Land Use Quiz 2

Rise and Fall of the American Industrial City

Mallach

Pruitt-Igoe

Marshall

A Decade of Urban Transformation - transit, disaster recovery, and retirement neighborhoods

E. Badger

What is redlining?

Jackson

More Americans are Living in Wildfire Areas

Rojanasakul and Plumer

America Is Lying to Itself About the Cost of Disasters

Schlangrer

Stop Building in Floodplains

Palmer

What Is Zoning Reform and Why Do We Need It?

Sisson

How Parking Reform Is Helping Transform American Cities

Grabar

How Amsterdam became the bicycle capital of the world

Van der Zee

Ten features of walkable communities - mixed land use, sidewalks, lower traffic speeds

Steuteville

How Paris Kicked out Cars - bus corridors, tramways, and
subways has caused mass transit ridership to jump by almost 40 percent

Grabar

To Zone or Not to Zone - comparison of European and American zoning 

Hirt

Why America Should Sprawl - more houses to fix affordable housing crisis

Dougherty

Sprawl Is Not the Answer to the US Housing Crisis - housing density for housing shortage and minimize environmental impacts

Nanavatty

Cancel Zoning - to fix the housing-affordability crisis, segregation

Gray

Parking reform that could transform Manhattan - charging for curb parking and spending the revenue on public services will help most lower-income people in the Upper West Side

Shoup

Walkable City: How Downtown can Save America

Speck

Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability

Owen

Origins and Implications of American Land Use Regulations

Sonia Hirt

Moving away from single-family zoning (Minneapolis

Badger and Bui

Urban Land Use Responses

Regulation, Redevelopment, and Relocation

Congestion and Pollution

Urban Issues

Housing Act of 1949 - Demolished more houses than it built - created scarcity segregation/gentrification

Low Income Housing Tax Credit - Created by the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (provides tax credit for rental housing targeted to

Regulation

Created high rise public housing in major cities

Failed Pruitt-Igoe Model

Suburbanization, as promoted by federal policies on taxation, housing, lending and highways

Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Cities   

Industrial Suburbs (railroad, streetcar, automobile)

Relocation

Office parks, housing subdivisions, shopping centers, lack of civic institutions and roads

What is sprawl?

Government policies, Market, Conspiracy

Sprawl Causes

FHA changed mortgage terms - reduced downpayment and increased loan timeline

Urban renewal programs

Interstate Highway Act

Sprawl government policies

National City Lines - bought out over 100 streetcar lines in 45 cities and converted them to car roads

Sprawl Conspiracy

Cramped, multi-family housing for the poor constructed by public institutions

Single family homes for white families constructed by private developers with government support

Government Tiered Housing Solutions

Made commuting to cities from urban areas easier and encouraged moving to suburbs

Displaced black communities

Federal Highway Act of 1956

Increased driving

Isolation – particularly for those who can’t drive

Increased pollution and carbon emissions

Excessive parking

Stormwater runoff

Obesity

Consequences of Sprawl

States have authority to protect the health, safety and welfare

States can delegate that authority to municipalities

Standard Zoning Enabling Act (1926) - If states adopted, local governments could determine their own zoning

Authority to Zone

Regulates type, size, location, and intensity of development

Zoning

Eliminate requirements for off-street parking.

Charge the right prices for on-street parking.

Spend the parking revenue to improve public services on the metered streets

Donald Shoup’s Recommendations

Promotes driving and sprawl by separating uses

Increases stormwater runoff

Makes places less walkable

Opportunity costs

Contributes to heat island

Increases the cost of housing and goods

Impacts of Parking

Minimum parking requirements – parking standards, rather than the market, dictate the amount of parking

Why so much parking?

To compete with the suburbs by being more like them

Urban renewal - replace neighborhoods with parking

Interstate highways

Loss of downtowns

Provision must be made for changing the regulations as conditions change or new conditions arise.

Zoning Flexibility

For hardship cases

Not for a change in use

Zoning Variance

A formal change to the zoning ordinance for an area not one parcel and must be approved by a local elected body

Zoning Amendment

Usually not listed in zoning ordinance as allowed or prohibited within a specific zone

Conditional Use Permit

Simplicity and predictability.

