriate for historical cities, usually it is a waste of time and resources, and counter-productive too. As I said, prominent left-wing economists like Krugman have blamed the strict zoning laws of the American Northeast as the reason for lack of affordable housing and even part of the reason of poor economic performance.

 

[Mise]

Light and/or noise pollution aren't the only considerations though. I wouldn't want to live beside a warehouse either - I'd prefer to live in a part of town with restaurants, bars, museums, parks, etc.

If there were no zoning laws then those things wouldn't be confined to a certain part of town (Specifically, in the situation I'm describing, there were plenty of those things around as well. But part of that was exactly because of planning laws...)

 

[Farm Boy]

Light and/or noise pollution aren't the only considerations though. I wouldn't want to live beside a warehouse either - I'd prefer to live in a part of town with restaurants, bars, museums, parks, etc.

Yea, that's pretty much my point. One warehouse is actually a pretty good neighbor. Fifteen warehouses would be really dreary.

 

[Tahuti]

No, but if land was cheap, they could move near poorer houses. Expensive houses would have residents with enough political clout to ward off undesirable development, with or without legal protection. Clearly deliniated zoning laws can project poorer residents from living next to a factory.

For industrial developers, residential areas, even the poor ones, are by definition expensive.

 

[downtown]

For industrial developers, residential areas, even the poor ones, are by definition expensive.

Not so expensive that they don't exist. Is a 2,000 person oil processing plant likely to move in the middle of a suburban cul-de-sac? No, but there are reasons for that above just "expensive land".

I see smaller industrial setups near poorer houses *all the time* (think metal spinning, tube bending, under 40 employees). These can still make pretty crappy neighbors, with all the trucks and unsightly equipment lying around. Ideally, you'd want some sort of buffer between that and your apartment.

I'm not saying they're all justified. I think there are a lot of them that may end up jacking up the price on homes, (like rent-control measures), or just appear to be stupid and petty (like keeping people from building a shed in their yard). I do think there are specific cases where they might be justified, in certain cities though.

 

[Farm Boy]

Stupid and petty zoning regulation like prohibiting sheds is justified by pretty much exactly the same reasoning as "unsightly equipment lying around."

 

[GinandTonic]

Light and/or noise pollution aren't the only considerations though. I wouldn't want to live beside a warehouse either - I'd prefer to live in a part of town with restaurants, bars, museums, parks, etc.

If there were no zoning laws then those things wouldn't be confined to a certain part of town (Specifically, in the situation I'm describing, there were plenty of those things around as well. But part of that was exactly because of planning laws...)

What the planners term contributing to the public realm. Car parks or blank walls facing the street blight a neighbourhood.

One advantage of nimby activists in the uk is that when developers want to have a large project in a half way desirable neighbourhood they often have to kiss some fairly serious booty in this regard. The US had to kick a couple of hundred million into extending the northern line to it's new embassy to get planning permission, had to design the security to look like parkland etc. Unison had to build key worker housing into the back of their new hq.

This model can work. When the council are pushing in the right direction, the land value is high enough to make it worth the developers while and when the locals have enough social capital to fight their corner but not so much as to mire things completely. But as with any adversarial system it only really functions if the adversaries are reasonably evenly matched. All too often poor local councils are so desperate for the benefits of some development they let horror shows be built, and the locals dont have the influence/ awareness to get involved. All too often the areas that people want to live in have powerful nimbies that wont let dense housing be built anywhere anyone actually wants to live.

 

[Mise]

Yeah, I feel that that trade-off in the UK is completely different to that in the US. In the US it's all about central planners deciding what gets to be built in what areas. But in the UK, it's about the central planners being forced to negotiate with local residents. So the effect of stricter zoning laws in the US is to give the government more power, whereas stricter planning laws in the UK takes power away from the government (and developers) and places it in the hands of local people.

Problem with that is NIMBYism, but at the same time, I'd rather decide between NIMBY and a new Tesco anyway. I feel that this is the right place to have the debate. When I argue for looser planning laws, then, I'm not arguing for the government to be given more control over the decision, or for it to be allowed to bulldoze over local residents' concerns. Rather, I'm saying that there are a lot of areas that are currently off limits for developers, which could be freed from planning restrictions without harming other local residents -- and even increasing property values and public welfare (as with the "Stratford City" redevelopment, amongst others).

