5 ms·

What'd be really fantastic is to just have "zoning" that keeps truly noxious uses (slaughterhouses, say) separated. Offices, housing, light commercial operating

by davidw 4y ago

What'd be really fantastic is to just have "zoning" that keeps truly noxious uses (slaughterhouses, say) separated. Offices, housing, light commercial operating during daytime hours... it's not really that big a deal if it's mixed up a lot more than it is now. In many ways, it'd be preferable, so that people didn't need to go so far to do things.

lallysingh 4y ago
I don't know, how would that play out with school districts?
- davidw 4y ago
  Where there's demand: build more schools. Where demand falls: decommission or repurpose the schools.
- ryukafalz 4y ago
  Aren't school districts mostly funded by local tax revenue and by states proportionally to the number of students? More residents (and thus more students) means more funding to work with. They probably would need to expand, though.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    > More residents (and thus more students) means more funding to work with. Except in my town, as is fairly common, an incremental student costs more than the contribution from local property taxes and the state. So the fairly rural town of about 7,000 generally resists any plans that would markedly increase the number of students in the town.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
      How are you sure they're trying to keep out students and not keep out something else, or trying to pump up something (their home prices on leverage)?
      - ghaff 4y ago
        Because I've heard the discussions at town hall and seen the actual figures. In fact that was just a very contentious vote to rezone some residential land for light industry (like distribution centers) primarily for the financial reasons.
    - ryukafalz 4y ago
      Is the difference made up by federal funding now then? (I don't know as much about federal school funding but it doesn't seem to scale by the number of students.)
      - ghaff 4y ago
        No. They have to balance the budget which may mean taking money from other things like public services. (Although something like 60% of property taxes already goes to schools.) And, if they can't make that work, there will need to be a vote to raise property taxes.
        olddustytrail 4y ago
        How does that work? If we fix the school budget as it is, then obviously if you only have one student and one family there's not enough money to run it. So presumably adding more students and families is what makes it affordable. Why does that stop? What's the inflexion point?
        ghaff 4y ago
        You have costs that are fixed in the short run and you have variable costs and costs in between--e.g. you can tweak up class sizes for a while. You can also increase fees, etc. The town hasn't had particularly rapid growth but one of the driving factors behind the rezoning the town just voted on is that there's a new regional high school being built and the town has to chip in a bunch of money for that. It's not that a few students more or less is an issue but if there were a big new development with a lot of families with school-age children that would likely be a problem for the town.
DelaneyM 4y ago
Generally I agree, but unfortunately many newer, denser, cities can't be easily rezoned/rebuilt into residential/mixed use because the city infrastructure (usually plumbing) can't handle it. So major conversion projects need not only zoning approval but also major municipal investments. It turns out zoning is not just an arbitrary categorization, but also a guidance for public works. This is a tough trap, because it's hard to convince a local gov to put up much more capacity than required for office use when an office building goes in (that would be a waste of taxpayer funds). (I've tried to do this, even put up capital and hired an architect, but it hit this wall.)
- davidw 4y ago
  Zoning is extremely arbitrary, especially at a neighborhood scale. You could easily get rid of it and just let the technical limitations fall where they may. They'll differ a lot between different places. Also newer cities in the US tend to not be denser. Because of zoning. I've read that converting actual office buildings is tricky and often not worth it outside of all but the most expensive housing markets, but that's different from liberalizing the zoning regime.
  - Animats 4y ago
    > converting actual office buildings is tricky In large commercial buildings, too much of the floor space is too far from a window. This is why dead malls are so useless.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Dead malls have all sorts of problems. The buildings are usually often old and cheaply constructed and would probably largely need to be gutted which is probably not worth it. But even if you contemplate just building from scratch, if a mall is dead it's probably because it's located somewhere there isn't a ton of demand. That's certainly the case with the one near me.
  - ericmay 4y ago
    There are a few problems, Zoning is probably the least of the problems in the sense that we could effectively waive a magic wand and solve it, but it is a political problem which makes it more difficult than it needs to be. One reservation I have is what zoning we get rid of and where. Many cities such as Columbus where I live have fantastic, medium-density neighborhoods that we really shouldn't touch. On the other hand the downtown area is full of surface parking lots that are not only empty most of the time in the evenings but post-COVID empty most of the time all of the time. Something I'd advocate for in a 1-2 punch would be to remove parking minimums city-wide but also to remove zoning restrictions in the downtown core first to create density there where we lack it before we try and remove it in our neighborhoods that we know are good and appropriately dense to start with. Most of the density/zoning problems as they relate to neighborhoods exist in the suburbs, not cities. You're right about the office renovation though too. That's an issue. Thankfully those buildings are owned by someone who, frankly, has to spend the money to do something useful with them. We should make/let them solve their own problem there because whatever they solve for will be good for downtown cores. Unfortunately zoning is going to become a political nightmare. Already state governments in locations such as Ohio where I live are now working to block cities from slowing down traffic or providing alternate means of transportation options instead of the car-only (the government says you aren't allowed to do anything but drive a car) infrastructure we pay for now.
spywaregorilla 4y ago
traffic, plumbing, electric substations, schools, noise, animals, safety, affordability, walkability, public transit, etc.
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
Zoning already separates commercial and industrial uses. Slaughterhouses, refineries, and the like are industrial.
- davidw 4y ago
  It also does things like separate single family homes from, say, 3-plexes, or from corner stores, which is very arbitrary, and terrible in a number of ways, like increasing economic segregation and preventing people from being able to walk to every day amenities. Good book for the curious: https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Zoning has a lot of "good ideas" if you will, but arbitrarily implemented by limiting the types of building. So instead of specifically limiting heavy truck access on a given street, it tries to limit the type of buildings. Much of zoning could be fixed by directly aiming at the problems instead of just saying "only single family homes are permitted here".
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - brk 4y ago
    I think there is a harsh reality that the buyers that want nicer single family homes WANT economic segregation. There is generally no benefit for those buyers to live next to or near "affordable housing". This creates a disincentive to create this kind of housing layout.
    - davidw 4y ago
      It wasn't that long ago that buyers wanted racial segregation too: https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten-history-of-how-our-government-segregated-america/ https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten... That's one of many reasons that a lot of the better reforms we're seeing are at the state level, where it's easier to do the right thing and where politicians are less beholden to a few local loudmouths.
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
We already have this in the form of environmental regulations. They do a pretty good job preventing all but the most moneyed interests from doing stuff that will have effects off their and only their property.
soperj 4y ago
Don't know if you've ever been to a city with a slaughterhouse, but you can't exactly zone the smell away. Normally you can smell the city before you can see it.
- davidw 4y ago
  Fair enough, it's just an example of something that I think most people really would consider a truly noxious land use, rather than, say, a corner store, or a 3-plex, which are things that current zoning has a big say about in a lot of places.
- readthenotes1 4y ago
  or papermill
- mikem170 4y ago
  I know that Japan has a separate industrial zoning category for things like that. In most of the developed world stuff like this often ends up the east side of town, because in the northern hemisphere prevailing winds usually come from the west. Poor people often end up on the east side of towns for the same reason.

