We analyzed our city’s beloved historic downtown against its current parking regulations alone and found that 1/3 of the existing buildings would have to be torn down and replaced with surface parking lots to make the district comply with the parking requirements. The building regulations had been fixed to permit the historic building types, so that wasn’t the problem, as in many places. It’s the other regulations like parking, landscape buffers, or pervious area or use restrictions that often kill urbanism in a more unseen and pernicious way. And that’s before Building Code and insurance and capital sources take their bites out of the apple.
They way I see it, regulations that prevent existing urban buildings noncompliant are like the government saying to a building “we wish you would just die.”
That’s a pretty messed up attitude of a government towards its economy and citizenry.
I know nothing about zoning, so can't help. I just want to express my appreciation for your setting out a couple of reasons for your being an urbanist. Great point about car noise and car accommodation, too.
I’ve seen a Building Department twist themselves in knots to declare a fire damaged mixed-use building less than 50% damaged so that it could be rebuilt. The modern zoning permits mixed use but at less than 1/3 the as built density.
There’s two different kinds of “making the past illegal,” and the problem is we’ve conflated them into one.
The first is genuine health and safety progress: we wouldn’t allow a building today to be built with asbestos and lead based paint. That’s good!
The second is aesthetic: we don’t allow historic building types because mid-century elites believed those building types were “bad” and worked very hard to ban them.
Theoretically, the first concern is “building code,” and the second is “zoning code.” A simple step that some cities have taken is to say that buildings can be repaired or rebuilt as they were but with modern building code - ie whatever was there before is explicitly allowed to continue existing under the zoning code.
That should be the baseline for all cities, but unfortunately it’s more complicated than that because we’ve put all kinds of luxury requirements into our building codes as well, and these often make it impossible to recreate old buildings. For example the stairs need to be wider, or the windows larger, or the closets bigger, or the kitchen in a different location, etc etc.
All publicly regulated goods have this dilemma. Volkswagen can’t recreate the Minibus in its iconic shape because it doesn’t put enough crumple zone in front to meet modern crash safety standards. That’s… probably good? But regulators whose only goal is safety tend to force prices up monotonically and create scarcity (see also nuclear power).
At the end of the day, good and effective regulation must always come from a place of balance, where there’s an affirmative goal, not just a negative one. Ie. the regulators goal should be to get safe buildings built at reasonable prices, not just to block “bad” ones.
As with Donald Shoup's point about parking mandates being evidence-free planning policy, so it is with planning policies and principles generally. We should look at all local regulations through the prism of empirical evidence and see which ones hold up and which ones do not.
I'd love to read more about the idea that we've put luxury requirements into building codes. I spend a lot of time looking at listings for tiny apartments in Tokyo, and it's very interesting how affordably you can live in the middle of the city there if you don't demand a full kitchen, closets etc. (And in the old days even more so, when you could go to the public bath so didn't need your own.) On the one hand I guess I can understand the idea of having minimum standards, but maybe we'd have less of a housing crisis if people had at least the option of living with less?
That’s right. Our mid century elites looked at housing like that, found it offensive, and declared it illegal. Thus deciding that they’d rather have people sleep on the street than live in such humble housing.
My urbanist epiphany was what I call the Marlboro-Potato Knish problem. In a zoned, car-dependent suburb, running out of cigarettes and snacks required traveling to an Inconvenient Store, whereas many neighborhoods in Manhattan have a bodega/corner store selling cigarettes and tasty snacks within a short walk of home. Being able to walk for necessities (don't let that be cigarettes, though!) is life changing.
My own home here in Superior, Wisconsin, built in 1910, would be illegal to build now. It sits on a half-lot, with neighboring houses 6 feet away on either side. It has no garage or off-street parking. Current zoning for new construction requires a full lot with property offsets & parking. But our place is perfect for us.
Rebuilding better is often banned by insurance, not by zoning. After the Enid flood in 1973, most houses were rebuilt in the same flood zone, even though the same places had flooded in 1907 and 1957. Insurance paid for rebuilding but not for buying a new house elsewhere.The areas weren't a surprise, weren't a unique "1000 year Burning Climate Emergency Event,", they were parts of an obvious creekbed. The areas were partly vacated much later.
When my house was damaged by an icedam in 2008, I wanted to have a dropped ceiling in the damaged area to make the ceiling easier to fix next time, but they required the same ceiling as before. Fortunately I've managed to prevent the next time by raking the roof when needed.
Nonconformities are a terrible pain for planning departments. Andrew's comment is a good place to start. What I can say from experience is this: I think Addison and some of the commentators are thinking about "nice" nonconforming buildings. But what about the auto repair shop that was once a livery stable that's left over in a residential neighborhoods, nonconforming since the city first adopted zoning. And its in a totally nondistinguished structure. Do you allow that to be rebuilt? Would you allow it to expand? Would you allow the use to change?
Answering those questions isn't that easy. My experience, and I have 50+ years of it, is to go easy on nonconforming uses and buildings because if you don't allow them to evolve they are not maintained, abandoned even. Strict code language and enforcement can end up blighting the neighborhood. Not everyone agrees with me about this, as the example Addison gives indicates. The code language I advise people to adopt would permit reconstruction of that building (unless there is some factor at work there that's not evident from the image and description).
People following this conversation might enjoy reading Stewart Brand's book How Buildings Learn.
