Table of Contents
Contributors
Philip Arcidi; Wolde-Ghiorghis Ayele; Beth Beloff; Peter Brown; David Dillon; Stephen Fox; Mark A. Hewitt; John Kaliski; Jan O'Brien; Jeffrey Karl Ochsner; Peter C. Papademetriou; Barrie Scardino; and David Todd.
Cite 11: Planning in Houston: Is There a Future?
Fall 1985
Editor’s Note
Cite 11 was guest edited by Jeffrey Karl Ochsner, and focuses on the history and future of planning in Houston. He writes the following:
"The primary focus of this issue of Cite is planning. Planning has become a topic of frequent discussion among architects, real estate investors, planners, developers, government officials, political candidates, and the general public in Houston and Harris County.
In this issue we first trace the general history of planning in Houston and then focus in detail on two major areas of current planning interest: the city's proposed Compendium of Plans process, and the planning of METRO'S regional transit system. The approaches in these two plans are very different the first incremental, seeking to create a city plan by compiling a series of area plans; the second seeking first a broad regional consensus, then focusing in detail on specific areas.
It is important to recognize that these are only two of the many on-going planning processes which deserve attention. Other areas of significant plan development now underway in Harris County include infrastructure (water supply, including subsidence, sewage, including regionalization of treatment; and flooding and storm drainage, focusing on detention ponds), streets and thoroughfares (thoroughfare plans and mobility plans for Houston, Harris County, and several surrounding counties), and major highway planning (both improving the existing freeway network and adding new freeways). The City of Houston and the METRO planning processes have received the most attention, but plans for infrastructure, for streets and thoroughfares, and for highways may ultimately have the greatest impact on the shape of the future urban form of the region.
But beyond these areas of planning, and perhaps beyond the scope of this issue of Cite, many in our city are asking: Has the time come to reconsider the role of landuse controls? For more than 20 years, the city has grown without controls and to this day, as a result of the bitter 1962 referendum, the word "zoning" remains unacceptable in Houston. But clearly a consensus is emerging that some land-use controls are necessary. Initially these controls have taken the form of a scenicdistrict ordinance, a development ordinance, a billboard ordinance, and similar ordinances, but concern already has arisen uvtr the inability of such blanket ordinances to differentiate among the new and old neighborhoods making up the city.
Land-use controls may be conceived in two ways - conservative and visionary. Conservative controls are implemented to protect (to conserve) existing assets. Controls which provide for buffer zones between incompatible uses (such as parking garages and cooling towers backing up to residential neighborhoods) or which reinforce existing deed restrictions (thereby protecting existing residential neighborhoods), or similar types of controls are essentially conservative. Visionary controls go further and actually attempt to shape the city or region by directing or limiting uses or other features such as height, floor area, or density of structures or developments. Such controls must begin from a consensus about a desirable future shape of the city and then regulate future development to guide it in that direction. While traditional forms of zoning may be inappropriate for Houston, a broad consensus of public opinion (even including a range of development and real estate interests) appears to agree on the need for some types of controls, if only the conservative, protective type. The consensus necessary for visionary, city-shaping controls does not yet exist - perhaps it must wait for a visionary, but as yet undefined, "Goals for Houston" process which will bring citizens together to address the kind of future we want for our city.
Still, even now, real estate and development interests, government officials, and others are coming to recognize the paradox of planning and controls - that the preservation of land values and of existing buildings and areas, as well as the full development of the city, may actually depend on the implementation of some restrictions. Indeed, what urban theorist Nathan Lewis wrote over 70 years ago in The Planning of the Modern City may be paradoxical, but it is nonetheless true:
. . .that a policy of restrictions tends to fuller utilization of land than a policy of no restriction. The reasons lie in the greater safety and security of investment secured by definite restrictions. The restrictions tend to fix the character of the neighborhood. The owner therefore feels that if he is to secure the maximum returns from his land, he must promptly improve it in conformity with the established restrictions.
While this issue of Cite is only about planning, and not about controls, perhaps we need to ask ourselves, is planning enough?"
Jeffrey Karl Ochsner