The dead zone - Houston, Texas residents vote against zoning ordinance

Reason, Feb, 1994 by Kevin M. Southwick

Houston residents take a stand by refusing to draw lines.

UNTIL ONE MONTH BEFORE LAST November's election, things looked rock-solid for backers of a proposed zoning ordinance in Houston. The bill--which, if passed, would have been the first law of its kind in the city's history--was supported by the current mayor, his predecessor, every member of the City Council, 160 homeowner organizations, and the Houston Post.

Although zoning measures had been turned down handily in 1948 and 1962, this time around promised to be different. Zoning proponents had become increasingly vocal and persuasive since the city's boom years in the late 1970s and early '80s. In the wake of the '80s oil bust, the arguments trounced in 1962 found a new constituency ready to believe zoning would control growth and offer protection from "undesirable" development. Supporters of zoning promised it would protect property values and reverse the exodus to bedroom communities outside the city. By 1990, one poll showed that 67 percent of Houston residents supported zoning. Everything was in place for the triumphant passage of zoning legislation.

Everything, it turned out, except the necessary votes. In a city-wide referendum, Houston residents once again rejected zoning, by a 53-to-47 percent margin. "Houston remains a model for city leaders around the country who wish to learn how cities can be better off without zoning," says Barry Klein, a public-policy consultant who co-founded the Houston Property Rights Association, the grassroots anti-zoning organization spearheading the opposition to zoning (where I serve as media director).

As interesting as the voters' rejection of zoning is where the decisive opposition came from: low-income residents. As tabulated by the Post, 72 percent of "low-income blacks" and 68 percent of "low-mid-income whites" voted against zoning, results echoed by "affluent" voters (56 percent against) and "predominantly Hispanic" voters (58 percent). Middle-income voters, fearful of multi-family dwellings and mixed land-use encroachment in residential neighborhoods, strongly favored zoning, with 63 percent of whites and 56 percent of blacks casting ballots in favor of the legislation.

Houston, the fourth-largest city in the country, with 1.6 million residents, has no zoning ordinance. All property owners must adhere to 18 land-use ordinances, largely dealing with issues of health and safety, and most homeowners are bound by additional private restrictions written into their deeds. Owners of private residences, for instance, might be obligated not to use their property for commercial purposes or multi-family dwellings; they might be forbidden to make exterior alterations such as the installation of satellite dishes. Deed restrictions are enforced by the city.

The recently defeated legislation was largely the work of City Councilman Jim Greenwood, a longtime zoning advocate. Greenwood has endorsed other land-use regulations, such as the eventual elimination of billboards and an ordinance requiring developers to plant trees and shrubs. In 1990 Greenwood formed a committee that created a simplified plan it dubbed "Houston-style" zoning. The committee called for the City Council to draft a comprehensive plan for the Houston area, and then-Mayor Kathy Whitmire, sensing a hot-button issue, formed her own land-use group, the Land Use Strategy Committee. The LUSC ultimately recommended beefing up the city's deed-restriction enforcement and creating "neighborhood protection teams" to help accomplish the policing. Zoning, Whitmire's committee concluded, was too difficult and costly and should be considered only as a last resort.

But the push for zoning continued. Zoning advocates were able to get the city and the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects to cosponsor a committee of land-use experts from around the country, the Regional/Urban Design Assistance Team. R/UDAT included people that many thought likely to go along with zoning. The obvious exception was Bernard Siegan, author of the 1972 classic study Land Use Without Zoning. After public discussions, R/UDAT concluded in April 1990 that "comprehensive land-use planning" was "inappropriate given Houston's history and the difficulty and time required to implement a single comprehensive plan in a community of this scale and diversity."

ALTHOUGH ZONING ADVOCATES WERE surprised by the committee's conclusions, they persisted. In January 1991, Whitmire, alongside Greenwood, endorsed zoning in a joint press conference. Eventually they won a unanimous vote from the City Council to have a zoning ordinance drafted. The council formed the Zoning Strategies Committee, which drafted a plan with limited-use classifications. The main difference between "Houston-style" planning and traditional zoning schemes was that the committee defined all large tracts as "open" rather than "agricultural." Greenwood argued that the "O-zone" would save landowners the frustration of seeking zoning changes for residential or commercial development. Zoning garnered support from important players. Many homeowner associations signed on, as did several large developers. Reporters for Houston's two daily newspapers, the Post and the Chronicle used pro-zoning rhetoric in their coverage. On January 5, 1991, for example, a Chronicle reporter lamented the city's "helter-skelter growth" and praised efforts "to keep commercial and industrial eyesores out of residential neighborhoods." The Post followed suit the next day, noting that Whitmire's "announcement marks a major shift in city leaders' vision for the future development of Houston, a metropolis known for its sprawling growth made possible by a lack of zoning restrictions now found in every other major city in the country."