An Alternative to a Really Bad Idea

Just when I thought I'd heard it all, the USDA is considering allowing the use of food stamps to buy fast food. This is something we should all fight. There are much better ways to reach the same goals.

The argument in favor of food stamps at fast food restaurants is this: Many poor neighborhoods are "food deserts" - places where fresh produce and other healthy foods are not readily available. While they lack healthy foods, "food deserts" are often well-served by fast food chains. So if we allow food stamps to be used in fast food restaurants, the program has a better chance of reaching the people who need it.

It seems to make sense, but it’s fraught with dangers. If we allow food stamps to be used in fast food restaurants, it will cause all sorts of health problems among our nation's poor. (Remember, these are the people who are least likely to have access to quality health care). It’s also a bad idea from an urban standpoint. It’s a stop-gap measure that fails to address the bigger problem of food deserts.

Instead of allowing food stamps to be used in fast food restaurants, we could use tax credits to lure grocers to food deserts. The tax credits could help grocers make a profit in underserved neighborhoods, where they would lose money otherwise. To get the tax credits, they could have to open a store that’s a certain size, and in a neighborhood that’s been identified as a food desert. To keep the tax credits, they could have to continue to sell fresh produce, and accept food stamps.

It’s not without precedent. We already have New Market Tax Credits (NMTC), and those are sometimes used to build grocery stores. We have Section 42 Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) that are used by developers to build low-income housing. The tax credits that I’m suggesting could be similar, but specifically designed to help grocery stores locate to food deserts.

We could pay for the grocery tax credits with money from the LIHTC program, along USD food stamp money. It’d help ensure that the poor can use food stamps in their own neighborhoods. Instead of just compensating for food deserts, this program would help solve food deserts.

A New Ballgame for Urban Blight in Texas

Some of our biggest Super Neighborhood meetings in Braeburn are on the topic of urban blight. It’s the same in neighborhoods throughout Houston, and I would imagine in other cities throughout Texas. Neighbors are mad about urban blight, and we demand that something be done.

It was never easy for the City to condemn a blighted building. Owners were protected by strong private property rights laws. It took years of negotiation; letters; inspections; court dates; hearings; and lawsuits before a blighted building could be condemned. Now, a Texas Supreme Court case, and a series of new Texas laws are going to make it even more difficult.

It’s really a new ballgame for urban blight in Texas. We need to adapt to it, or we risk losing our neighborhoods.

1: Recognize real urban blight, and know what our goals are. A low-rent apartment complex that’s fully occupied and meets code, isn’t blighted. Even when the property is blighted, it might be possible for it to be rehabilitated rather than condemned. Of course we should always be leery of ‘lipstick on pigs’ (cheap, cosmetic repairs to buildings that need much more.)

2: Keep calling the City to report blighted (“nuisance”) properties. Even if the City faces new hurdles to condemning blighted buildings, it can still issue fines and bring owners to hearings. If the owner faces enough of these hearings and fines, usually they either fix the problems, or sell at their own accord to someone who will.

3: Lobby private real-estate developers to tear down blighted buildings, like we lobby the City to do it. Under the new laws the City can’t force owners of blighted buildings to sell for anything other than public use. But private developers can still buy blighted buildings, demolish them, and build other things on those sites. That’s just standard real-estate practice.

4: Lobby for Local, State, and Federal incentives to help developers address urban blight. There are millions of dollars available every year for subsidized development. A lot of that money goes to new development on open land; when it could actually be used to help rehabilitate or redevelop blighted buildings. There are also programs that are specifically designed to help seniors and low-income families repair their homes. These programs could be used to help repair blighted houses in our neighborhoods.

Even before the new laws, my neighbors would get frustrated with the City for not working fast enough to condemn blighted buildings. Now it’s going to be even slower (if they can do it at all). It’s a new ballgame, and we need to adapt to it; or watch as urban blight kills our neighborhoods.

How Houston Could Get Two Shuttles, And Save the Astrodome

Like most Houstonians, I’m angry that Houston did not get a Space Shuttle. We could debate the reasons. I think it was monument snobbery: the view that the Shuttles just have to be in our Nation’s signature cities, and that Houston simply won’t do. NASA’s official reason for denying us a Shuttle – that we allegedly don’t get enough international visitors – could be seen as a veiled admission of it. But instead of lamenting our loss, we should come together in search of another option.

What if Houston was home to a large monument and museum commemorating the Challenger and Columbia Shuttles? We’ve got the perfect building to use for it: the Astrodome. The Astrodome is big enough to house the museum, monument, and also replicas of the Shuttles. Imagine two Shuttles, suspended in the Dome – with glass walkways leading up to them so that visitors can peer in. None of the other Shuttle museums will have anything like it.

The replicas of the Challenger and Columbia could be accurate to the condition the Shuttles were in before they were lost. Visitors could see how technology advanced between 1986 and 2003. The Saturn 5 Rocket and other exhibits from the Johnson Space Center could also be relocated to the Astrodome. There could be an I-Max Theater, along with new exhibits and memorials commemorating the crews of the two lost Shuttle missions. One exhibit could be devoted to the Astrodome and all of the other Houston institutions that owe their names to our Space Program.

Houston has bigger ties to our National Space Program than any other City. It is ridiculous that we didn’t get a Shuttle. But we shouldn’t be bitter about it. We should look for another option. The Eighth Wonder of the World would be a fitting monument to the Challenger and Columbia Shuttles.

Crowdsourced Zoning - A Uniquely Houstonian Alternative to a Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance

Houston is the biggest city in the US to be without a comprehensive zoning ordinance. For the most part, it has been to our benefit. Other cities have to change their zoning ordinances to allow for mixed-use development. We’ve developed that way naturally. Other cities struggle with a lack of affordable housing. Not Houston. In fact, we were ranked the eleventh most successful city in the world by Atlantic Monthly Magazine, thanks in part to our low cost of living.

