Category: zoning

Open Streets, funding culture and arts, densifying single-family zoning, etc.

This photo shows the event known as Manhattanhenge, when the setting sun aligns with the east-west street grid in New York City. I took it July 12, 2018, at Rockefeller Plaza in midtown Manhattan. It has nothing to do with this blogpost. I just like the picture. And I like the idea of Manhattanhenge, named after England’s Stonehenge. And I like a good street grid.

I haven’t posted for weeks, due to a variety of life events including travel, the flu and a death in the family.

So to give Naked City Blog readers something to read that is not Trump news, here’s some of my writing from recent months published in The Charlotte Observer and Charlotte Five, which some non-Charlotte readers may not have seen:

How should Charlotte pay for the arts?

Does Charlotte really need an environment committee?

This festival is just the start of opening up Charlotte’s streets

The racist roots of single-family zoning

Has Charlotte single-family home market revived?

Tree down at site of old Charlotte Coliseum, once slated for mixed-use development. Photo: Nancy Pierce

Mecklenburg Times reporter Tony Brown pored through five years’ worth of housing permit records and concluded that July 2012, with 283 single-family housing permits, was the best July for home construction in Mecklenburg County since 2008. Maybe, he suggests, the housing bust has ended.

Construction of single-family homes is almost back to 2008 levels, when 304 similar permits were issued, Brown reports.

His article, “Residential revelry,”  is behind a pay wall, so only Mecklenburg Times subscribers can read it.

It will be interesting to see how development in the county and nearby areas plays out in coming years. Plenty of academics and others have analyzed the housing market and concluded that the country is overbuilt with single-family housing, given demographic trends (aging boomers, for instance) and modern lifestyle preferences. Will Gen Y-ers opt for suburban tract houses as they move into their 30s and 40s and start to have children? Or will they decide they can still have the urban lifestyles they’re seeking now and raise children in the city?

Will planners and elected officials allow an overbuilt single-family home market to get even more over-built, as they did for a couple of decades worth of commercial space, with the carcasses of failed stores hurting multiple thoroughfares and neighborhoods in Charlotte? Or is Charlotte a healthy enough market that housing won’t be overbuilt?

One note to consider: Unless Charlotte-Mecklenburg changes the land development rules, the question of overbuilding is mostly moot. Most subdivisions don’t need a City Council rezoning to get built; they just have to get planners’ administrative approvals for following the subdivision ordinance (and other permits, of course).

Another note to consider: A recent study found the city’s families more “asset-poor” than the state average. In Charlotte, 36 percent of residents lack a basic financial cushion to survive for three months at the poverty line if they were to lose their primary source of income.That compares to 30 percent statewide and 29 percent nationally. What do trends such as that portend for the city’s ability to absorb more single-family housing?

Final note: Remember that city of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County are not exactly the same territory.

Media-watchers with good memories will recall Tony Brown’s years as theater and arts reporter for the Charlotte Observer. He has spent more than a decade at the Cleveland Plain Dealer but has recently moved back to Charlotte for family reasons. Follow him on Twitter at @tonymecktimes.)

The feel-good story that isn’t

If you read the recent Charlotte Observer article, “All signs point to Peachtree Hills on the rebound,” you read about much admirable work from the City of Charlotte and nonprofit groups. The city committed almost a half-million dollars to help the foreclosure- and crime-plagued subdivision.

According to reporters Kirstin Valle Pittman and Peter St. Onge, the city improved curbs and sidewalks, helped residents form a strong neighborhood group and helped win a $75,000 grant for a new playground. Charlotte-Mecklenburg police have worked hard, too, and report crime down 70 percent over last year; residential break-ins are down 88 percent. And home values are rising. The average selling price this year is $77,300, up from $68,670 last year.  The nonprofit groups Self-Help and Habitat for Humanity are hard at work. Durham-based Self-Help has bought 33 Peachtree Hills homes, to refurbish and sell to buyers whom the group believes can avoid future foreclosures.  Habitat has built seven new homes and bought five foreclosure houses for resale.

It’s a nice, feel-good story. Except.

Except that it exposes a huge flaw in the process by which development takes place in Charlotte. It makes you wonder: Why city officials in their right minds would vote to approve the building of mile after mile after mile of rock-bottom-cost subdivisions, right next to each, other across a large arc of west, north and east Charlotte? Having so much low-cost housing in close proximity made the whole area vulnerable to foreclosures and the attendant problems when the national blight of subprime lending, mortgage fraud, financial market misdeeds, and then unemployment hammered Charlotte.

