FOCUS: Houston; A Fresh Approach To Zoning (original) (raw)
Real Estate|FOCUS: Houston; A Fresh Approach To Zoning
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/17/realestate/focus-houston-a-fresh-approach-to-zoning.html
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- Aug. 17, 1986
Credit...The New York Times Archives
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August 17, 1986
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Section 8, Page
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NONE dare call it zoning, but the city of Houston - an urban monument to laissez-faire free enterprise - has begun to impose new controls that are having some of the same effects. Called ''development controls,'' they are slowly but surely altering the face of this city.
Alone among great American cities, Houston grew up without zoning, and with scarcely any planning. Some say this gave the oil capital the freedom to grow and boom and its developers the license to put up the daring and spectacular architectural palaces that are this city's hallmark. Others maintain that it has made the city something of a cluttered urban mess. Whatever the case, few believe that conventional zoning can now be imposed retroactively.
But the new rules are already having their effect: Motorists heading downtown along a handsome new freeway, Route 288, are struck by its lack of billboards, in contrast to the overwhelming signage clutter on the highways leading from the airports. On other roads, many billboards are coming down. New retail and commercial buildings are set back 25 feet from the street, allowing for landscaping and sidewalk cafes.
In many parts of town, massage parlors and other pornographic businesses have shut down under an ordinance limiting their concentration, and the exteriors of such businesses must be painted in achromatic tones - anywhere from black to white.
It is difficult to judge the full impact of the new rules because the slump in Houston's economy has brought development almost to a halt. But the rules represent the collective judgment of political and business leaders that they were ready to trade away some freedom for a measure of control in the interest of the commonweal. And there has been a growing realization that Houston's image has been damaged by commercial excesses, particularly the garish airport roads, the first vision most visitors get of ''Space City.''
''Since the economy has soured, a lot of business people have said visual appearance is very important to our future,'' said George Greanias, a city council member. ''We don't want to lose our individualism, but we have to take into account community interest. You cannot build up to the street line. You cannot put a massage parlor next to a church.''
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