Houston is drowning In its freedom from regulations

[applegrove]

by Steve Russell, Newsweek, at Raw Story

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/houston-is-drowning-in-its-freedom-from-regulations/

"SNIP...........


We do value our freedom here in Texas. As I write from soggy Central Texas, the cable news is showing people floating down Buffalo Bayou on their principles, proud residents of the largest city in these United States that did not grow in accordance with zoning ordinances.

The feeling there was that persons who own real estate should be free to develop it as they wish. Houston, also known as the Bayou City, is a great location because of its access to international shipping in the Gulf of Mexico. It is not a great location for building, though, because of all its impervious cover. If water could easily sink into the ground, there would be less of it ripping down Houston’s rivers that just a week ago were overcrowded streets.

In less-free cities, the jackbooted thugs in the zoning department impose limits on the amount of impervious cover in a development. Some of the limits can be finessed by lining parking lots with bricks turned sideways, so grass can be planted in the holes.

If you meet the impervious cover standards, you still might get your entire plan chucked into the round file because some computer has determined that your business plan will attract automobile traffic in excess of the carrying capacity of nearby roads. Faceless bureaucracies have no respect for the inalienable right of every American to park his car on the public streets during rush hour.


..............SNIP"

[BigmanPigman]

1. I thought Houston was a "blue" city yet they voted for fewer

regualtions?

[itsrobert]

5. Texas blue is not the same as California blue.

It is the difference between midnight dark blue and baby blue.

[BigmanPigman]

6. Thank you for an analogy I can understand ( I am CA blue).

[Blue_true]

10. Houston is maybe a decade or so blue.

Much of the building happened before that. Plus, it takes time to change REGS, court battles alone can last a decade or two.

[elleng]

2. as will we all, if this naked emperor continues.

[itsrobert]

3. They also got the California transplant

The ones that say screw Taxifornia and bragging how they got a 3800 sq ft home for $200, 000 in Texas. They neglect to say it was built in a drainage ditch. Or the realtor didnt tell them.

[marylandblue]

4. Houston has a long tradition of limited zoning regulations

This goes way back before there was such a thing as a red city or a blue city and there was lots of empty land to build on.

[marybourg]

8. Just my impression, but having taken a loooong train trip

across Texas, I's say the whole state observes that tradition.

[LeftInTX]

12. Houston is unique even among Texas

As to how this plays out with this specific disaster I don't really know.


They have done restoration of Buffalo Bayou.

We did restoration of the San Antonio River. The restoration returned meanders back into the river and restored native vegetation etc. Ironically the restoration led to flooding of homes. It was restoration was complete in 2012, the homes flooded in 2013.

[gratuitous]

7. West, Texas blown off the map, Houston being inundated

I wonder if folks in the Longhorn State are ready to reconsider their implacable resistance to regulation? Because the invisible hand of the free market seems to be smacking them around pretty good.

If you want to help with Houston, give money to a cause you heard about before last weekend (e.g., the Red Cross and not Help Houston Dry Out, LLC). Before you text money or write a check, check out Charity Navigator. End of public service announcement.

[applegrove]

9. Thanks.

[tammywammy]

11. Houston has plenty of land use laws.

For all that’s been made of Houston’s infamous lack of zoning, Festa said it increasingly seems that reputation isn’t deserved or even accurate.

“We do have a lot of land-use regulations,” Festa said. “We still have a lot of stuff that looks and smells like zoning.”

To be more precise, Houston doesn’t exactly have official zoning. But it has what Festa calls “de facto zoning,” which closely resembles the real thing. “We’ve got a lot of regulations that in other cities would be in the zoning code,” Festa said. “When we use it here, we just don’t use the ‘z’ word.”

https://urbanedge.blogs.rice.edu/2015/09/08/forget-what-youve-heard-houston-really-does-have-zoning-sort-of/#.WaNNj0FOmEc