6 ms·

Just no. Zoning is extremely important. You should not be allowed to build a factory in the middle of a neighborhood next to a school. There are certainly bad

• spenczar5 5y ago
  Why not? It sounds like you think this is obvious, but it isn’t to me. I live in an area with occasional grandfathered-in exceptions to zoning rules. There’s a cafe run out of a house, and a butcher shop run on a residential street corner between houses. And its absolutely lovely! I would have no problem with people making things (“a factory”) next to a school.
  • zzzeek 5y ago
    > I would have no problem with people making things (“a factory”) next to a school. yes you would, if it were a large plastics manufacturer bringing large amounts of truck traffic and noise pollution and spewing carcinogenic PCB compounds into local atmosphere.
    • bcrl 5y ago
      Maybe companies shouldn't be allowed to spew toxic carcinogens into the atmosphere so that wouldn't matter?
      • zzzeek 5y ago
        how about a landfill. ever been to one? they smell quite awful. nothing illegal about them, and they would pretty much ruin a junior high school right next door.
        • bcrl 5y ago
          And they're a horrible mistake of history that was a bad idea. The planet is a closed loop system with limited resources. Our use of those limited resources should be closed loop as well.
          • zzzeek 5y ago
            unfortunately there is no means for that to happen right away. but of course if there weren't any landfills, we would no longer need them to be mentioned in zoning regulations.
      • pessimizer 5y ago
        You should live next to a dog food factory or a bunch of chicken houses. Things don't have to be dangerous to create a situation that you don't want to be living next to.
        • Ekaros 5y ago
          Or a farm using natural fertilisers... They do look lovely part of the year, others not so much.
        • bcrl 5y ago
          Zoning mistakes have also resulted in the death of vibrant neighborhoods. Having mixed residential and commercial zoning enables things like grocery, corner and hardware stores that make a good place to live even better. Zoning shouldn't be able to limit how high containers are stacked. If the facility operates in a safe way consistent with OHSA laws, the municipality should come in with a half baked zoning law that prohibits an otherwise reasonable operation from working effectively. In my travels I have found that many communities across the US seem to generally fear use of height. I've always found this odd compared to rest of the world. Maybe it's just because land is cheap, but it does tend to mean that zoning laws, which try to codify standard practice, do end up overreaching on this particular issue.
        • F35Machinist 5y ago
          The net result of relaxing zoning would be more residential housing built, not industrial. Industrial parks around the united states are sitting fallow while housing is being bid up to the moon. Demolishing houses to build a dog food factory would be very unprofitable since you would be replacing high value land use with low value land use. What you are saying is not a good argument for strict zoning, because your hypothetical scenario isn't realistic.
    • spenczar5 5y ago
      Zoning is not the same as regulation. We shouldn’t be spewing carcinogenic PCBs anywhere. Gigantic factories don’t want to be on small residential streets anyway because they cant fit the trucks in, so I think that argument cuts the other way - there are natural forces that deter that stuff.
      • zzzeek 5y ago
        yet commercial zoning regulations exist for some reason. if "natural forces" prevent all negative outcomes, why do they exist ?
        • spenczar5 5y ago
          I don’t see how I claimed that natural forces prevent all negative outcomes. Sorry, you don’t seem interested in understanding each others’ views here…
          • pessimizer 5y ago
            If you think your example was an exception, what was the use of it? It seemed like evidence to support the claim that there are "natural forces that deter that stuff."
