Houston remains the largest city in America without zoning, with voters rejecting it on multiple occasions over the past several decades. But some neighbors may be ready to try it out. Alvin is the latest local community to consider a zoning ordinance to centralize rules for planners and developers. Zoning is a hotly-debated issue whenever it comes up, especially in Texas where many unincorporated areas are still without it. Chuck DeVore with the Texas Public Policy Foundation says there are pros and cons to zoning, and no one-size-fits-all way to do it. "On the positive side, zoning tells property owners this is what is going to be on this parcel of land," he tells KTRH. "The negatives are people with property who put a lot of money into the system can rezone certain pieces of property, which might greatly increase the value of the property and negatively impact the value of the surrounding parcels."
While Houston has no zoning ordinances, it does have land use rules and deed restrictions which have sometimes proven controversial. Still, DeVore says what works for a city of about 30,000 like Alvin would not work in a city of some 3-million like Houston. "The big danger in adopting a zoning ordinance (in a place like Houston) is going to be a lot of people with money who are going to be highly incentivized to influence the zoning decisions of any city that's seeking to apply zoning retroactively," he says.
"I don't see it ever happening in Houston because it's just worked so well for so long with the existing process," he continues. "But in other cities that are considering it, I see it as perhaps a bigger fight."
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