by davidw 4y ago

lallysingh 4y ago

I don't know, how would that play out with school districts?

davidw 4y ago
Where there's demand: build more schools. Where demand falls: decommission or repurpose the schools.
ryukafalz 4y ago
Aren't school districts mostly funded by local tax revenue and by states proportionally to the number of students? More residents (and thus more students) means more funding to work with. They probably would need to expand, though.
- ghaff 4y ago
  > More residents (and thus more students) means more funding to work with. Except in my town, as is fairly common, an incremental student costs more than the contribution from local property taxes and the state. So the fairly rural town of about 7,000 generally resists any plans that would markedly increase the number of students in the town.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
    How are you sure they're trying to keep out students and not keep out something else, or trying to pump up something (their home prices on leverage)?
    - ghaff 4y ago
      Because I've heard the discussions at town hall and seen the actual figures. In fact that was just a very contentious vote to rezone some residential land for light industry (like distribution centers) primarily for the financial reasons.
  - ryukafalz 4y ago
    Is the difference made up by federal funding now then? (I don't know as much about federal school funding but it doesn't seem to scale by the number of students.)
    - ghaff 4y ago
      No. They have to balance the budget which may mean taking money from other things like public services. (Although something like 60% of property taxes already goes to schools.) And, if they can't make that work, there will need to be a vote to raise property taxes.
      - olddustytrail 4y ago
        How does that work? If we fix the school budget as it is, then obviously if you only have one student and one family there's not enough money to run it. So presumably adding more students and families is what makes it affordable. Why does that stop? What's the inflexion point?
        ghaff 4y ago
        You have costs that are fixed in the short run and you have variable costs and costs in between--e.g. you can tweak up class sizes for a while. You can also increase fees, etc. The town hasn't had particularly rapid growth but one of the driving factors behind the rezoning the town just voted on is that there's a new regional high school being built and the town has to chip in a bunch of money for that. It's not that a few students more or less is an issue but if there were a big new development with a lot of families with school-age children that would likely be a problem for the town.

