Houstonians for Responsible Growth to fight land use restrictions
Says free market approach to city planning and
development best for local economy
Joshua Sanders, executive director of Houstonians For
Responsible Growth, says his organization's goal is to steer city hall
towards a free market approach in planning and development. In a talk at
the Houston Property Rights Association luncheon on July 11, he
explained how he believes the mayor and city council are imposing more
restrictions on land use and property rights in the city. "The
climate coming out of city hall the past couple of years has been one of
increased regulation on land use. They want to direct growth instead of
promote growth." The group has formed a PAC and will begin raising
money to try to get more free market candidates on council.
Formed last year, HFRG is a 501c(4) organization whose
mission is to stimulate the economy by protecting the low cost of
housing and prohibiting restrictive land use regulations and ordinances.
Mr. Sanders said the organization is really a public policy think tank.
"Our main goal," he says, "is to commission, research,
strengthen, enhance, and promote Houston's model of guiding growth and
development. A lot of people say Houston doesn't have a plan, but
Houston has a lot of planning. It is just planning that is supportive of
market driven development, not planning that is dictating what and where
something should be built. So private property owners are allowed to do
what they want with their property."
Mr. Sanders points out that Houston's great strength
is "its ability to resist political and commercial elite from
capturing control and deny the ability of Houstonians to make their own
decisions about how they want to live and where." The kind of
system that the city has had for planning over the years has resulted in
immense possibilities that Mr. Sanders says resulted in Houston making
the top city list of the Kiplinger's magazine.
HFRG supported the developers of the Ashby high rise
and was instrumental in getting the city to shelve the high density
ordinance. "That ordinance," Mr. Sanders said, "would
involve having to re-appraise half the land in Houston. We wanted the
city to do more research, refine it, and let the city engineers examine
it." The city continues to block the development of the Ashby high
rise, Mr. Sanders said. The developers have re-submitted their plans to
the city five times and have gotten them rejected each time. He believes
it will take a lawsuit to get it settled.
As METRO begins work on more light rail lines, the
group plans to request more city council oversight on land use along the
rail. They want Metro to submit its plans on what they plan to do with
the land around each section of track. "We want to know what they
are going to tell property owners along there as to what they can and
can't do with their property."
HFRG states that their membership includes bankers,
architects, engineers, construction managers and workers, apartment
owners, developers, residential and commercial real estate professionals
and advocates for affordable housing. As a broad cross section of the
business community, the members declare they are committed to preserving
"Houston's successful model of progress while being sensitive to
issues that could result from increasing densities." They further
state: "We will constructively advise, provide intellectual
resources and common sense solutions to the many challenges that Houston
will face in the 21st century." For more information on HFRG go to www.houstongrowth.org
(The
Banner, August 6,
2008)
