OH YEAH? WELL, JUST WAIT UNTIL WE BRING IN RANDAL O’TOOLE FOR A BOOK TOUR OR SOMETHING A couple of readers have written in to note one result from this year’s Houston Area Survey. In response to a question worded “Which of these statements comes closer to your own view? — We need better land-use planning to guide development in the Houston area; or: People and businesses should be free to build wherever they want,” 72.9 percent chose the first option and 21.3 percent chose the second. That’s in line with results from previous years. [Houston Area Survey, via Swamplot inbox]
Sign up for the Newsletter
Those questions are very skewed.
In Houston, you cannot build whatever you want. That myth has to stop.
That myth will go as soon as the following myths go:
1) Houston is not planned
2) Portland, OR, is a hellhole because of all the doggone planning they have
(in other words, never)
What I love is all the people who are against zoning, but when you ask them what zoning is, they really have no idea. It is just wrong because it has to do with government.
Meanwhile, what is really wrong with government is that it does the bidding of those who fill their pockets.
Oh, to be in England where political campaigns last only 6 weeks!
Clearly people want BETTER land use planning to GUIDE development in Houston.
I take two things from that statement.
(1.) BETTER could mean more, could mean less. But at its heart, I think one can assume it suggests something different from what we have now.
(2.) GUIDE clearly suggests the concept of a common plan and goal. To “guide” something to somewhere, one must ultimately know where that something is going.
So, I’m glad to see that the overwhelming majority of the people in this city agree that the land use controls we currently have are not working and that they need to be changed to better fit a common, overall plan.
The next logical question would be, “What is that plan?” We don’t know the public’s answer to that question yet. But at least it’s good to see that the people here are fed up with the haphazard and hodgepodge development without a central plan that has been the norm in this city.
Martin, I see it differently. There are lots of planning and code issues that affect what can be built and where. (And I’m currently mired in the muck of it all.) So when I see the option for freedom, I see that just being a vote for a different kind of change. There is no vote to preserve the status quo.