7 ms·

I'm not an expert, but I lean towards relaxing zoning laws but not getting rid of them completely. Look to Houston to see what happens when there are no zoning

I'm not an expert, but I lean towards relaxing zoning laws but not getting rid of them completely. Look to Houston to see what happens when there are no zoning laws at all.

shuckles 4y ago
There are a myriad of ways Houston does control land use beyond zoning such as minimum parking requirements and private covenants.
- bilbo0s 4y ago
  Yeah. In Houston, we have what is effectively zoning. It's just that we do it at the neighborhood level. You want to go into the museum district or third ward and develop x, or y, or z? No problem. So long as the neighbors agree with you. Hint: Once they gentrify to the point of being called "The Museum District", they will definitely not be agreeing with you. I saw someone above throw out a figure of 3 or 4 hundred k as a price point and I had to chuckle. If all you want to do is build a low-rise for workforce housing? Yeah, this neighborhood wouldn't care if you had the money or not. Piss off peasant. The people in the Museum District no longer wish to reside in proximity with your kind. Some neighborhood get togethers you almost get the impression that people would like to put gates to the city at all the 610 exits. Keep the riff raff out. And don't even get me started about what I hear from friends behind the gates down Sunset. In Houston, the zoning is way worse than in other cities. Because people can literally stop anyone they want. No city council permission necessary.
  - somethoughts 4y ago
    What I've noticed too - when I've visited a couple of times - in addition once you move out of the city center, in the suburbs surrounding Houston, residential developments with strict HOAs are pretty much the de facto standard for residential developments.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    > No problem. So long as the neighbors agree with you. That's what zoning laws are.
cal5k 4y ago
Median sale price in Houston is currently $310,500, vs $441,250 in Sacramento, $917,500 in LA and $1.3MM in SF. Aesthetic judgments aside, seems like a winning strategy for housing affordability?
- eddsh1994 4y ago
  I live in Palo Alto and saw a local ad for an acre of land with no house in Atherton going for $5.2M. The housing here is really screwed.
  - y-curious 4y ago
    But think about the aesthetics!!!! /s
  - tagami 4y ago
    that's about 90 apartment units, or ~ $60k/unit in land cost...
    - eddsh1994 4y ago
      Currently atherton zones only allow one family house per acre (with this change you could convert it into flats now though!)
      - HWR_14 4y ago
        No doubt the $5.2MM anticipated the zoning changes. No one would be stupid enough to sell property based on the law today if you knew it was going to change tomorrow.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    With a moderate density like 40du/acre, that amounts to about $130,000 in land cost per unit, which is not so bad! even at our grossly inflated land costs, simply allowing density throughout the Bay Area would enable much more housing affordability, allow more transit, and reduce our emissions and enhance our social contact. But a side benefit of broad legalization of density would be that those land costs would drop dramatically too, as there would be a much greater supply.
BenFranklin100 4y ago
Houston has lots of zoning laws in the way of parking minimums. These parking spot requirements apply to new buildings and make it very difficult to build dense housing. It’s a big reason why Houston has so much sprawl.
Analemma_ 4y ago
You’re going to need to do more than just toss off a scaremongering phrase like “look to Houston” with no elaboration, particularly when the replies are already explaining that its approach to zoning has been rewarded with much more tractable prices. What, specifically, is wrong with Houston, and is it worse than the affordability disaster that is most of California?
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  Technically not most of California, since population is focused into a few urban areas and otherwise you have vast amounts of nothing if you actually see the state. Houston is a huge urban/semi-urban sprawl, the kind that used to be popular in LA a few decades ago. Dallas is similar, Austin gets that way outside of its downtown, San Antonio does also but at least has a much more interesting urban core. It always seemed you get what you pay for in Houston, there isn’t anything wrong with that, but many people don’t want it.
TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
Can they now build housing in parks and open space? Those require zoning to keep separate.
AmpsterMan 4y ago
Would just like to correct a common misconception: Houston technically has no zoning laws, but it has a combination of other laws that end up behaving similarly to exactly how zoning laws work. Giving you a link to City Beautiful which works as a great primer. https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k
ibejoeb 4y ago
What's wrong with Houston? You have pretty much whatever you want there. You can go get a single family house, live in a gated community, rent a shack on the bayou, go be a hipster in montrose, live in a high-rise downtown... Pretty good as far as I'm concerned.
- surfaceofthesun 4y ago
  There's a lot of things that are great about Houston (affordability, food, etc) but the sprawl is entirely unsustainable by any measure. From 1992-2010, Harris county lost 30% of its wetlands [1]. Not to mention the expense of owning/maintaining a car and the associated emissions. The outer loop of 99/Grand Parkway nearly encompasses D.C. and Baltimore [2]. Commuting from 99-adjacent (e.g. Sugar Land, Cypress, and the Woodlands) to downtown is common enough. I've seen Katy to Baytown for months while working on (oil & gas) projects. Same goes for Midtown/downtown to Baytown to work in the refineries. Trying to serve an area of that size with any sort of transit is not easy, regardless of density. As Houston continues to grow, it's going to continually max out arterial road capacity. Even Katy Freeway backs up every day despite being 20+ lanes at its widest [3]. All of those cars have to go somewhere. And you're devoting so much valuable real estate to dozens of lanes for a few hundred thousand commuters. Not even the reverse commute will save you [4]. I have another post that mentions my optimism about Houston suburbs eventually providing more transit and density [5]. It's silly that your choices of hosing are single family or stranded apartment buildings adjacent to the highway [6]. The inability to convert some number of homes into 2 or 3 apartment buildings on the same lot like this [7] seems less disruptive than 5+ unit apartments. Fundamentally, both are much easier than providing increasingly-distant suburbs with power, water, and highways. Hopefully Houston can start embracing this before prices become as ridiculous as other regions. --- [1] https://tcwp.tamu.edu/wetlands/wetland-loss/ https://tcwp.tamu.edu/wetlands/wetland-loss/ [2] http://mapfrappe.com/?show=64047 http://mapfrappe.com/?show=64047 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_10_in_Texas#/media/File:Katy-Freeway.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_10_in_Texas#/media/... [4] https://mobility.tamu.edu/mip/corridors-pdfs/houston/HOU-22-IH-10-101713.pdf https://mobility.tamu.edu/mip/corridors-pdfs/houston/HOU-22-... [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33567501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33567501 [6] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brea+Luxury+Apartments/@29.8227401,-95.7696443,545m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x864127300243d081:0x945a2066f33dc33!8m2!3d29.8217976!4d-95.7698902?coh=164777&entry=tt&shorturl=1 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brea+Luxury+Apartments/@29... [7] https://www.apartments.com/43-hooper-st-worcester-ma/9rsxk34/ https://www.apartments.com/43-hooper-st-worcester-ma/9rsxk34...