          • zzzeek 5y ago
            your view seemed to be pretty clearly, "commercial zoning is unnecessary for the problem of building factories next to schools", based on your phrase "Gigantic factories don’t want to be on small residential streets anyway because they cant fit the trucks in, so I think that argument cuts the other way - there are natural forces that deter that stuff. ", meaning, "natural forces" would "deter" "that stuff", in this case "that stuff" being building factories next to schools. Sorry to be pedantic but I'm not quite sure what it is I'm not understanding. if you're saying, "I was just arguing that one exact example, i didnt say natural forces help for all kinds of other problems that commercial zoning is meant to help", well OK, so I think commercial zoning is necessary for even a less-than-gigantic, but nevertheless distruptive, noisy, and polluting manufacturing facilities being built inappropriately close to schools and residential areas which may nevertheless still be on roads that are fairly or fully accessible by truck traffic". After all the truck traffic could enter in the front of the building's property and the back and sides of the building's property abut said schools and homes in any case. just go look at any commercial property with a lot of trucking and movement going on, it doesn't take much imagination to see how such a thing can and quite often does abut residential areas in any case.
  • onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    This is a perfect reason why most zoning sucks - but not all zoning sucks. Current zoning prevents most neighborhoods from being walkable. You can't have cafes and grocery stores near most houses. But replace cute cafe in your example with a landfill or a cement plant and see if it's still awesome. This is why some zoning is good.
    • stackedinserter 5y ago
      You can have a little park between grocery stores and houses. I live in a neighborhood like this and have all necessary amenities in 5-10 minutes of walk.
    • spenczar5 5y ago
      I previously lived next to a cement plant, actually, in Brooklyn - the Ferrara Brothers one, now shut down. It was literally adjacent to my apartment, out the back window. And you know what? I didn’t mind one bit. I really loved that neighborhood.
  • Denvercoder9 5y ago
    > I would have no problem with people making things (“a factory”) next to a school. A factory isn't just "making things", though. There might be semi's coming and going making traffic more dangerous, there could be materials left out that are dangerous to kids if they wander through the wrong fence, maybe there'll be loud noises that are detrimental to kids' concentration during tests. There's plenty of reasons industry is usually put outside of towns.
  • kiklion 5y ago
    Even if there are businesses that you don’t want, it can be solved outside of broad strokes zoning.
  • karaterobot 5y ago
    That must be so, since you said it. Do you acknowledge, though, that many people would not like a factory next to their house? How about a foundry? How about an airport? And do you think that people's preferences ought to be taken into account by their local government? If so, there's no argument here, you just have your own opinion.
    • spenczar5 5y ago
      I am asking to be convinced ("why not?"). I'm not trying to convince you myself :) There are alternative mechanisms for getting peoples' local preferences. City- or county-wide zoning maps rarely change, and - at least in Seattle - don't seem to respond to individual citizens desires or concerns in the way you imply. Are zones really the right tool for the job?
      • karaterobot 5y ago
        Well, you did say you wouldn't mind if there was a factory next to a school. My point is that most people probably wouldn't want that, because it would be dangerous at worst and disruptive at best, and it's generally considered the job of governments to prevent that kind of thing. Whether that happens in practice in specific locations is another issue completely, as is what individual citizens want to happen. If you think that there are situations where preventing some kinds of things (say, a toxic landfill) from being constructed next to other kinds of things (say, a preschool) is desirable, and that there should be rules around that, and that most people want an elected government to make and enforce those rules, that ought to explain why the commenter you responded to said zoning is important. Even if you disagree with any of those clauses, I think you'd understand why they felt that way.
      • pessimizer 5y ago
        The massive administrative burden of making every piece of property a special case where everyone nearby has to be interviewed, then their interests quantified and compared and a final judgment made sounds like a lawyer's wet dream. Instead, we have zoning, where we can say "build your factory here if you don't want to worry about residential complaints" or "build your house here if you don't want a noxious odor, noise, and constant semi traffic bothering you."
  • 8note 5y ago
    Industrial processes have a large surface area of different risks and hazards, and physical distance from where people live is a good way to mitigate all of them. Eg. Explosions, toxic chemical spills, electrical noise, air pollution etc. They also need heavy transport, which wears out road infrastructure much more quickly than light vehicles. Keeping residential streets largely clear of heavy traffic means you can focus repairs and replacements of road surfaces in the industrial areas. Zoning isnt the only way to solve these problems, but it's a good one
    • andbberger 5y ago
      Zoning is a terrible terrible way to solve the heavy goods transport problem the states have. Fines proportional to vehicle wear would be a better way to do it, incentivizing use of industrial rail spurs. Switzerland is the place to look for inspiration on this.