A 2007 Charlotte Observer article (“New suburbs in fast decay”) noted that from 1997 to 2007, starter homes (so-called because their low prices attract buyers just starting in home-ownership) accounted for one-half of all single-family homes built in Charlotte between I-85 and the northern city limits. They made up fully a third of all single-family homes in Charlotte built south of I-85. By late 2007 – BEFORE the big crash in late 2008 – the Observer’s analysis found more than 50 neighborhoods with elevated foreclosure rates of 15 percent to 61 percent. Virtually all were new starter-home subdivisions.

Could it happen today? Have Charlotte’s leaders – from pols to planners – learned from what happened during that decade from the late ’90s until the crash, when that vast cluster of low-income housing spread  across the city’s northern edge?

I fear that, yes, the same thing could happen today. Part of the reason is the way growth is managed (or not) in Charlotte; part of the reason is just the way land prices work. If the market magically revived (not likely for a while, to be sure), dozens more subdivision-building bottom-feeders could probably erect multiple subdivisions of the cheapest materials, in the worst places, all next to one another. In most cases no rezoning is needed, because most undeveloped property in Charlotte years ago was zoned for single-family subdivisions (R-3, R-4, etc.). An estimated 75 percent of the subdivisions built in Charlotte in those boom years needed no rezoning; elected officials had no chance to say yes or no. All the developers needed was to follow the city’s subdivision ordinance and meet the standards in the zoning ordinance. Auto-pilot insta-growth.

As it happens, the developer of Peachtree Hills, built starting in 2003, did need a rezoning. Triven Properties got a rezoning from R-4 (four houses per acre) to R-6 (CD), almost exactly 10 years ago. The City Council on Sept. 17, 2001, voted unanimous approval for the rezoning.

So, what should change? It’s not an easy question to answer. One reason is that low-cost new development  gravitates toward places where land costs are lower. Putting up more low-end development tends to create more of the same, just as putting up high-end development drives up land values. Should government intervene in this process, and if so, how best to do it?

And the problem isn’t low-cost housing per se. It’s the large-scale clustering of housing all aimed at the same income level – in typical suburban-sprawl layouts that force every resident to own a car and drive everywhere. In any event, elected officials aren’t allowed to – and shouldn’t – decide rezonings based on the price level of the proposed housing. And there IS a huge need in Charlotte for dwelling places that more people can afford. (I do keep wondering, though, why this problem isn’t also being addressed at the wage-level end, instead of only at the housing-cost end. Low wages are the He Who Shall Not Be Named in Charlotte’s whole community housing discussion.)

It seems to me any answer must come from multiple places: revamped subdivision and zoning ordinances, maybe removing the no-rezoning-needed incentive that exists now for sprawl development on greenfield sites and giving more incentive to the infill, mixed-use development that the city prefers but that today must jump though multiple hoops.

I’m not saying I know what the answer ought to be. But this I am sure of: More smart people in this city ought to be trying to find some answers – and now, while development is slow and there’s time to explore and, yes, while the sector of the development industry that depends on suburban-sprawl subdivisions is in a weakened condition, which levels the playing field with other development players.

It’s admirable that so many people, with public and private dollars and unmeasurable volunteer time and energy, have tried to help Peachtree Hills and other such subdivisions, such as Windy Ridge, and that their efforts seem to be succeeding. But the true measure of success ought to be figuring out how to avoid building any more neighborhoods that will simply replicate the problems of Peachtree Hills.

Photo: Windy Ridge, another foreclosure-plagued Charlotte subdivision. (Photo: Keihly Moore / Liz Shockey, UNC Charlotte) 

Progressive zoning plans – not here

The city of Miami last night adopted a zoning code overhaul, called Miami 21. Here’s the Miami Herald article on it. Why should folks around here care? Here’s why:

The new zoning overhaul is what’s called a “form-based code.” Raleigh is about to write one. Cabarrus County already has one. So does Davidson. Miami is the largest city, so far, to adopt one, but Denver is likely to adopt its own comprehensive form-based code in a matter of months, says blogger Mike Lydon. It’s an approach to zoning that many progressive cities are taking on. Should Charlotte?

A form-based code bases rules that govern planning and zoning on buildings’ form, not their use. In other words, what goes on inside a building (residence? office? store?) is less important than how the building fits in with what’s around it.

For instance, it says parking lots have to be behind new buildings, and the buildings have to sit at the sidewalk – which makes walking down the sidewalk more attractive, thus encouraging people to walk instead of drive.

Form-based codes also generally use an approach with a weird-sounding name that makes plenty of sense – a “transect.” It means you look at which areas are intensely urban, or completely rural, or somewhere in between and design things such as streets, sidewalks, even storm water management, based on how urban or suburban or rural an area is. It prevents, for instance, plopping a highway designed for intercity travel (think I-277) into a dense urban core. To move traffic there, it would say, use a high-capacity boulevard. (Think Champs-Elysee.)