DelaneyM 4y ago

Generally I agree, but unfortunately many newer, denser, cities can't be easily rezoned/rebuilt into residential/mixed use because the city infrastructure (usually plumbing) can't handle it. So major conversion projects need not only zoning approval but also major municipal investments. It turns out zoning is not just an arbitrary categorization, but also a guidance for public works. This is a tough trap, because it's hard to convince a local gov to put up much more capacity than required for office use when an office building goes in (that would be a waste of taxpayer funds). (I've tried to do this, even put up capital and hired an architect, but it hit this wall.)

davidw 4y ago
Zoning is extremely arbitrary, especially at a neighborhood scale. You could easily get rid of it and just let the technical limitations fall where they may. They'll differ a lot between different places. Also newer cities in the US tend to not be denser. Because of zoning. I've read that converting actual office buildings is tricky and often not worth it outside of all but the most expensive housing markets, but that's different from liberalizing the zoning regime.
- Animats 4y ago
  > converting actual office buildings is tricky In large commercial buildings, too much of the floor space is too far from a window. This is why dead malls are so useless.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Dead malls have all sorts of problems. The buildings are usually often old and cheaply constructed and would probably largely need to be gutted which is probably not worth it. But even if you contemplate just building from scratch, if a mall is dead it's probably because it's located somewhere there isn't a ton of demand. That's certainly the case with the one near me.
- ericmay 4y ago
  There are a few problems, Zoning is probably the least of the problems in the sense that we could effectively waive a magic wand and solve it, but it is a political problem which makes it more difficult than it needs to be. One reservation I have is what zoning we get rid of and where. Many cities such as Columbus where I live have fantastic, medium-density neighborhoods that we really shouldn't touch. On the other hand the downtown area is full of surface parking lots that are not only empty most of the time in the evenings but post-COVID empty most of the time all of the time. Something I'd advocate for in a 1-2 punch would be to remove parking minimums city-wide but also to remove zoning restrictions in the downtown core first to create density there where we lack it before we try and remove it in our neighborhoods that we know are good and appropriately dense to start with. Most of the density/zoning problems as they relate to neighborhoods exist in the suburbs, not cities. You're right about the office renovation though too. That's an issue. Thankfully those buildings are owned by someone who, frankly, has to spend the money to do something useful with them. We should make/let them solve their own problem there because whatever they solve for will be good for downtown cores. Unfortunately zoning is going to become a political nightmare. Already state governments in locations such as Ohio where I live are now working to block cities from slowing down traffic or providing alternate means of transportation options instead of the car-only (the government says you aren't allowed to do anything but drive a car) infrastructure we pay for now.

spywaregorilla 4y ago

traffic, plumbing, electric substations, schools, noise, animals, safety, affordability, walkability, public transit, etc.

PuppyTailWags 4y ago

Zoning already separates commercial and industrial uses. Slaughterhouses, refineries, and the like are industrial.

davidw 4y ago
It also does things like separate single family homes from, say, 3-plexes, or from corner stores, which is very arbitrary, and terrible in a number of ways, like increasing economic segregation and preventing people from being able to walk to every day amenities. Good book for the curious: https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines https://islandpress.org/books/arbitrary-lines
- bombcar 4y ago
  Zoning has a lot of "good ideas" if you will, but arbitrarily implemented by limiting the types of building. So instead of specifically limiting heavy truck access on a given street, it tries to limit the type of buildings. Much of zoning could be fixed by directly aiming at the problems instead of just saying "only single family homes are permitted here".
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- brk 4y ago
  I think there is a harsh reality that the buyers that want nicer single family homes WANT economic segregation. There is generally no benefit for those buyers to live next to or near "affordable housing". This creates a disincentive to create this kind of housing layout.
  - davidw 4y ago
    It wasn't that long ago that buyers wanted racial segregation too: https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten-history-of-how-our-government-segregated-america/ https://www.epi.org/publication/the-color-of-law-a-forgotten... That's one of many reasons that a lot of the better reforms we're seeing are at the state level, where it's easier to do the right thing and where politicians are less beholden to a few local loudmouths.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago

We already have this in the form of environmental regulations. They do a pretty good job preventing all but the most moneyed interests from doing stuff that will have effects off their and only their property.

soperj 4y ago

Don't know if you've ever been to a city with a slaughterhouse, but you can't exactly zone the smell away. Normally you can smell the city before you can see it.

davidw 4y ago
Fair enough, it's just an example of something that I think most people really would consider a truly noxious land use, rather than, say, a corner store, or a 3-plex, which are things that current zoning has a big say about in a lot of places.
readthenotes1 4y ago
or papermill
mikem170 4y ago
I know that Japan has a separate industrial zoning category for things like that. In most of the developed world stuff like this often ends up the east side of town, because in the northern hemisphere prevailing winds usually come from the west. Poor people often end up on the east side of towns for the same reason.