I'm not an expert, but I lean towards relaxing zoning laws but not getting rid of them completely. Look to Houston to see what happens when there are no zoning laws at all.

shuckles 4y ago

There are a myriad of ways Houston does control land use beyond zoning such as minimum parking requirements and private covenants.

bilbo0s 4y ago
Yeah. In Houston, we have what is effectively zoning. It's just that we do it at the neighborhood level. You want to go into the museum district or third ward and develop x, or y, or z? No problem. So long as the neighbors agree with you. Hint: Once they gentrify to the point of being called "The Museum District", they will definitely not be agreeing with you. I saw someone above throw out a figure of 3 or 4 hundred k as a price point and I had to chuckle. If all you want to do is build a low-rise for workforce housing? Yeah, this neighborhood wouldn't care if you had the money or not. Piss off peasant. The people in the Museum District no longer wish to reside in proximity with your kind. Some neighborhood get togethers you almost get the impression that people would like to put gates to the city at all the 610 exits. Keep the riff raff out. And don't even get me started about what I hear from friends behind the gates down Sunset. In Houston, the zoning is way worse than in other cities. Because people can literally stop anyone they want. No city council permission necessary.
- somethoughts 4y ago
  What I've noticed too - when I've visited a couple of times - in addition once you move out of the city center, in the suburbs surrounding Houston, residential developments with strict HOAs are pretty much the de facto standard for residential developments.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  > No problem. So long as the neighbors agree with you. That's what zoning laws are.

cal5k 4y ago

Median sale price in Houston is currently $310,500, vs $441,250 in Sacramento, $917,500 in LA and $1.3MM in SF. Aesthetic judgments aside, seems like a winning strategy for housing affordability?

eddsh1994 4y ago
I live in Palo Alto and saw a local ad for an acre of land with no house in Atherton going for $5.2M. The housing here is really screwed.
- y-curious 4y ago
  But think about the aesthetics!!!! /s
- tagami 4y ago
  that's about 90 apartment units, or ~ $60k/unit in land cost...
  - eddsh1994 4y ago
    Currently atherton zones only allow one family house per acre (with this change you could convert it into flats now though!)
    - HWR_14 4y ago
      No doubt the $5.2MM anticipated the zoning changes. No one would be stupid enough to sell property based on the law today if you knew it was going to change tomorrow.
- epistasis 4y ago
  With a moderate density like 40du/acre, that amounts to about $130,000 in land cost per unit, which is not so bad! even at our grossly inflated land costs, simply allowing density throughout the Bay Area would enable much more housing affordability, allow more transit, and reduce our emissions and enhance our social contact. But a side benefit of broad legalization of density would be that those land costs would drop dramatically too, as there would be a much greater supply.