    • spenczar5 5y ago
      It seems like this would depend a lot on the industry, and on scale. If somebody is, I don't know, assembling board games, I think that sounds fine next to a school. If they're refining crude oil, well, that sounds more likely to have the problems you describe. But "zoning" attempts to resolve those issues by carving territory up, not by requiring a particular physical distance. Zoning maps have boundaries which still have the problems you describe, right? It seems a lot more reasonable to target the specific issues (noise, air pollution, etc - the stuff you descibed) rather than attack this via zones. Of course, you said a similar thing too, so we probably 80% agree. But can you explain the remaining 20% - when is zoning ever a good way to solve these problems? Further - is there a case to be made for zoning aside from moving really heavy industry away from really residential neighborhoods? My city has dozens of zones, carefully segregating walkable retail regions from single-family homes, which doesn't seem so defensible.
• Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
  You don't need zoning laws for that. The UK doesn't have them, yet still has pretty stringent controls ("planning permission") on what you can build. Explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning#United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning#United_Kingdom Each area - typically a district, which is a sub-unit of a county or city - has a "local plan" which is decided democratically by the local government. "The plan does not provide specific guidance on what type of buildings will be allowed in a given location, rather it provides general principles for development and goals for the management of urban change." All of this sits under a National Planning Policy Framework set by central Government.
  • SilasX 5y ago
    That’s zoning with a different name.
  • dpratt 5y ago
    “We don’t have speed limits, but instead a system where different classes of roads have a preset range of overall maximum velocity.” Does a zoning law by any other name smell as sweet?
    • avianlyric 5y ago
      Not quite. UK planning isn’t highly prescriptive, and made up extremely narrow and limited classes of building (like single unit family home). Instead the plans set out browser goals, such as designating a area as being primarily residential with an objective of reducing traffic and increasing walking. If you can submit a plan that show what you want to build fits with outline, you can probably get permission. That means it’s perfectly possible to build a shop, or an office, or restaurant in the middle of a residential area. All of those things would increase the walk ability of the area, and reduce the need for residents to own cars. Equally just because a plan doesn’t indicate you can build a specific type of building, doesn’t mean you can’t get permission for. But you would have an uphill battle to convince planners that deviating from the local plan is necessary. The result is that pretty much all of the UK has mixed use development. You find residential area right next to light industrial districts. You find shops and restaurants scattered through neighbourhoods, and find flat in the centre of commercial districts (just don’t complain about the noise).
• burlesona 5y ago
  You don’t need zoning to stop that. You can regulate against nuisances directly - for example: no industrial noise levels within 2000’ of an existing neighborhood. You also don’t even _need_ to do that because it’s uneconomical: land in a neighborhood is worth too much per square foot to be used for industrial development.
  • 8note 5y ago
    Unless it's a black neighborhood, in which case it's cheap enough to bring in big polluters? A default assumption that industrial processes are safe unless specifically regulated to say they're dangerous sounds like a shell game. The industry will chge between dangerous pollutants fast enough to be one step ahead of regulators, or pay regulators off to allow their pollutants. It's right to assume all industrial work is dangerous
    • convolvatron 5y ago
      i work in a light industrial area...there is a place next door that burns the crap off of commercial restaurant pans and recoats them with teflon. their smokestack blew over last year, and now i get headaches all the time since they haven't bothered to rebuild it. even in san francisco, purported leftie paradise - there really isn't anything i can do about it. assume that _every_ shop is cutting corners
      • jfk13 5y ago
        So, have you sued them yet? (Isn't that the American Way?)
• mrfusion 5y ago
  I suppose a compromise could be laws that restrict pollution, toxins, noise, and odors from residential areas but otherwise anything goes.
• rcpt 5y ago
  This is Long Beach, where we literally drill for oil right in the middle of residential neighborhoods.