Of course there is a down-side to Houston’s lack of zoning. Ugly land-use battles. Developers run rough-shod over the concerns of neighbors. Neighbors rush to oppose unwanted development. City government denies building permits. Developers take the City to court.

Houstonians look at these fights and say “if we had zoning this wouldn’t happen," but we don’t need a comprehensive zoning ordinance to solve Houston’s ugly land-use battles. We could use “crowdsourced zoning.” Instead of putting land use controls in the hands of City government, we could create a system for development that encourages “crowdsourced placemaking” and “crowdsourcing planning”. The system would give average Houstonians a bigger say in what gets built in their neighborhoods, while making things more predictable for developers.

Houston already has elements of crowdsourced zoning in how it enforces deed restrictions. Nonetheless, crowdsourced zoning will require some adjustments on the part of developers, Houstonians, and City Government.

Developers must conquer their fear of NIMBYs, and Reach Out to Neighbors

“NIMBY” (Not In My Back Yard) protests are constantly in the back of developers’ minds in Houston. Will a bunch of irate neighbors come out at the last minute to derail a project? Will the City listen to the irate neighbors? Is this going to be another Ashby High Rise?

To protect themselves, developers often play their cards close to the vest. But for crowdsourced zoning to work, they need to take the opposite approach. A dialogue should be opened with the neighbors. And for best results, the dialogue should start at the point where developers would normally conduct a zoning study.

Neighbors must go from NIMBY to BTIMBY

My biggest complaint about neighborhood groups in Houston (including my own), is that we aren’t more proactive about development. We sit around and do nothing, until a developer proposes something we don’t like. Then we mobilize and try to kill the project. It’s classic NIMBYism, and even though it’s not always our fault, it needs to be reversed.

Instead of “Not In My Back Yard,” we should say “Build This In My Back Yard.” We need to decide how we want our neighborhoods developed, and we need to express those ideas in a consistent way. We need to do our own, grass roots urban planning. [i] Our plans will help developers understand our concerns. Their decisions can then be informed by what’s best for the neighborhood. We can help attract the right kind of development to our area, while preventing unwanted development.

City Government has to play a different Role

Even though they won’t have the job of enforcing a comprehensive zoning ordinance, City government plays a huge role in this. They’ll create templates for neighborhood planning efforts, meet with civic leaders, and hold workshops to help neighborhoods create their urban plans. They’ll keep a rolodex of neighborhood contacts, and provide it to developers. They ‘ll also provide developers with clear, concise lists of the many rules that Houston already has to regulate development. For the more contentious types of development – high rises, hazardous occupancies, and large residential developments – City government may conduct public hearings. In short, City government will act as go-between for neighborhoods and developers.

The pitfalls are actually benefits

Some claim that crowdsourced zoning will make it impossible for developers to build in Houston. They assume that if you give neighbors the chance to fight development, they will. But Houstonians already have the chance to oppose many types of development – and usually they don’t. In fact, crowdsourced zoning will make it easier to predict which projects will face protests. If developers follow neighborhood urban plans, they should be able to avoid NIMBY protests.

Developers may have difficulty finding neighborhoods that will accept the most undesirable forms of development – landfills and halfway houses, for example. But Houston needs an open, honest discussion of where to put these things – and average Houstonians need to be involved. There are appropriate sites in our City for unwanted, but necessary development.

Such a discussion might be included in a comprehensive zoning ordinance. But a comprehensive zoning ordinance also includes a lot of other bureaucracy. New York’s zoning ordinance is 3,000 pages long. Crowdsourced zoning could solve Houston’s ugly land-use battles, without going to such lengths. And besides, we’d have something uniquely Houstonian.

---

[i] The size of the urban plans might vary. They should be larger than a single subdivision, because individual subdivisions already usually have urban plans. They could be the size of a Super Neighborhood, or a Management District, or even a City Council District.

Silos: Expensive, and Devastating to Families

I usually don’t write about national issues on my blog. But the more I work in the Super Neighborhood, the more I run into a fundamental flaw with government in the US: they have been much too slow to break down “silos”.

A “silo” is when one team doesn’t cooperate with other teams to reach common goals. Children’s Protective Services may rescue children from unsafe homes. But if they don’t also link families with programs that can help them foster a safe environment – they won’t be as effective.

Silos are expensive because they lead to redundancies. Children’s Protective Services may create their own programs to foster a safe environment for children – without realizing that there are established programs through other branches of government, and non-profits. All CPS really needed to do was link families with those programs.

Silos can also be devastating to families. Last month, Children’s Protective Services in Harris County found Prince and Charlomane Leonard living with their six children in a storage building. The building was small, but it was safe and structurally sound. It lacked running water, but it had electricity, a fridge, and air conditioning. The children were well cared for, and the family was hoping to move to a more suitable house when they could afford to to so. Nonetheless, CPS took the children from their parents. If CPS weren’t in a silo, they might have made a few calls, and helped the Leonards find a more suitable house. They would have saved a lot of money in legal and foster care costs; and it would have been much better for the Leonards and their kids. But it fell to community activist Quanell X to do it, and it only happened after the kids were taken away.

I usually don’t write about partisan politics either. But you can’t discuss national issues without them. Deficits are out of control at the state and federal level. Austin, and Washington are deadlocked on how to deal with it. Democrats want to raise taxes because they fear cutting social services. Republicans want to cut social services because they fear raising taxes. We might not have to make this choice if we break down silos and address the redundancies they cause. And when you consider the damage that governmental silos can do to families - it should be a no-brainer. Just ask Prince and Charlomane Leonard.