No zoning: Is Houston an affordable housing model or morass?
| KEMAH, TEXAS
For Tim Tran and his wife, the house聽they purchased聽at the corner of Fourth Street and Bay Avenue had everything.
Just 45 minutes from downtown Houston, it could have been in any small, seaside town. Palm trees line the streets and salt fills the air.
Then聽the 鈥淏oardwalk Bullet鈥� moved in.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onAre rules that protect homeowners making the global housing crisis worse by hindering badly needed construction? One city shows the pros and cons of an opposite approach 鈥� removing the red tape.
The nine-story wooden roller coaster has towered over the block since 2007. The ride, part of a boardwalk entertainment district, sits about 200 feet from Mr. Tran鈥檚 home. A house on the other side of Fourth Street is only 50 feet away. Every few minutes, from noon until 9 p.m. (or 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends),聽the ride聽pierces the salty air with roars and rattles and squeals.
鈥淚t鈥檚 so loud,鈥� says Mr. Tran.听
The Boardwalk Bullet is loud, and perfectly legal. The ride meets local setback requirements, and because聽the town of聽Kemah doesn鈥檛 have zoning, those were the only requirements. There was no public hearing before the ride鈥檚 owner got a building permit, the Houston Chronicle聽聽in 2007.
Mr. Tran and his wife moved out 10 years ago 鈥� though they still own the house and run it as a short-term rental. 鈥淣inety-nine percent鈥� of renters don鈥檛 care about the noise, he says.
鈥淥nly the people that live there complain, and there鈥檚 only a small number of people,鈥� he adds. 鈥淭here鈥檚 not much we can do about it.鈥�
Unlike most of the United States, several cities in this corner of Texas don鈥檛 have zoning. Houston is the most prominent example,聽the nation鈥檚 only major city in this category. In Space City,聽like Kemah, just about聽anything goes, and economic prosperity and affordability live side by side,聽with few聽regulatory burdens.
Is this kind of freedom a recipe for abundant and affordable housing? The reality is聽a bit more complicated, experts say. Houston is the most affordable of America鈥檚 five biggest cities, but it doesn鈥檛 rise near the top of the pack in broader national affordability rankings.听And while it doesn鈥檛 have formal zoning, the city does have land use policies. This more relaxed regime has allowed for a greater diversity of housing stock, and perhaps inhibited gentrification (for now), but it鈥檚 bred environmental and health concerns in certain neighborhoods.听
鈥淗ouston isn鈥檛 exactly the free-for-all it gets portrayed as,鈥� says Matthew Festa, a land use professor at South Texas College of Law Houston. 鈥淗ouston is guilty as charged as being one of the most sprawling metropolises in the country,鈥� he adds, 鈥渂ut it also makes it easier and less expensive to build affordable housing.鈥�
Three votes against zoning
Why is Houston such an anomaly? One might think it鈥檚 because Houston is in Texas, and Texas can鈥檛 abide regulators telling you what you can and can鈥檛 do on your property.听
But every other major city in Texas has zoning. The reason Houston doesn鈥檛 is really because Houston residents have been able to vote on the question 鈥� three times so far, to be exact. The 1948 and 1962 votes both rejected zoning by a comfortable margin, and the most recent vote 鈥� in a low-turnout 1993 referendum 鈥� saw the anti-zoners prevail by about 4 percentage points.
Houston does have 鈥渄e facto鈥� zoning, Professor Festa says. Land use regulations include height restrictions, minimum lot size requirements, and historic districts. Still, the broad effect is that, while you can鈥檛 build聽anything anywhere聽in Houston, there are fewer restrictions.
Thus, you can have a house next to a roller coaster; or a house covered聽;聽or apartments, town homes, and an elementary school on the same street as聽.