Segregates incompatible land uses

Protects residential property values

Zoning Advantages

Interferes with the market

Difficult to know in advance the best future uses of a site

Can be exclusionary/inflexible

Zoning Disadvantages

The US has no federal land use law, plan or agency

US Zoning

Germany has Federal law that establishes 4 land use classes: residential, mixed, commercial and special.

These are divided into 10 subclasses. All allow mixed uses. No exclusive residential zones

German Zoning

Local governments can apportion land among different zones, but local plans require approval from Tokyo

Has 12 zones

No districts/zones that are exclusively residential

Houses and schools are allowed in every zone except exclusively industrial zone

Japanese Zoning

Zoning and Redlining

Federal Policies & Programs Promoting Segregation

FHA underwrote housing loans in white-only neighborhoods and restricted investment in black neighborhoods

Redlining

a legally enforceable contract imposed in a deed on the buyer of property

Restrictive Covenants

Many land uses prohibited in white neighborhoods were allowed in minority communities

Expulsive Zoning

Prosperous black neighborhood but was demolished to build the Ida Wells Homes (public housing with no funding for upkeep)

Bronzeville, Chicago Public Housing

Purchased existing mortgages that were at risk of default, issued new ones with more favorable terms. 

Color coded investment maps

Home Ownership Loan Corporation (1933)

Established the Federal Housing Administration

Provided mortgage guarantees to lenders who followed federal standards

Standardized the 30-year mortgage

FHA underwriting rules cemented existing patterns of racial segregation

National Housing Act (1934)

Until the 1950s, the federal government played a limited role in disaster recovery, which was viewed as a state/local responsibility

Reactive policy enactment (policies changed after disasters)

Federal Disaster Policies

Insurance available for communities adopt and enforce floodplain management ordinances that meet federal standards

National Flood Insurance

Not actuarially sound (premiums don’t cover losses)

Program has been in debt since Hurricane Katrina

Encourages development in floodplains

Repetitive losses

Maps often inaccurate

National Flood Insurance Weaknesses

Eliminated by President Trump

Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC)

Disaster Recovery and Reform Act of 2018

FEMA offers grants to affected areas covered by Presidential Disaster Declaration

Pre-disaster Assistance, called BRIC

Requires 25% financial match from local government

Must have FEMA-approved Hazard Mitigation Plan in place

Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (post-disaster)

Link flood insurance to restrictions on future floodplain development

Set premiums to reflect actual flood risk; don’t subsidize insurance rates

Test the program in one or two markets before going national

Gilbert White’s Recommendations for NFIP (1966)

In trying to make hazard-prone areas safer for development, government policies made them targets for catastrophes

Safe development paradox 

Local governments adopt policies to limit development in vulnerable areas after these areas have already been developed

Local development paradox

Eliminate single-family-only zoning

Promote missing middle housing

Allow accessory dwelling units

Abolish parking minimums

Zone for adaptive reuse

Embrace state preemption

Reduce minimum lot sizes

Local Code Reform

American households are shrinking

Older populations

Demand for smaller homes, lower living costs, walkable neighborhoods, and places for people to age in place… Yet zoning across the U.S. largely discourages these features

Need for Reform

Allowed transit oriented development

Allowing ADUs in low-density areas

You could add 500,000 units - identify underutilized land: vacant lots, single-story retail, offices that could be converted to apartments

NYC Zoning Reform

US is generally opposed to regulation but loves zoning

Zoning is supposed to promote public health but instead dirty industries locate in poor residential neighborhoods and has led to other public health issues such as obesity

Zoning Paradoxes

Comprise over 80% of public space in a city, yet most streets are designed primarily to move cars

Purpose of a Street

Spatial Enclosure

Comfortable

Safe

Connected

Interesting

Useful

Design Principles for Walkable Streets

The Jokinen Plan - extensive highways (only partially happened)

Today - 38% of all trips are made by bikes

Amsterdam Case Study

Infrastructure

Safe

Connected

Accessible

Convenient

Bike Features

Funded primarily by the federal government: FEMA/HUD

Voluntary – homeowners paid pre-flood, fair market value

Homes demolished (or moved) and land set aside permanently as open space

Buyouts

Moves people out of harm’s way

Returns floodplains to their natural stat

Buyout Pros

Uncertainty and long lead times

Checkerboard pattern limits use

Impact on the community

Low-income residents often left out

Buyout Cons

After 1953 flood they built extensive levees - leads to land reclamation

Nederland Case Study