Houston will soon be my home, and I will be teaching property, so this story should be relevant.

Whenever I talk about anti-density land use restrictions, someone inevitably brings up Houston, where people have heard there are no zoning rules. If overregulation causes low density, people ask, then how come Houston is so sprawling? There are a number of reasons this line of questioning is a mistake, but the most fundamental one is that people misunderstand what “no zoning” means in the Houston context. If land use in Houston were genuinely unregulated, then this Nancy Sarnoff article about possible revisions to Houston land use rules would make no sense. In fact, the city features extensive regulation of minimum lot size and maximum parking requirements just like every other major American city. The specific proposal here, meanwhile, is a mixed bag.

And from the Houston Chronicle (my soon-to-be hometown paper!):

If the changes are approved, certain developments common in Houston’s inner city, such as compact clusters of townhomes, would be allowed outside the Loop, too. Under the current rules, minimum lot sizes in suburban areas are larger than they are inside the Loop.

The changes would allow developers to build on smaller lots throughout all the areas inside the city limits within Beltway 8.

Neighborhoods, however, would be given more tools to protect their traditional character, such as procedures to petition for minimum lot sizes. Those with existing deed restrictions would have even more protection.

The proposed changes could also take some pressure off housing prices.

And from my soon-to-be colleague at South Texas, Matt Festa in the comments:

See also Michael Lewyn’s excellent article describing some of the many land use regulations that Houston has (despite their avoidance of the Z-word), “How Overregulation Creates Sprawl (Even in a City Without Zoning),” http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=837244

The “urban/suburban” ordinance change will be before the City Council on the same day as the “residential buffer ordinance” (f/k/a the “high density ordinance”), which will put a bunch of extra site requirements (max height, setbacks, etc.) on land adjacent to properties characterized as “single-family residential.”

From How Overregulation Creates Sprawl (Even in a City without Zoning):

Numerous commentators have suggested that the spread-out, automobile-dependent urban form (often referred to as “sprawl”) that dominates metropolitan America is at least partially caused by government regulation of land use. Other commentators argue that the fate of Houston, Texas may seem to rebut that theory. Houston is America’s only large city without a formal zoning code. Yet Houston is as automobile-dependent and sprawling as many cities with zoning. It could therefore be argued that automobile-dependent sprawl is the inevitable result of the free market, based on the following chain of logic: Assumption 1: Because Houston lacks zoning, Houston has an unregulated, unplanned real estate market. In other words, Houston = the free market at work. Assumption 2: Houston is an automobile-dependent, sprawling city. In other words, Houston = an example of sprawl. Conclusion: Therefore, a city, like Houston, which allows the free market to govern land use will (like Houston) typically become an automobile-dependent, sprawling city-and sprawl is thus a product of the free market, rather than of government interference with consumer preferences. In other words, because Houston = the free market at work, and Houston = sprawl, the free market leads to sprawl. The policy consequence of this chain of logic (at least for people who highly value limited government) is that government should not discourage sprawl, for what the free market has put together, government should not tear asunder. My article rebuts rebuts this conclusion by critiquing one of its underlying assumptions – the assumption that Houston is a free-market role model. In fact, a wide variety of municipal regulatory and spending policies have made Houston more sprawling and automobile-dominated than would a more free-market-oriented set of policies. The article also proposes free-market, anti-sprawl alternatives to those government policies.

H/T PropertyProf

Update: Also via PropertyProf is this story on the 85th Anniversary of Village of Euclid.

Some anti-government activists argue that we don’t need zoning and that land use planning is somehow akin to socialism. In fact, planning is the multi-faceted process that communities use to prepare for change. It is an activity as old as humankind itself. In most realms of endeavor, failing to plan, simply means planning to fail. Try to imagine a corporation without a business plan. It would have a hard time attracting investment.  The same is true of communities.  In America, land use planning is primarily the responsibility of local government.   Zoning is considered the quintessential tool of plan implementation.

And some talk about the myth that Houston, Texas proves that zoning is unnecessary.

 Some anti-government activists argue that we don’t need zoning and that land use planning is somehow akin to socialism. In fact, planning is the multi-faceted process that communities use to prepare for change. It is an activity as old as humankind itself. In most realms of endeavor, failing to plan, simply means planning to fail. Try to imagine a corporation without a business plan. It would have a hard time attracting investment.  The same is true of communities.  In America, land use planning is primarily the responsibility of local government.   Zoning is considered the quintessential tool of plan implementation.