Hearing Without Listening IV
Independent Reinforcement for What You Read Last Time
I didn’t intend the Hearing Without Listening series to have four parts. But Brian Goggin’s recent (March 17) newsletter, “Why does rezoning cost so much?” provides the perfect explanation of why communities should take my advice to stop using zoning map amendments as the principal way in which development is permitted. You can find his detailed account of the costs of the rezoning process in Arlington County, VA at: https://substack.com/@housinginpractice/p-191084822.
What Brian documents is startling, but as I explained in Hearing Without Listening III (the March 11 edition of this newsletter), it doesn’t have to be that way. If your community wants to facilitate housing construction, it can implement two strategies.
(1) Zone for change, as explained in my last newsletter. This will require a well-designed, somewhat unconventional planning effort and the ability to navigate controversy. But the upshot will be that reasonable housing choices are made lawful upfront wherever the landscape and infrastructure support them. Modest additions to the housing stock (the “next increment” that Strong Towns folks like to talk about) can be by-right.
(2) Beyond that, my experience is that being accountable requires letting citizens contribute to the conversation about how major change will happen. No one likes a “black box” process, but well managed quasi-judicial review for major projects will inform and involve people without the free-for-all of a legislative hearing. It is my experience that a project that sounds overwhelming may quickly shrink to fit when people see how it provides tangible community benefits. You have to keep the process focused strictly on compliance. If that’s difficult where you are, explore using a hearing examiner.
I understand that my condensing 50 years of experience into the 160 words above leaves some questions open or, at least, in need of more detailed answers. If you want to hear more after reading this and the previous installments of Hearing Without Listening, pose your questions in the comments. I will respond.
As long as I’m writing, here’s some Good News! I am unsure how to navigate between the thousands of ongoing and often successful efforts to make our country a better place and the utter selfishness of our alleged national leaders. I suspect many of you share this dissonance. I collect items for this feature to help me stay hopeful.
· Compass Vermont (1) reports outstanding results from a recent lake clean-up effort.
· Nolan Gray’s recent post (2), “Where Are All the Cranes” and some of the comments on it show the maturation (and success) of the YIMBY movement in California, and from what I can tell, elsewhere. To quote:
There is still a lot of work to be done on zoning and streamlining in California. But at California YIMBY, our policy focus in the coming sessions is shifting toward making housing financially feasible to build. It’s all well and good if zoning allows housing, and the permitting process is reasonably fast and predictable. But if projects don’t pencil, none of this matters.
· A project I am eager to see built out is the conversion of the hulking former Oval Wood Dish factory in Tupper Lake, NY to housing (3). This will be a big small town housing victory. Folks constantly carp about the State of New York (which has its liabilities), but there are not many other places where local efforts like this have such substantial state support.
· Land conservation continues apace on Whidbey Island (4). And elsewhere. If you haven’t thought of it this way, allow me to point out that while Burgrum, Rollins, and others strive to give away the public domain, communities everywhere are constantly working to expand it.
What’s Next? I’m working on the next edition, which is tentatively titled “Building in a Landscape of Stories,” and finding it harder than I thought to convincingly say something that has always seemed obvious to me. We’ll see how it reads. In the meantime, thanks to all my subscribers!
(1) Read about the cleanup of Lake Carmi at:
(2) Catch up on California YIMBY action at:
.
(3) Learn about the reuse of the Oval Wood Dish Factory at:
https://www.adirondackexplorer.org/communities/housing/oval-wood-dish-project-tupper-lake-housing/
(4) And follow the success of a local land trust at:
As usual with you, Lee, this was insightful and helpful. There aren't many of you around who have witnessed – and participated in – serious conversations around zoning.