“To compete successfully in the age of talent, regions must make quality of place a central element of economic development efforts.”
-Richard Florida, in Competing in the Age of TalentBy David Crossley
The single most transformative action that could be taken in our region is to begin an intensely public comprehensive planning process for the City of Houston. A group called 1000 Friends of Houston that supports the Livable Houston Initiative will act during September to bring that idea into the public discussion. That basic proposal is near the end of this argument.
Why do we need a comprehensive plan?
The reason to create a plan is for the benefit of two groups: people who live here and people who don’t, but might visit or move here.
Everyone working and living in Houston wants a high quality of life with broad choices for living, working, and playing. Parents want that for their children, and their grandchildren.
Businesses and other organizations want to attract and keep the talented people we need to compete in the new economy.
Fiscal responsibility requires a comprehensive plan in order to make efficient use of public assets to create and maintain the complex physical, financial, and service infrastructure for quality private development in an environment of predictability and fairness.
No prudent business or major institution would consider operating without a plan. Our last valid comprehensive plan was published in 1929.
In any event, a comprehensive planning process is mandated by Chapter 33 of the City charter.
What is a comprehensive plan?
It is an official public document adopted as legal policy to guide decisions about physical development. A modern comprehensive plan is the result of a public process that reflects citizen values and wisdom about principles and goals to make our city a more attractive place.
It’s about efficient, fair, creative, and productive use of our taxes to make a safe, interesting, innovative city with a wide variety of choices.
It encompasses all demographic and geographic parts of the community and addresses all interdependent quality of life issues simultaneously, including land use, environment, transportation, and public facilities.
It’s the basis for effective government.
What are the benefits?
The greatest benefit is the process itself, the collaboration of citizens to define a shared vision for our future. But there are many others, including these:
- better use and management of public resources
- a more predictable pattern of growth and efficient land use
- protection and revitalization of neighborhoods
- greater stability for communities
- control of visual blight
- protection of our natural resources, especially air and water.
Who decides what’s in this plan?
The process must be open to anyone who lives within the City. A team of professionals facilitates the process, but the final plan is derived from the visions of the participants. It can be exciting, rewarding – and difficult.
Elements of the plan will pass through many filters, including City Council. Ultimately, the plan should go to the voters, so it is critical that everyone involved be committed to work toward broad agreement, then work to communicate the plan to the voters.
The point is to reflect, as accurately as possible, the fullest set of principles and goals that can survive broad public scrutiny.
How do you create a comprehensive plan?
Comprehensive planning is a serious endeavor requiring resources, time, and the involvement of many people. It should be a concerted, efficient effort over approximately a year. The resources include innovative, skilled professional consultants and planning staff. A modern planning process alternates between citizen input and professional design work.
Is this about the Z word?
No, this isn’t about zoning - it’s about devising a vision and a plan. Personally – and here some members of the 1000 Friends group disagree - I think it should be largely about the public realm – the streets and sidewalks, parks and squares, public buildings, public transit, public housing, provision of services, water drainage, and much more. A comprehensive set of principles, performance standards, and design guidelines to guide public investment would have a powerful effect on the quality of the city.
Modern planning principles actually struggle against traditional zoning that separates uses and make our daily lives less convenient, less equitable, and more expensive. But no one can foresee what our common desires may be, and a variety of tools including those we use now in our development and building codes will be needed to achieve those desires. In any event, the whole community will decide.
How is this different from Imagine Houston?
In the mid-90s, a great many people participated in a long and difficult process called Imagine Houston, and nearly all of them were profoundly disappointed in the outcome. In many ways, Imagine Houston could have been the start of a comprehensive planning process, although it didn’t appear to have any sort of real plan as it goal. Ultimately, the public officials who could have brought some of those visions into being chose to reject the enormous amount of work by citizens, it joined many other reports on shelves somewhere. From my own experience with Imagine Houston, I would also say it wasn’t conducted in a professional, efficient way, and the biases of some of the leaders were overwhelming in at least some of the groups. But it was still a beginning, and looking back on the visions brought forward during Imagine Houston is an excellent place to start this new process.
The proposal:
Here is the basic proposal put forward by 1000 Friends of Houston:
A process should immediately begin in the City of Houston to produce a modern, citizen-focused comprehensive plan for the next 20-30 years to be submitted to the voters in November 2003.
The plan should be accompanied by a new development code that helps implement it. The new code should be voluntary for development in the private realm and mandatory wherever public assets are at risk and in all city departments, agencies, and partnerships
.
Upon approval of the plan and code by the voters, work should begin to produce and deploy an incentive program for use of the code in the private realm.
The plan must reflect citizen values and wisdom about principles and goals to make our city a more attractive place to live and visit.
We need a plan that encourages a future in which economy, equity, and environment are in balance, and in which we meet our needs without compromising the needs of future generations. We need to leverage our assets to create the kind of community character desired by many people, beginning with the ones who live here today.
One of the great benefits of cities is the innovation that results from open exchanges of many kinds. Diversity of cultures and views in an atmosphere that encourages creativity is what produces innovation, and innovation produces wealth. It is clearly time for some innovative planning in the City of Houston.
To make this happen will require spectacular citizen support, particularly from neighborhood leaders.
Peter Brown, AIA
James Hill, AIA
Texas Study - Klineberg