Categories:
Regulation
For many people, a world without zoning sounds like a dystopia. Uninformed people often assume that zoning laws protect homeowners from the risk of ugly industrial plants being built right next door. In fact, there were rules against that sort of “public nuisance” even before the first zoning laws were enacted. The actual purpose of residential zoning laws is to restrict the supply of new housing.
For those who are under the illusion that zoning is about protecting residential areas against industrial plants, check out the following tweet:
That’s how much they hate new housing.
PS. A few weeks ago California voters narrowly approved a $12 billion initiative to “help the homeless”. Good luck with that.
READER COMMENTS
john hare
May 5 2024 at 5:19pm
It would be far cheaper to help the homeless by letting for profit companies build appropriate rental units. Say 100 square feet with a toilet, shower, and door locks for $10.00 a night. Pay in advance, collection and enforcement by Bubba and Leroy Thugs at Law.
Also make it legal and safe to hire them for appropriate work at appropriate pay.
nobody.really
May 6 2024 at 1:29am
Interesting that you would raise zoning just at a time when Houston–the poster child of zoning-free housing–is flooding. See, rain falls on lands and soaks in. But when people cover their land with impervious surfaces, water runs off. Zoning might require people who cover their land with impervious surfaces to make plans to impound their own water (which typically entails leaving some share of land vacant). Otherwise, the storm water runs downhill onto whoever’s land is lowest. In effect, everyone is dumping their “trash” water onto a neighbor’s property, who then gets flooded.
I look forward to learning about how all theses flooded landowners will be able to gain recompence from their neighbors through the use of nuisance litigation (or perhaps tresspass?)
Trina Halppe
May 6 2024 at 3:35am
Increase storm drain capacity. If real estate developers have to pay for that, they’d be more likely to build at a higher density (upward and install elevators). Flood risk lowers house prices so that kind of area might be a good place to acquire land to develop.
Jon Murphy
May 6 2024 at 6:52am
Cities with zoning flood with the same frequency (all else held equal). Plus, it’s not obvious how zoning would prevent flooding. So, it’s not quite clear what your point is.
steve
May 7 2024 at 11:01am
But all else is not equal. Zoning done specifically for flood issues has been shown to be cost effective. If you are talking about the more common zoning where they just limit building size, density, etc then I would agree.
https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/how-zoning-can-limit-flood-damage/
Steve
Jon Murphy
May 7 2024 at 4:24pm
The phrase “all else held equal” means “we are looking only at one variable change.” So, pointing out that one city has flooding at a given moment in time does not tell us anything useful about whether or not zoning (or, rather, lack thereof) is the cause of such flooding