Category housing

I was catching up on posts over at The Old Urbanist, and came across his astute analysis of setbacks that many of you probably saw a while back. Focusing on the requirement for large front lawns in many towns across the country, Charlie Gardner writes: Whether this reflects a continuing market preference is unclear, since nearly all municipal zoning codes in the United States require large setbacks (see, e.g.,Charlotte), depriving homeowners of any choice in the matter.  The pattern has been replicated so relentlessly across the North American continent that alternative single-family residential designs may simply have been scrubbed from the collective imagination. Gardner and others attribute this bland landscape in large part to Frederick Law Olmsted, and he certainly did support increased greenery in urban areas and lawns that run seamlessly across property lines. However, I think it’s important to distinguish between Olmsted’s vision and the land use regulations that have imposed some version his ideal on American suburbs. Olmsted did promote planned communities, but only local governments have had the authority to make his vision law. In thinking of Olmsted’s planned communities of communities built in Olmsted’s style, Baltimore’s Roland Park immediately comes to my mind. This turn-of-the-century neighborhood was one of the country’s first suburbs. Of course Roland Park is far from an urbanist neighborhood, and it’s easy to fault Olmsted for overlooking the crucial civic aspect of drawing neighbors to the sidewalks and streets for spontaneous interaction. However, (and I realize this may be a minority opinion), I think that it is a lovely neighborhood, and it’s even relatively pedestrian friendly. Clearly, it has little in common with the “snout house” suburbs that Gardner discusses in relation to setback requirements. Part of Roland Park’s charm is that it achieves the feeling of being a green enclave because it lies among denser […]

Current policy evolution in Los Gatos, CA demonstrates the power that urban planners have to alter property rights.  The Silicon Valley municipality is currently debating whether or not to upzone a parcel where a developer would like to build 550,000 square feet of office space, replacing 250,000 square feet of an older office park. The lots, located near the Netflix headquarters, are thought to be the potential site for the company’s needed expansion. However, the Bay Area is already home to ample vacant office space, so the developer would like the alternative option of building multifamily housing in the location. In response to this request for a change in zoning that would allow either use, the planning commission chairwoman said she was “blindsided” by the owner seeking permission for options to use the land in various ways. In today’s world of master plans that dictate acceptable uses for each parcel of a city’s land, asking for the freedom to build different types of buildings, rather than approaching a commission with a plan in place for a specific zoning change, may seem out of line. In reality the owner is simply seeking permission to put his land to its most efficient use given future uncertainties. Entrepreneurs profit by seeing through these uncertainties to put resources to their most profitable uses, but in the market for land, policies limit their ability to do so. In curent conditions, in which developers are not building much new office space unless it is pre-leased, the planning commission has the power to determine the land’s expected value by requiring the owner to commit to a plan before moving forward with redevelopment. This is a classic Coasean case of the care that policy makers must take in assigning property rights. Russ Roberts and Richard Epstein did a […]