Sometimes you write about something that makes me so mad and/or sad that I'm sorry I read your newsletter, and the anecdote about not being able to rebuild that building is one of those things. But the comments here were so interesting and educational that I guess it was worth it after all :)
We analyzed our city’s beloved historic downtown against its current parking regulations alone and found that 1/3 of the existing buildings would have to be torn down and replaced with surface parking lots to make the district comply with the parking requirements. The building regulations had been fixed to permit the historic building types, so that wasn’t the problem, as in many places. It’s the other regulations like parking, landscape buffers, or pervious area or use restrictions that often kill urbanism in a more unseen and pernicious way. And that’s before Building Code and insurance and capital sources take their bites out of the apple.
They way I see it, regulations that prevent existing urban buildings noncompliant are like the government saying to a building “we wish you would just die.”
That’s a pretty messed up attitude of a government towards its economy and citizenry.
I know nothing about zoning, so can't help. I just want to express my appreciation for your setting out a couple of reasons for your being an urbanist. Great point about car noise and car accommodation, too.
I’ve seen a Building Department twist themselves in knots to declare a fire damaged mixed-use building less than 50% damaged so that it could be rebuilt. The modern zoning permits mixed use but at less than 1/3 the as built density.
There’s two different kinds of “making the past illegal,” and the problem is we’ve conflated them into one.
The first is genuine health and safety progress: we wouldn’t allow a building today to be built with asbestos and lead based paint. That’s good!
The second is aesthetic: we don’t allow historic building types because mid-century elites believed those building types were “bad” and worked very hard to ban them.
Theoretically, the first concern is “building code,” and the second is “zoning code.” A simple step that some cities have taken is to say that buildings can be repaired or rebuilt as they were but with modern building code - ie whatever was there before is explicitly allowed to continue existing under the zoning code.
That should be the baseline for all cities, but unfortunately it’s more complicated than that because we’ve put all kinds of luxury requirements into our building codes as well, and these often make it impossible to recreate old buildings. For example the stairs need to be wider, or the windows larger, or the closets bigger, or the kitchen in a different location, etc etc.
All publicly regulated goods have this dilemma. Volkswagen can’t recreate the Minibus in its iconic shape because it doesn’t put enough crumple zone in front to meet modern crash safety standards. That’s… probably good? But regulators whose only goal is safety tend to force prices up monotonically and create scarcity (see also nuclear power).
At the end of the day, good and effective regulation must always come from a place of balance, where there’s an affirmative goal, not just a negative one. Ie. the regulators goal should be to get safe buildings built at reasonable prices, not just to block “bad” ones.
As with Donald Shoup's point about parking mandates being evidence-free planning policy, so it is with planning policies and principles generally. We should look at all local regulations through the prism of empirical evidence and see which ones hold up and which ones do not.
I'd love to read more about the idea that we've put luxury requirements into building codes. I spend a lot of time looking at listings for tiny apartments in Tokyo, and it's very interesting how affordably you can live in the middle of the city there if you don't demand a full kitchen, closets etc. (And in the old days even more so, when you could go to the public bath so didn't need your own.) On the one hand I guess I can understand the idea of having minimum standards, but maybe we'd have less of a housing crisis if people had at least the option of living with less?
That’s right. Our mid century elites looked at housing like that, found it offensive, and declared it illegal. Thus deciding that they’d rather have people sleep on the street than live in such humble housing.
My urbanist epiphany was what I call the Marlboro-Potato Knish problem. In a zoned, car-dependent suburb, running out of cigarettes and snacks required traveling to an Inconvenient Store, whereas many neighborhoods in Manhattan have a bodega/corner store selling cigarettes and tasty snacks within a short walk of home. Being able to walk for necessities (don't let that be cigarettes, though!) is life changing.
My own home here in Superior, Wisconsin, built in 1910, would be illegal to build now. It sits on a half-lot, with neighboring houses 6 feet away on either side. It has no garage or off-street parking. Current zoning for new construction requires a full lot with property offsets & parking. But our place is perfect for us.
Rebuilding better is often banned by insurance, not by zoning. After the Enid flood in 1973, most houses were rebuilt in the same flood zone, even though the same places had flooded in 1907 and 1957. Insurance paid for rebuilding but not for buying a new house elsewhere.The areas weren't a surprise, weren't a unique "1000 year Burning Climate Emergency Event,", they were parts of an obvious creekbed. The areas were partly vacated much later.
When my house was damaged by an icedam in 2008, I wanted to have a dropped ceiling in the damaged area to make the ceiling easier to fix next time, but they required the same ceiling as before. Fortunately I've managed to prevent the next time by raking the roof when needed.
Nonconformities are a terrible pain for planning departments. Andrew's comment is a good place to start. What I can say from experience is this: I think Addison and some of the commentators are thinking about "nice" nonconforming buildings. But what about the auto repair shop that was once a livery stable that's left over in a residential neighborhoods, nonconforming since the city first adopted zoning. And its in a totally nondistinguished structure. Do you allow that to be rebuilt? Would you allow it to expand? Would you allow the use to change?
Answering those questions isn't that easy. My experience, and I have 50+ years of it, is to go easy on nonconforming uses and buildings because if you don't allow them to evolve they are not maintained, abandoned even. Strict code language and enforcement can end up blighting the neighborhood. Not everyone agrees with me about this, as the example Addison gives indicates. The code language I advise people to adopt would permit reconstruction of that building (unless there is some factor at work there that's not evident from the image and description).
People following this conversation might enjoy reading Stewart Brand's book How Buildings Learn.
Sometimes you write about something that makes me so mad and/or sad that I'm sorry I read your newsletter, and the anecdote about not being able to rebuild that building is one of those things. But the comments here were so interesting and educational that I guess it was worth it after all :)