Just as important, when adopted, a form based code is a plan with teeth. It overlays the city’s expectations for urban density or suburban density or rural density onto the whole jurisdiction, complete with the zoning rules that govern those areas. So the “plan” isn’t just a guideline but is a legal requirement. Imagine that!

One of the leaders of Miami’s effort was the dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, a luminary in the New Urbanism movement.

Here’s a link to the Web site for the code itself. And if it rains today and you’re looking for some meaty reading, here’s the pdf for the code itself.

Growing church vs. historic bungalows

It was easily the most interesting of the rezoning cases the City Council heard last night – and the one that brings up the trickiest issue of the evening: What rules, if any, should the city have to limit institutions that encroach into neighborhoods? And how do you deal with big ugly surface parking lots? They’re not pedestrian-friendly, nor do they contribute to the much-loved-by-planners “vibrant urban village.” They’re also polluters, due to polluted storm runoff.

A church in the Wilmore neighborhood wants to expand and build a large new building and a big surface parking lot on a street now holding several historic bungalows. (By “historic,” here, I don’t mean designated landmarks or in a designated historic district, simply a neighborhood that dates to the turn of the 19th-20th century and has an ambiance akin to Dilworth, Elizabeth and Wesley Heights.) The church has said it won’t demolish the five houses but will move them to other property it owns.

The matter was a public hearing on zoning case 2008-158. The council vote should come next month.

Several things made this an interesting presentation. First, the council chamber was virtually filled with members of the church, Greater Galilee Baptist Church, whose current sanctuary (shown above, photo courtesy of the church) is on South Mint Street at West Park Avenue.

Second, one speaker in favor of rezoning had a great line: “We, as people, are in noncompliance. With Jesus.”

Yet opponents had some good points: Why should a church be allowed to remove five houses and put up a surface parking lot? As neighbor Chip Cannon put it, this would be putting “a suburban mega-church in the center of a small-scale pedestrian neighborhood.”

Some political realities are in order. This church is African American. Two at-large council members are running for mayor and both want African American votes (though black candidate Anthony Foxx has an edge there). Among nine at-large candidates (for four slots), three of the four Democrats are African American. Two at-large incumbents – Democrat Susan Burgess and Republican Edwin Peacock – will have to vote on this petition. Burgess, in particular, will want as many Democratic votes as she can get in November. If she faces black voters’ triple-shotting for the three black at-large candidates, she’ll have a problem.

Another political reality: No one wants to vote against a church, especially an obviously growing church. Maybe they’d do that in some other city in some other state, but in oh-so-Christian Charlotte? Not on your (eternal) life.

Yet another political reality: How fair would it be to crack down on an African American church when Carolinas Medical Center has been allowed to devour vast tracts of Dilworth with, near as I can tell, hardly a peep of protest from the city? And the affluent and predominantly white Myers Park United Methodist plopped a surface parking lot (nicely landscaped, though) at the prime corner of Providence-Providence-Queens-Queens. No one told them, “No.” (Note to out-of-town readers: That intersection is for real. Don’t even ask.)

Final political reality: I chanced to be sitting near Planning Director Debra Campbell and asked if there were any zoning standards that said you can’t put in a parking lot, and she said, only in the UMUD (uptown) zoning. I asked if planners had considered cracking down on surface parking lots in other zoning categories. She just laughed – heartily, I must add – and said, “No way.”

The Central Avenue challenge

Wonderful discussion about retrofitting suburbia. If you haven’t read the comments, I recommend them.

Retrofitting can be expensive for taxpayers, when a city has to build sidewalks, add storm drains and so on. The city’s changes in recent years — requiring sidewalks, better street designs, etc. — help with new construction only. Even the city’s admirable, if slow-moving, sidewalk-building gets at only part of the problem.

Most of the potential retrofitting happens as part of the natural economic evolution of a city: A business closes, another business buys the building and renovates it, or tears it down and build again. Or a business expands its building.

The city’s passivity is hurting those small-scale opportunities all over town. Here are two examples, both a couple of years old, are the Bank of America branch at Kings Drive and Charlottetowne Avenue (a.k.a. the old Independence Boulevard), and the Bojangles at Third Street and Charlottetowne. Plenty of other examples abound all over the city, especially along the so-called International corridor of Central Avenue, between Eastway Drive and Eastland Mall.

That branch bank and the Bojangles are welcome businesses. I just spent a year in Massachusetts, suffering withdrawal from good fried chicken and biscuits, so believe me, I value Bojangles. The bank replaced one that was demolished for the Little Sugar Creek Greenway and was needed in the neighborhood.

