Houston is drowning in its freedom from regulations

[Johnny2X2X]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/houston-drowning-freedom-regulations-193813435.html

Texas us famous for building code leniency. While no amount of responsible planning could have prevented this mess, it sure could have lessened its impact.

[Not Ruth]

1. They should consider banning rebuilding in the flooded areas

[TexasProgresive]

2. Ask yourself, How could the city of Houston regulate the rampant building outside the city?

[maxsolomon]

4. No way, Hippie

you take your Flood Plains and Impervious Surfaces back to Seattle where they belong!

[Johnny2X2X]

3. Media handling it so different than Katrina

Katrina was painted as all the fault of poor minorities. This is correctly being seen as the humanitarian crisis it is. Why the difference?

[maxsolomon]

5. Whipeepo are affected

Obviously.

[tammywammy]

6. Houston has plenty of land use laws

For all that’s been made of Houston’s infamous lack of zoning, Festa said it increasingly seems that reputation isn’t deserved or even accurate.

“We do have a lot of land-use regulations,” Festa said. “We still have a lot of stuff that looks and smells like zoning.”

To be more precise, Houston doesn’t exactly have official zoning. But it has what Festa calls “de facto zoning,” which closely resembles the real thing. “We’ve got a lot of regulations that in other cities would be in the zoning code,” Festa said. “When we use it here, we just don’t use the ‘z’ word.”

https://urbanedge.blogs.rice.edu/2015/09/08/forget-what-youve-heard-houston-really-does-have-zoning-sort-of/#.WaNNj0FOmEc