BenFranklin100 4y ago

Houston has lots of zoning laws in the way of parking minimums. These parking spot requirements apply to new buildings and make it very difficult to build dense housing. It’s a big reason why Houston has so much sprawl.

Analemma_ 4y ago

You’re going to need to do more than just toss off a scaremongering phrase like “look to Houston” with no elaboration, particularly when the replies are already explaining that its approach to zoning has been rewarded with much more tractable prices. What, specifically, is wrong with Houston, and is it worse than the affordability disaster that is most of California?

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Technically not most of California, since population is focused into a few urban areas and otherwise you have vast amounts of nothing if you actually see the state. Houston is a huge urban/semi-urban sprawl, the kind that used to be popular in LA a few decades ago. Dallas is similar, Austin gets that way outside of its downtown, San Antonio does also but at least has a much more interesting urban core. It always seemed you get what you pay for in Houston, there isn’t anything wrong with that, but many people don’t want it.

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago

Can they now build housing in parks and open space? Those require zoning to keep separate.

AmpsterMan 4y ago

Would just like to correct a common misconception: Houston technically has no zoning laws, but it has a combination of other laws that end up behaving similarly to exactly how zoning laws work. Giving you a link to City Beautiful which works as a great primer. https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k

ibejoeb 4y ago

What's wrong with Houston? You have pretty much whatever you want there. You can go get a single family house, live in a gated community, rent a shack on the bayou, go be a hipster in montrose, live in a high-rise downtown... Pretty good as far as I'm concerned.

surfaceofthesun 4y ago
There's a lot of things that are great about Houston (affordability, food, etc) but the sprawl is entirely unsustainable by any measure. From 1992-2010, Harris county lost 30% of its wetlands [1]. Not to mention the expense of owning/maintaining a car and the associated emissions. The outer loop of 99/Grand Parkway nearly encompasses D.C. and Baltimore [2]. Commuting from 99-adjacent (e.g. Sugar Land, Cypress, and the Woodlands) to downtown is common enough. I've seen Katy to Baytown for months while working on (oil & gas) projects. Same goes for Midtown/downtown to Baytown to work in the refineries. Trying to serve an area of that size with any sort of transit is not easy, regardless of density. As Houston continues to grow, it's going to continually max out arterial road capacity. Even Katy Freeway backs up every day despite being 20+ lanes at its widest [3]. All of those cars have to go somewhere. And you're devoting so much valuable real estate to dozens of lanes for a few hundred thousand commuters. Not even the reverse commute will save you [4]. I have another post that mentions my optimism about Houston suburbs eventually providing more transit and density [5]. It's silly that your choices of hosing are single family or stranded apartment buildings adjacent to the highway [6]. The inability to convert some number of homes into 2 or 3 apartment buildings on the same lot like this [7] seems less disruptive than 5+ unit apartments. Fundamentally, both are much easier than providing increasingly-distant suburbs with power, water, and highways. Hopefully Houston can start embracing this before prices become as ridiculous as other regions. --- [1] https://tcwp.tamu.edu/wetlands/wetland-loss/ https://tcwp.tamu.edu/wetlands/wetland-loss/ [2] http://mapfrappe.com/?show=64047 http://mapfrappe.com/?show=64047 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_10_in_Texas#/media/File:Katy-Freeway.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_10_in_Texas#/media/... [4] https://mobility.tamu.edu/mip/corridors-pdfs/houston/HOU-22-IH-10-101713.pdf https://mobility.tamu.edu/mip/corridors-pdfs/houston/HOU-22-... [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33567501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33567501 [6] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brea+Luxury+Apartments/@29.8227401,-95.7696443,545m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x864127300243d081:0x945a2066f33dc33!8m2!3d29.8217976!4d-95.7698902?coh=164777&entry=tt&shorturl=1 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brea+Luxury+Apartments/@29... [7] https://www.apartments.com/43-hooper-st-worcester-ma/9rsxk34/ https://www.apartments.com/43-hooper-st-worcester-ma/9rsxk34...