Home prices are cheaper here. The median home price in Houston ranked 77 among 187 American metro areas in the second quarter this year 鈥� around cities like Gainesville and Daytona Beach in Florida 鈥� according to the聽.听
Similarly, Houston is No. 20 in affordability, tied with Chicago and Atlanta, in a ranking based on incomes and housing costs among 56 U.S. cities this year. Half the U.S. cities were ranked as 鈥渟eriously unaffordable,鈥� according to by the Houston-based Urban Reform Institute and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Relaxed rules around minimum lot sizes seem to have enabled denser, more diverse housing 鈥� such as duplexes and town homes 鈥� in high-demand neighborhoods, according to a聽聽last year by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University. It found there鈥檚 been more housing development inside Houston鈥檚 inner loop alone than in the entire cities of Atlanta, San Diego, and San Francisco/Oakland.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 not to say that gentrification isn鈥檛 happening, just that it could be more severe,鈥� says Luis Guajardo, a senior policy specialist at the Kinder Institute.
A tale of two neighborhoods
Beneath Houston鈥檚 broad pattern, experiences can diverge sharply by community.
In the Manchester/Harrisburg neighborhood at the mouth of the Houston Ship Channel,聽on a cold fall afternoon, the air carries hints of gas. The 16-square-mile community聽鈥� more than 90% Hispanic, according to census data 鈥撀爄s bordered by refineries to the north and east and a large rail yard to the south, and bisected by the Interstate 610 bridge.
About 15 miles west, homes in West University Place have one similarity 鈥撀爐he occasional Astros flag. But this community, with tree-lined streets named after colleges and poets, is its own municipality inside Houston 鈥� and does have zoning, almost entirely for single-family housing.
鈥淚t鈥檚 like we鈥檝e privatized zoning,鈥� says Mr. Guajardo. 鈥淭he city has devolved [that] responsibility to homeowner associations, which might be inequitable in what neighborhoods have access to it.鈥�
Take deed restrictions. These are written agreements that restrict activities, facilities, and operations in a subdivision. They鈥檙e enforced by the city and typically need to be renewed every 20 or 30 years. Affluent neighborhoods have often kept theirs in place while other parts of town have seen them lapse.听
The city鈥檚 concrete batch plants are mostly in communities of color, the Houston Chronicle earlier this year, which lacked the rules or resources to fight them off.听
Houston also has a land use tool that allows certain areas to keep and spend a portion of their property tax revenue.
鈥淓ven without zoning, the communities with more resources and knowledge and capacity and access can kind of work around the legislative rules,鈥� says Professor Festa.
Yet Houston鈥檚 de facto zoning regime isn鈥檛 as simple as the more advantaged benefiting at the expense of the less advantaged. The relatively low home prices make it easier for buyers to get onto the property ladder. And businesses are attracted by the relative ease of construction and development, which brings jobs.
In Third Ward, a historically Black community near downtown, residents are a proposal to make one neighborhood an official historical district because the accompanying regulations would be unaffordable for most homeowners. The resistance echoes the city鈥檚 1962 zoning referendum, when African American and Mexican neighborhoods , associating it with segregationist housing policies of the New Deal era.听
On balance, 鈥渕y perspective is that traditional zoning ... is an obstacle to equity, and it鈥檚 an obstacle to affordable housing,鈥� says Professor Festa.
That view has been gaining traction beyond Texas. Oregon, California, and the city of Minneapolis are places that since聽2019 have all been rolling back exclusive single-family zoning.
But Houston isn鈥檛 affordable on every metric. For the lowest-income residents, Houston doesn鈥檛 outperform other major American cities, zoning or no zoning.听
In fact, only Las Vegas had a larger shortage of affordable rental homes last year than Houston, where there were 19 for every 100 renters, according to a by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. That has translated into Houston having one of the in the country.听
鈥淥ur lowest-income folks just don鈥檛 have options,鈥� says Mr. Guajardo. 鈥淲e might be closer [to being a model] if we solved that foundational problem that鈥檚 afflicting every large city in the U.S.鈥�
