Sorry about not blogging for several weeks everyone, but The Mighty Wizard has been busy. I just got back from travelling, first to the Imperial City of London for 5 days, followed by an 8 day trip to the far distant sands of the Sahara, to the land of Algeria in fact. And what was it that led me to the land of Albert Camus and Frantz Fanon? Why, work of course. And I was on a dangerous adventure, much like Gandalf's venture into Dol Guldur. After all, a bombing occurred in Algiers the day before I entered the country.
But The Mighty Wizard is both wise and powerful, and so it was that after I had left America for a period of two weeks that I safely returned home to find a story about zoning in St. George Place on the front page of the Houston Chronicle. Curiously, I took a quick tour of the Houston blogosphere, only to find that the Kuffmeister was the only blogger who wrote anything about this interesting story.
Though Kuffie writes that,
"As for the dispute itself, on which this front-page story is centered, I'm not sure that there's anything to it beyond the novelty of zoning that elevates it to such prominance.
Sorry Kuff, but you are not wise enough to the ways of the world to know that there are probably some interesting things going on here.
Before going any further, a little background here. I know of this area of town. In the mid 1980's, I worked for a number of months for a Domino's Pizza franchisee who had a store which encompassed the Galleria area. As the Chronicle article alludes to (truthfully for once), during the 1980's, the area now known as St. George Place had turned into a mess. The area had an unkept, rundown feel to it, as though many people had simply abandoned the place. The Chronicle article says that the neighborhood was a post WWII development, which I would describe as accurate. Although I do not have any photos of the area, I do remember that many of the houses that existed at the time looked rather small by today's standards. Knowing what I know now about housing, income, etc, in America, I would judge that the housing stock, as it was, was indeed built in the late 1940's - 1950's. The houses, tract housing, looked to be in the 2 bedroom 1,000 - 1,200 square foot range. For years I could not understand how it was that a neighborhood which was located just around the corner from the most prestigious shopping mall in Texas could be so run down.
Now then, fast forward to the turn of the 21st century. The Mighty Wizard hasn't driven through St. George Place in some 12 - 14 years. But I find that the neighborhood has totally changed. All the old housing was torn down and in its place was nice new 2 story houses which would be inhabited by upper income professionals. Now this was what I imagined that such a neighborhood would look like. Strangely though, I noticed that practically all the houses looked exactly alike and it had a bit of an anti-septic feel to it (the "Singapore feel", I call it). It didn't quite feel like a Houston neighborhood and I've lived in this city for a very long time. Still, it was an immense improvement over what had existed previously and I attributed the matter to the idea that someone had decided to buy out the neighborhood out and redevelop it. The market place at its best.
But nooooooo. It turns out that Mr. Planner himself, Peter Brown, had helped write a zoning ordainance for the area. No wonder St. George Place didn't feel right to me. At least it seems that the City of Houston didn't use the despotic power of eminent domain to acquire the land, as they could potentially do Post Kelo, by decreeing that the area was "blighted."
But that doesn't get to the meat of the story. The Chron writers went on to quote from Robert Slivers, the developer who did the work of redeveloping St. George Place:
Silvers said zoning has been an important asset in selling homes in St. George Place.
...
and
"They were just happy that nobody could put up junk next door to them," Silvers said.
Those statements speak volumes as to what is really going on. You see, one of the reasons why zoning is often quite popular, particularly amongst upper middle class and of the wealthier groups, is because it effectively gives people power over property which doesn't belong to them. Zoning has also been used in subtle ways to promote racial exclusion, the outright methods of segregation not being legal. Moreover, I have a problem with Mr. Slivers' statement where he says that having a zoning ordainance was a major point for selling homes in St. George Place. Maybe he knows something that I do not, but I assert that nice quality housing and new redevelopment which happened to be located between Richmond and Westheimer, two of Houston's major commercial streets, combined with being located right next door to the Galleria, would have found plenty of interested buyers sooner or later, regardless of whether or not there was a zoning ordainance in place. After all, there are 4 million people who live in the Houston Metropolitan area. Are you trying to tell me that 326 houses of this quality and in that location would have gone unsold? Those potential buyers may well have not cared one way or another whether a zoning ordainance governed the neighborhood. What I believe is that the people who ended up buying into St. George Place were people who strongly desired zoning - period! My assertion is backed up by the fact that so many people in the neighborhood have voiced fierce opposition to the new development.
The Chronicle article mentions that the issue over which the zoning controversy ensued had to do with a 3 acre vacant site at the heart of the neighborhood. One of the comments left on the Kuffmeister's weblog entry was:
The idea that Houston land use is unregulated is a myth.
Land use restrictions written into deed covenants have the same economic effect as zoning rules. The main difference from zoning rules is that everyone gets to vote (indirectly) when zoning rules are established, while there is a property ownership test when you vote on a deed covenant.
Posted by: Ben Ross on December 18, 2006 04:18 PM
Oh contraire, Mr. Ross! On page 77 of his classic study on the subject, Land Use Without Zoning, Bernard Siegan writes that,
...they (homeowners in an unzoned area) have virtually no control over vacant land once a subdivision is completed.
Zoning provides home owners with substantial powers over the use of vacant land - and this is what has caused most of the problems. Through operations of the political process, they have often been able to greatly influence or even determine all land use within a locality. In many suburban and rural areas, home owners have effective control over the use of land much greater than the size of the subdivisions in which they live.
Hmmm. So maybe the good Professors' observations weren't so far off the mark after all. It seems that we do in fact have a battle going on over vacant property. As a side note, my boss at VLICA lives in Pearland. He has told me that there is a vacant lot in his neighborhood which he and his neighbors are bitterly worried about. They think a convenience store will be erected there and they don't want it there because they think their property values will go down the drain. Really? I live within 300 yards of two convenience stores along Westheimer, not to mention within 600 or so yards of a number of girlie bars. The value of my property has gone up about 115 percent over the past 6 years according to the Harris County Appraisal District.
More to the point, there is social detriment to homeowners having zoning powers over land in their area. Namely, that property is not being used to its' highest and best use, but instead is being held hostage to the whims of the neighbors. Notably, one comment on Kuff's website was that the development would result in "Rohe and Wright trying to put up ridiculously dense housing in our neighborhood that would be grotesquely out of place."
Moreover, if that land isn't developed, then the housing pressures which led to the developers' determination that this land could be put to good use via housing development will not go away, but instead might be transferred elsewhere. Finally, many people attuned to politics know that the City of Houston is in mild trouble financially. Having vacant land is not in the interest of the City (or broader society at large) when that land could have housing on it and from which the City (and County) could derive property tax revenues. A final nail in the coffin that there is no difference between zoning and simple deed restrictions is that Professor Siegan's study showed that Houston had less vacant land than other comparable places.
Now the Chronicle wrote that Peter Brown stated:
... the rules were intended to be flexible. In this case, he (Brown) said, the change would have produced a development that would benefit the neighborhood.
The strength of the residents' opposition, Brown said, might reflect lack of experience with zoning or other common planning tools.
"Because we don't have any significant development regulations," Brown said, "citizens are accustomed to fighting any change."
I don't think that is what is going on here. My suspicion is that those people are fighting changes because, well, there are changes going on. They probably would be fighting those changes regardless of whether there were development regulations or not. It seems to me that Brown is saying that we wouldn't be having these inherently political problems if we only had more development regulations!
Then there is the issue of why it was that the TIRZ board was apparently out of touch with the political desires of its residents, where six of the nine board members voted for the zoning change. It was noted that TIRZ's are appointed boards, not elected ones. That in turn leads one to wonder what it was that influenced the board member's votes? Could it be that these board members might have been influenced by some G-R-A-F-T? And that, gentle readers, is what you get when you have your land use decisions dominated via planning and zoning ordainances. The only real winners from the enactment of zoning are the politicians, the lawyers, the politically connected developers, and the planners. Everyone else ends up being a loser.
Enough for now. This has been another long epistle, and I have several more to write during this Christmas holiday.
TMW