That's not too far from conventional zoning.

The reason this situation exists is that the city incentivizes the deed restriction process. The required right-of-way for any new street in Houston is 60 feet wide, but that drops to 50 if you add a 50-year deed restriction for single family. The required width for a side street varies from 32 to 40 feet, but you can get away with 28' back-to-back if your land is deed-restricted single family. Since street improvements represent a significant chunk of the cost of development, any developer who wants to sell residential lots is enticed into setting up long-term deed restrictions. As we've recently learned from a certain best-selling pop psychology tome, such “nudges” can be quite influential.

If the city ceased incentivizing the deed restriction process, and in fact encouraged a wider variety of regulatory structures (including both unrestricted single-family plots, as well as shorter-term restrictions that expire in 25 years, like those that governed the initial development of the Heights), then Phillips' point about contracts would be spot on. At present, though, segregation of uses through deed restrictions is a “take it or leave it” proposition, which undermines the basic foundation of contracts as equitable instruments negotiated between individuals.

Admittedly, Houston is not devoid of land use regulations. But the nature, number, and scope of those regulations is significantly different from other cities.

Basically what your argument comes down to is while Houston indeed has some restrictions, the restrictions aren’t as bad as in other cities. This is a very rational and valid argument, but to be honest, you haven’t really given me much reason to believe it, either empirical or anecdotal. But when I actually try to find empirical measures of the freedom to develop, I find Houston as restrictive in terms of density as other cities. For example, in terms of townhouses and allowing them or not, developers in Houston are clearly much more restrained than in other American cities. As Lewyn writes in the paper that I cited:

Houston’s townhouse regulations, unlike its regulations governing detached houses, were significantly more restrictive than those of other North American cities. For example, town houses may be as small as 647 square feet of land in Dallas, 560 square feet in Phoenix, and 390 square feet in Toronto, Canada.

Another empirical point of comparison is minimum parking regulations. If you compare Houston’s to other cities’ (here’re some examples), again, you see that Houston is either as restrictive or more so than other urban areas.

So, I’ve presented my evidence – where’s yours? It’s easy to say that Houston has fewer restrictions, but where’s the proof?

It may be true of some, but not of all. Smith chose to put all of us in the same boat with a broad generalization that flies in the face of the facts.

Sorry about that – obviously I’m generalizing, as there’s no way I can claim to have read every single opinion on Houston’s land use policy. But from what I have read, many people (including many mainstream publications like the NYT) have stated, without qualifications, that Houston does not have land use regulations. I should have qualified my statements with modifiers like “most” or “many,” but frankly, I didn’t think anyone would take it so literally.

…as for the deed restrictions, I think I’m going to have to duck out of defending that statement. While I still believe it, I think the issue is a lot more complicated than you’re making it out to be, so I’ll leave that discussion for another time. (Mostly, though, it just comes down to a matter of degree – to what extent are the covenants prosecuted more than they would be if they were treated like regular contracts? But it’s very difficult to quantify the effects, especially since I’m not in a position to do any original research.)

Admittedly, Houston is not devoid of land use regulations. But the nature, number, and scope of those regulations is significantly different from other cities.

Basically what your argument comes down to is while Houston indeed has some restrictions, the restrictions aren’t as bad as in other cities. This is a very rational and valid argument, but to be honest, you haven’t really given me much reason to believe it, either empirical or anecdotal. But when I actually try to find empirical measures of the freedom to develop, I find Houston as restrictive in terms of density as other cities. For example, in terms of townhouses and allowing them or not, developers in Houston are clearly much more restrained than in other American cities. As Lewyn writes in the paper that I cited:

Houston’s townhouse regulations, unlike its regulations governing detached houses, were significantly more restrictive than those of other North American cities. For example, town houses may be as small as 647 square feet of land in Dallas, 560 square feet in Phoenix, and 390 square feet in Toronto, Canada.

Another empirical point of comparison is minimum parking regulations. If you compare Houston’s to other cities’ (here’re some examples), again, you see that Houston is either as restrictive or more so than other urban areas.

So, I’ve presented my evidence – where’s yours? It’s easy to say that Houston has fewer restrictions, but where’s the proof?

It may be true of some, but not of all. Smith chose to put all of us in the same boat with a broad generalization that flies in the face of the facts.

Sorry about that – obviously I’m generalizing, as there’s no way I can claim to have read every single opinion on Houston’s land use policy. But from what I have read, many people (including many mainstream publications like the NYT) have stated, without qualifications, that Houston does not have land use regulations. I should have qualified my statements with modifiers like “most” or “many,” but frankly, I didn’t think anyone would take it so literally.

…as for the deed restrictions, I think I’m going to have to duck out of defending that statement. While I still believe it, I think the issue is a lot more complicated than you’re making it out to be, so I’ll leave that discussion for another time. (Mostly, though, it just comes down to a matter of degree – to what extent are the covenants prosecuted more than they would be if they were treated like regular contracts? But it’s very difficult to quantify the effects, especially since I’m not in a position to do any original research.)