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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. Th

by 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.
- davidw 4y ago
  > remove parking minimums city-wide We just did that here in Bend, Oregon as part of a statewide push to have more climate friendly cities. It's a great, easy, very incrementalist and market-based reform that everyone should do.
- Humdeee 4y ago
  Now in a post-covid(ish) world, taking back some parking real estate space would be quite beneficial for a lot of cities I imagine. Would it bite cities later on in years to come?
  - davidw 4y ago
    Removing parking minimums does not mean "do not build parking". It means "build what the market demands". If there's huge demand in the future, it'll get built.
    - ericmay 4y ago
      Exactly. The problem we mostly face now is we're building just to build/demanding that parking is built just because and we haven't examined the underlying assumptions or reasons for why we're mandating parking. It's really predicated on the idea of a car-only infrastructure but as we work to repair our cities we have to question that assumption and provide alternative mobility options so that our infrastructure isn't super fragile.
    - tremon 4y ago
      Still, I would be in favor of parking maximums. Not in number of parking spaces, but a limit on total acreage that may be lost to car storage. In more dense parts of the world, we have rooftop parking or multi-storey car parks. A concrete desert just for parking is such a non-optimal solution, it should go away completely.

by davidw 4y ago

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.

davidw 4y ago
> remove parking minimums city-wide We just did that here in Bend, Oregon as part of a statewide push to have more climate friendly cities. It's a great, easy, very incrementalist and market-based reform that everyone should do.
Humdeee 4y ago
Now in a post-covid(ish) world, taking back some parking real estate space would be quite beneficial for a lot of cities I imagine. Would it bite cities later on in years to come?
- davidw 4y ago
  Removing parking minimums does not mean "do not build parking". It means "build what the market demands". If there's huge demand in the future, it'll get built.
  - ericmay 4y ago
    Exactly. The problem we mostly face now is we're building just to build/demanding that parking is built just because and we haven't examined the underlying assumptions or reasons for why we're mandating parking. It's really predicated on the idea of a car-only infrastructure but as we work to repair our cities we have to question that assumption and provide alternative mobility options so that our infrastructure isn't super fragile.
  - tremon 4y ago
    Still, I would be in favor of parking maximums. Not in number of parking spaces, but a limit on total acreage that may be lost to car storage. In more dense parts of the world, we have rooftop parking or multi-storey car parks. A concrete desert just for parking is such a non-optimal solution, it should go away completely.