Growing Pains Dictate Shift in City Strategy

Houston Business Journal - Friday, May 30, 2008

 There has been much debate recently about the future course of our great city.

What kind of city do we want in 15 to 20 years? Do we relax and hope for the best, or do we become more proactive in addressing our many familiar challenges and shaping the future all of us want.

What about traffic congestion, crime on the streets, flooding, rising taxes, blight and neighborhood intrusion, air pollution, better schools and health care?

Yes, we have "growth pains." Houston has enormous potential in this exciting global economy. It is critically important, however, that the city itself remain the vital, prosperous core of our rapidly growing metropolitan region.

While the Houston region is the sixth-fastest growing in the United States, the city proper lags well behind. Over the past five years, only about 12 percent of the population increase, 23 percent of the new jobs and 20 percent of the new housing starts occurred within Houston's city limits.

What about the rising cost of living? While housing remains affordable, Houstonians may be shocked to learn that our cost of living, when combined with transportation expenses, is about the same as Boston and higher than Phoenix, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta and Miami.

Houston has the highest transportation costs of any U.S. city at $12,000 per year per household. Sprawl is a direct cause of high transportation costs. With gasoline prices headed for $10 per gallon, are we preparing ourselves for the inevitable change in lifestyles?

The remedy, in part, is a new level of planning, regional coordination and a strong commitment to rail transit expansion.

A better planned street network and better subdivision layouts would make Houston a safer, more efficient city -- very good news to the taxpayers, who have to foot the bills.

Houston's growth is increasingly unpredictable, in contrast to Sugar Land, Pearland, The Woodlands and our own master-planned communities.

Many city property owners never know what might be built next door -- a nightclub, adult entertainment business, or high-rise overshadowing a neighborhood of single-family homes.

We want to encourage more growth, quality growth, especially higher density, mixed-use projects, in places where they make sense. This is where better planning fits in. Our growing pains must be dealt with in a comprehensive way, not with more Band-Aids and reactive, stop-gap ordinances.

A majority of Houstonians now feel that many of our problems can be attributed to the need for more planning, higher standards and informed urban design.

I tend to agree. That's why the City of Houston needs a pro-growth agenda, based on an outcomes-driven vision and plan. Here is what we can do starting now:

• Overhaul the city development ordinances. Our land development codes are obsolete, largely reactive and complaint-driven. We suffer from "regulation by citizen protest," no fun for either citizens or developers, who often face the daunting maze of permitting problems, time delays and excessive variances.

A "Consolidated Development Code" would streamline our permitting process, providing the predictability property owners and investors want.

In addition, regulations should focus on incentives and options, rather than restrictions. Any new standards should be pro-growth, pro-business, pro-"green" and pro-neighborhoods.

• Adopt a Houston general development plan. A citywide general development plan is a powerful and effective management tool, a key element of "transparent" government, sharing with our citizens the priorities and policies for spending tax dollars.

The emphasis must be balanced -- improving the economy, the environment and community life.

Such a plan, reflecting a shared civic vision, is essential to coordinating transportation, utilities, drainage, infrastructure improvements, the expansion of our parks and green space network and the location of community facilities such as libraries.

As well, the plan can rationalize our investments in housing and in neighborhood revitalization, and be a vital tool in coordinating city efforts with Harris County and other governmental entities, including meeting critical air quality standards.

To implement the plan, a business-friendly City Economic Development Office should be expanded to assist and attract developers, business interests and investors to the city.

• Fix the details. Attention to the details of our physical fabric is critical, especially the urban streetscape. It is not uncommon to find utility poles in sidewalks or dangerously close to the curb.

Add in the tangle of familiar overhead wires and transformers, and the result is an unsightly embarrassment to our city. This is one example of how we need to set standards for how our city functions and looks.

We need to improve the design and maintenance of the public realm -- streets, curbs, parking, drainage, landscaping, sidewalks, lighting, signs and the placement of utilities, particularly overhead poles, transformers and wires.

As an At-Large Houston City Council Member, I attend some kind of civic gathering practically every day. My office receives hundreds of constituent calls and e-mails daily from business owners and citizens.

Concerns are voiced about traffic and illegal parking, crime on the streets (often in the open), trash in ditches, blight and neighborhood deterioration. There are many calls about flooding, poorly regulated nuisances and helter-skelter development.

Houstonians deserve solutions to these growth pains. I am constantly impressed by citizens volunteering -- for Citizens on Patrol, community cleanups, youth programs and all sorts of civic gatherings, working to improve the overall appearance of their communities.

As elected officials, we need to listen carefully to the many voices of our citizens and craft a useful road map -- a "blueprint" -- into to the future we want for our city and neighborhoods.

In this new century, the City of Houston stands at the threshold of enormous opportunity. We must compete with cities around the world to attract new talent, investment and businesses.

To maintain our strong economy, to remedy these growth pains and to improve our quality of life, now is the right time for a proactive strategy to plan and build a great world city.

Peter Brown is a second-term Houston City Council Member, a third-generation Houstonian and a nationally recognized architect and urban planner.