Bernard Rabik – 11/10/17

 


This page was last updated on November 26, 2017.


Ask Attorney Bernie: Zoning in Brighton Township, none in Houston; Bernard Rabik (BR); Beaver County Times; November 10, 2017.

Below is a review of the Houston portion of BR’s column.  I lived in the Houston area for the better part of 19 years.

In addition to this review, I posted an abbreviated version of my comments on the BCT website (November 11, 2017, @ 4:45 PM EST).  I don’t know the exact date and time, but the BCT deleted those comments sometime before November 20, 2017, @ 3:45 PM EST.  The deletion wasn’t immediate, though; my post survived for at least a couple of days.  I asked the BCT for an explanation but haven’t received a reply as of this review’s “last updated” publication date shown above.

Assuming the deletion wasn’t an honest mistake, I’d guess BR and/or the BCT weren’t fond of the paragraph in which I identified BR’s probable info sources for his Houston comments.  I’m not a lawyer, but I think lifting exact excerpts from someone else’s work without attribution is plagiarism.  The problem with that guess is BR’s column remains on the BCT website.  If BR and/or the BCT were concerned about plagiarism, wouldn’t it make sense to remove the column or issue a correction with the proper attribution?

Finally, BR appears to be just another lefty pundit.  BR’s column following this was an anti-Trump rant entitled “Does the truth matter anymore?”


Houston has no zoning

“Houston is the largest city in the county with no zoning ordinance.  Voters have elected to reject any efforts to pass zoning laws three different times in the past century, most recently in 1993.  Developers have found that it is easier and cheaper to grow outward than in.  As a result, tall buildings can pop up nearly anywhere they want, regardless of their distance from downtown.  The urban sprawl that envelops 600 square miles could fit in other major cities with ease.”

[RWC] It appears BR’s primary info source for his Houston comments is “The weirdest images to come from Houston’s lack of zoning laws,” a piece that appeared in the “San Antonio Express-News” of August 19, 2016.  The final three sentences of the above paragraph are an exact excerpt from the piece.  The same is true for most of the second paragraph.  Other pieces came from “No, Flooding in Houston Was Not Caused By a Lack of Zoning Laws” (9/1/2017)” on reason.com.

That “Houston has no zoning” is misleading.  In lieu of a set of laws packaged as “zoning regulations,” Houston and surrounding municipalities rely on a mix of regulations and deed restrictions.

Houston has been flood-prone since its 1836 founding.  A rainstorm we wouldn’t think twice of in Western Pennsylvania can cause flooding in some portions of the Houston area.  With apologies to the late-Sam Kinison, “IT’S FLAT AND NOT FAR ABOVE SEA LEVEL!  AAAAAAAAAH!”  For example, my subdivision was about 70 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, yet it was only about 48 feet above sea level.  That means drainage will be slow even under the best of conditions.  I lived in the Houston area for Hurricane Alicia, Tropical Storm Allison (40+ inches of rainfall), and a bunch of storms in between.  It takes far less than a hurricane or tropical storm to cause Houston flooding.

Most new development in the Houston area doesn’t actually take place in Houston proper.  Much of new development occurs in unincorporated areas within Houston’s extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ).  At least as recent as 1996, as soon as the development was mostly complete and its infrastructure mostly paid for, Houston would swoop in and annex the development/subdivision.  Blowback from the 1996 Kingwood annexation resulted in changes to the law that allegedly should hinder/stop future Kingwood-like annexations.

“Because Houston’s codes do not address land use, a sex shop sits beside a crowded intersection next to Houston’s third-largest building, a weird image to come from Houston’s lack of zoning laws.”

[RWC] Not exactly.  As noted previously, Houston and surrounding municipalities rely on a mix of regulations and deed restrictions.

It’s also important to mention zoning laws aren’t sacred and waivers are common.   

Could flood damage have been avoided?

“Hurricane Harvey dumped 50 inches of water on Houston in the span of a few days.  According to some, it was the city’s almost criminal lack of zoning that caused the disaster, including the loss of too many lives and 30 percent of Harris County, which includes Houston, to have been underwater.  Could not the widespread damage have been substantially avoided if only there were a zoning ordinance regulating the use of land?”

[RWC] The answer is in RB’s question: “50 inches of water on Houston in the span of a few days.”

Houston has been growing rapidly for decades.  Part of that growth covers open land with buildings, parking lots, roads, and so on.  This means there is less ground to absorb rainfall.  That said, much of the uncovered land can’t absorb much rainfall anyway.  Anyone who digs a posthole for a mailbox can see it’s only a few inches of sandy soil until you hit clay.  There are drainage regulations in place for new construction, but there’s only so much you can do.

Though Houston, Texas, and the feds have tried to improve drainage, they’re fighting economics, geography, and geology.  Not only does the Houston area have to deal with its own direct rainfall, it also has to deal with runoff from the surrounding area.


Below is the comment I posted on the BCT website (November 11, 2017, @ 4:45 PM EST).  It’s not a duplicate of the review above because the BCT restricts the size of posts.

“It appears BR’s primary info source for his Houston comments is ‘The weirdest images to come from Houston’s lack of zoning laws,’ a piece that appeared in the ‘San Antonio Express-News’ of August 19, 2016.  The final three sentences of the first paragraph are an exact excerpt from the piece.  The same is true for most of the second paragraph.  Other pieces came from ‘No, Flooding in Houston Was Not Caused By a Lack of Zoning Laws’ (9/1/2017) on reason.com.

“Houston has been flood-prone since its 1836 founding.  That’s because the area is flat and barely above sea level.  My subdivision was about 70 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, yet it was only about 48 feet above sea level.  That means drainage is slow even under the best of conditions. 

“Houston has been growing rapidly for decades.  Part of that growth covers open land with buildings, parking lots, roads, and so on.  Though this means there is less ground to absorb rainfall, much of the uncovered land (a few inches of sandy soil on top of clay) can’t absorb much rainfall anyway.  There are drainage regulations in place for new construction, but there’s only so much you can do.

“Finally, not only does the Houston area have to deal with its own direct rainfall, it also has to deal with runoff from the surrounding area.

“‘Could flood damage have been avoided?’  Sure, if they had thrown enough money at it.  Though Houston, Texas, and the feds have tried to improve drainage, they’re fighting economics, geography, and geology.  I have no idea how much it would cost to reduce Harvey-like flooding in a significant way.”


© 2004-2017 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.