 

[warpus]

Yea, that's pretty much my point. One warehouse is actually a pretty good neighbor. Fifteen warehouses would be really dreary.

I wouldn't want to live beside 1 warehouse either.

If there were no zoning laws then those things wouldn't be confined to a certain part of town (Specifically, in the situation I'm describing, there were plenty of those things around as well. But part of that was exactly because of planning laws...)

The solution should be better zoning laws.. I don't know too much about that realm, but they can't be that great judging by the poorly thought out neighbourhoods that are going up all over the place in most north american cities.

 

[Farm Boy]

I wouldn't want to live beside 1 warehouse either...

...the poorly thought out neighbourhoods that are going up all over the place in most north american cities.

These issues are linked!

If people with any amount of pull refuse to be "part" of the greater city environment guess who gets to live next to not 1, but all the "undesirable" buildings.

Statement one is pretty much the cause of much of the urban blight and suburban sprawl we get in the states.

 

[Cutlass]

But there's a reason why most factories located within city limits in the likes of NYC, Chicago, etc. have shut down in the last 50 years. They're not economically viable places to build factories. You don't need any law to prevent people from building a landfill in Manhattan.

While some zoning regulations may be appropriate for historical cities, usually it is a waste of time and resources, and counter-productive too. As I said, prominent left-wing economists like Krugman have blamed the strict zoning laws of the American Northeast as the reason for lack of affordable housing and even part of the reason of poor economic performance.

It's not even that they are not economically viable. More factories have moved because of the subsidies of the suburbs than the costs of the cities.

 

[Zelig]

I wouldn't want to live beside 1 warehouse either.

What if it was a meat warehouse with a storefront that sold bacon?

 

[GinandTonic]

What if it was a meat warehouse with a storefront that sold bacon?

The shop front would be contributing to the public realm. This is rather the difference between the underlying attitudes to zoning in the uk and us. In the uk single use developments are very much frouned upon in an urban context, in the us they are often mandated. Done well people in a mixed use development should be fairly unaware of the existence of the warehousing, just as they are of the underground car parking. Underground access/ parking/ warehousing is fairly standard on big developments these days. Canary wharf has a whole underground layout mirroring a lot of the above ground roads, roundabouts the whole deal. The recent redevelopment of kings cross has a single entrance to a big underground service road for the stations and a bunch of offices shops etc. The new westfield in stratford has all it's warehousing undergroundish - hard to really say what constitutes ground level, under the street level at any rate. The Unison building and the new us embassy I mentioned above have the same deal with underground access, parking and whatever warehousing they require. The recently revamped (more like finally finished) Brunswick Centre goes down level after level with housing above the ground floor shops and cafes,warehouses under the shops, deliveries under the warehouses, parking under the deliveries and more ramps down to god-knows-what.

The point being that the stuff that does not contribute to the public realm can simply be buried. The problem is not the existence of warehousing or parking but that they create dead space.

Yeah, I feel that that trade-off in the UK is completely different to that in the US. In the US it's all about central planners deciding what gets to be built in what areas. But in the UK, it's about the central planners being forced to negotiate with local residents. So the effect of stricter zoning laws in the US is to give the government more power, whereas stricter planning laws in the UK takes power away from the government (and developers) and places it in the hands of local people.

Problem with that is NIMBYism, but at the same time, I'd rather decide between NIMBY and a new Tesco anyway. I feel that this is the right place to have the debate. When I argue for looser planning laws, then, I'm not arguing for the government to be given more control over the decision, or for it to be allowed to bulldoze over local residents' concerns. Rather, I'm saying that there are a lot of areas that are currently off limits for developers, which could be freed from planning restrictions without harming other local residents -- and even increasing property values and public welfare (as with the "Stratford City" redevelopment, amongst others).

Mrs Tonic lives in Stratford so I've spent a fair bit of time around the recent developments. It makes an interesting counterpoint to the kings cross redevelopment. Both regeneration zones with subsidies and an acknowledgement that dense redevelopment is going to happen, both kickstarted by the HS1/ channel tunnel development. The higher land value and somewhat higher social capital among it's residents of Kings Cross led to the outstanding redevelopment while Stratford's is just pretty good.

TBH I'ld point to the social capital of the residents of Kinks Cross/ Somerstown as just about the sweet spot for redevelopment. They were just about able to squeeze every last concession from the developers but not block the project.