BUT … The two buildings — not the businesses within, but the buildings and lot designs — are awful for the location. They’re suburban in design — one-story buildings with deep setbacks from the street and huge parking lots out front. They’re unsuitable for an in-town location, especially an area where other developers are trying to build more urban patterns. Those two small buildings should have helped with the urban retrofit of Midtown area, yet they didn’t. Why not?

The city’s old-fashioned zoning codes are to blame. Although I often praise the city’s planners for devising a variety of urban codes in the past 10 or 15 years (MUDD, PED, TOD, etc.) those standards apply only to property that holds that zoning. If your property has the older, suburban-style business zoning (B-1 or B-2) you can build suburbia with no trouble from the city. You’re virtually required to, in fact, because of the required setbacks and buffers. You have an economic incentive as well, because going through a rezoning costs money. Keeping your old zoning doesn’t.

Plenty of other examples abound along Central Avenue. Small owners, small buildings, and old zoning codes add up to lost opportunities for small retrofitting steps over time.

If you’re one of the hundreds of people deeply wishing to see a Central Avenue revitalization, you should push the city to change its B-1 zoning standards. I’m getting tired of visionary plans that don’t address this issue. Central Avenue still looks like bedraggled suburbia because the underlying rules that govern building designs haven’t changed under the old zoning that exists along Central Avenue. To change the way things look, change the rules that govern how things look.

(UPDATE as of 7:30 p.m.: Got an e-mail this afternoon that said the city had adopted a PED overlay for Central Avenue. If that’s the case it would do exactly what I’m hoping for — require more urban-style development. But I can’t find it listed on the planning department’s web page. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but means I can’t, tonight, confirm or deny it.)

And before you go off about how the city shouldn’t set design standards, let me just open your eyes to the reality that B-1 zoning, which requires deep setbacks, is less favorable to property owners than a zoning that would allow them to build closer to the property line and cover more of the land with buildings and less with setbacks and buffers. If you’re required to keep 35 feet of property vacant in front, you can’t build as much income-producing square-footage as if you’re required to keep only 15 feet of property vacant in front. I’m not proposing ADDING a lot of design controls, only altering the ones that already exist.

Charlotte pols lack guts?

It’s obvious Charlotte-Mecklenburg isn’t the only place slammed by growth that’s outpacing its ability — or at least its willingness to raise property taxes enough — to pay for building the schools needed for all the newcomers.

A total of 46 — FORTY SIX — bills in the General Assembly would give local governments across the state new authority to levy taxes beyond property taxes. Other places want permission to enact land transfer taxes, which adds a fee to real estate transactions. Or they want permission to levy impact fees on new residential construction. Or they want permission to raise sales taxes to help pay for building schools.

WakeUp Wake County, a group that advocates more limits on growth, recently hired a well-known lobbyist to push a fee of up to 1 percent on real estate transfers. At least three Wake County legislators have sponsored bills to let Wake enact some new taxes, if voters approve.

What’s Mecklenburg County asking for? Nada. Zip. Zilcheroonie. (OK, to be fair, I think they passed a resolution supporting an N.C. Association of County Commissioners’ attempt to get broad permission for all counties. But that bill’s going nowhere, and other counties have been far more assertive about asking the Leg for what they need.)

What’s Charlotte asking for? Nada. (Nope, the city doesn’t pay for schools. It does pay for road and street improvements made necessary by new development. Why not ask for an impact fee for street improvements?)

Here’s a roundup story from the Raleigh News & Observer. It mentions the massive campaign being sponsored by the N.C. Association of Realtors, to “Stop the N.C. Home Tax.”

How disingenuous. Let’s see. Right now, school construction is paid for mostly through bonds or other debt, which is repaid with, hmmmm, let me get this right — property taxes. So a real estate transfer tax — which would apply to every transaction, not just homes — is a “Home Tax.” And the tax you pay because you own your home is NOT a “Home Tax”?

The thing is, when you ask representatives of the N.C. Association of Realtors, “Well, how do you propose that counties find money to build schools? Shall we infer that this means you support raising property taxes?” they just hem and haw.

Or, they say, governments should trim their budgets. Oh, for pity’s sakes. That’s like saying Americans should exercise more and watch less TV and parents should teach their kids better manners. In other words, yes they should, but they haven’t done it yet and are most unlikely to do it in the future, because there’s no way to make them.

Furthermore, I don’t think county governments can cut enough to find the billions needed to build the schools they need. What are they going to do, stop paying for social services that they’re legally required to provide? Stop running public health departments? People who say “just cut the budget” either don’t know much about local government budgets or are among the tiny minority who believe that virtually no government services are really needed. And the majority of voters don’t agree with them. Which is why it’s hard for elected officials to cut services enough to find the money to build schools.

Why are Mecklenburg’s local officials so much more passive about proposing impact fees or land transfer taxes than those in Wake? Any ideas?