Monthly Archives: May 2015

Flipping Houses, Zoning Codes, and Building Codes

DC row houses - the first CC image hit for "dc house flips" on Flickr. Photo from Elvert Barnes.

DC row houses – the first CC image hit for “dc house flips” on Flickr. Photo from Elvert Barnes.

Earlier in May, local public radio station WAMU aired a lengthy three-part report on the collateral damage involved in house flipping in DC. Martin Austermuhle’s series offers a window into the nightmare for buyers of newly renovated homes – often converted from single family rowhomes into multi-unit buildings – who soon learn that their dream home is actually a nightmare of shoddy work and potentially illegal construction.

The three-part series focuses on buyers, developers, and the city’s regulatory response.

As horrifying as these stories are, Austermuhle correctly focuses on the challenges of enforcing the building code as the root cause of these problems, rather than the zoning code.

Small-scale development is an important tool in strong markets (like DC) to respond to demand for new housing. So many opportunities for small-scale urban development have already been regulated out of existence in American cities. The people buying these flips aren’t suckers taken by con men; they represent the market for additional housing in a city like DC.

Shoddy flips shouldn’t put those remaining opportunities for small-scale development in DC at risk, because the problem here is with building code enforcement and inspection, not with zoning. But whenever there is outrage, there is a strong urge for the city to do something, even if it doesn’t address the stated problem.

The zoning code is not the building code

Tales of illegal construction in flipped houses might stoke the fears of development opponents, but the problems described in the series involve errors in construction.

Too often, cities attempt to use the zoning code as a catch-all regulatory structure, encompassing economic development goals, social policy, etc. Part of this is out of convenience (I did have at least one proponent express support to me for DC’s recent zoning code changes in rowhouse neighborhoods due to the challenges in enforcing the building code – both for approvals and for construction inspections). I suspect part is also a confusion of the issues, thinking that because zoning deals with the city therefore zoning is an appropriate place for regulations about the city.

This series helps clarify the differences; Austermuhle correctly gives zoning only a cameo appearance.

Pop up limits

Even with the focus on building code enforcement, that doesn’t stop public calls to address development issues via zoning restrictions. However, it’s not clear that zoning would stop the flips. House flips are hardly limited to structures with the opportunity to increase the total number of units.

Enforcement matters:  One example of shoddy construction also includes blatant violations of the zoning code. What good will modestly tighter zoning regulations do without basic enforcement? Perhaps zoning isn’t the root problem; enforcement is.

Building codes matter

While zoning codes often get the attention, this doesn’t mean building codes aren’t important factors in determining the shape of the city. Houston famously (or infamously) lacks standard, use-based zoning codes. However, Houston’s building code and other regulations still mandate many of the aspects commonly found in zoning codes: minimum on-site parking requirements, minimum lot sizes, etc. It’s not a regulation-free environment.

Even when the building code sticks to more traditional subject matter, there can still be a tremendous impact on the financial feasibility of certain types of construction. In February, Let’s Go LA featured a guest post from LA Architect Tom Steidl about local differences in LA’s high rise building codes that make Vancouver-style towers less financially feasible:

Towers in Los Angeles tend to have significantly larger floor plates than those in Vancouver and US cities that have embraced high-rise design. The primary reason for this isn’t differences in land use or zoning codes. It’s mainly building code and fire department regulations that require additional floor area be added to the core of the tower. In addition to making our towers more bulky, this added floor area increases construction cost and reduces affordability.

One of LA’s quirks (now removed from the code) was a fire department mandate for rooftop helipads. But, as Steidl notes, each requirement that reduces the efficiency of the floor plate adds to the total cost. High rises are already expensive to build and will only pencil out under certain circumstances. Adding costs on the margins only makes the developer’s pro forma more challenging.

The building codes matter. But, LA’s quirky code provides a cautionary tale on policy relying on high rises alone to absorb housing growth. As Payton Chung has written, achieving mass market affordable housing via expensive construction types is a challenge – particularly in DC.

A comprehensive approach to affordable housing in strong markets like DC and LA can’t ignore the key role of small-scale, low-rise development in providing affordably built housing. This means projects of the type taken on by house flippers; smaller scale projects that increase a single lot into 2-4 units.

Poor construction risks eroding confidence in small-scale construction that is vital to meeting housing demand. Likewise, a strong, predictable, and nimble team of inspectors needs to effectively enforce DC’s building codes to manage this period of change.

Lawsuits: the American Way.

Maybe they will help. Writing about some of the same flippers as Austermuhle (and working in parallel), Ian Shapira at the Washington Post notes that some of the same flippers have been sued by DC’s newly elected Attorney General. A more robust consumer protection watchdog can’t hurt, and could even help jump-start a more robust system of code inspections.

Tactical Urbanism – useful procedural hack, or something more?

Cover of Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia's new book, Tactical Urbanism.

Cover of Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia’s new book, Tactical Urbanism.

Tactical Urbanism is all the rage these days. There’s an undeniable appeal to the idea of getting the community together to do something rather than drafting another plan. But is the appeal just about the results of these projects, or does Tactical Urbanism offer path to improve how we plan and build our cities?

Earlier in April, the Coalition for Smarter Growth in DC teamed up with Island Press to host a book talk from Mike Lydon at Smith Public Trust in Brookland. I’ve known Mike for years; we attended graduate school together at the University of Michigan.

Early in Mike’s career, he worked on a large-scale planning effort to re-write Miami’s zoning code. While a tremendously important project, Mike felt frustrated by the limitations of the required public process – evening meetings with a small handful of citizens, probably not representative of the city’s demographics. Add to that the challenges of talking about abstract regulations like zoning, and it’s not hard to see a good plan derailed by fear, uncertainty, and doubt. That kind of frustration led Mike to look for a better process.

Tactical Urbanism isn’t just about doing things quick and dirty. The emphasis is on using tactics as a part of a larger strategy (the book’s subtitle: short-term action for long-term change), opposed to art or beautification – short term actions that often lack a longer-term strategy. This process emphasizes working fast to prototype something, measure it, and moving on to the next idea if it’s not successful.

The textbook example of this process comes from New York. The NYC DOT’s pedestrianization of Times Square started as a pilot project with some traffic cones, paint, lawn chairs, and the political will to try something different. After proving successful, expanded sidewalks became permanent. Had the city tried to push the full design from the start, layers of process (each offering the potential to delay) would’ve likely derailed the project.

As transformative as New York’s reallocation of public space has been, it’s worth noting that those projects haven’t required a large physical change. The buildings are all the same; there aren’t any new subway lines; the street rights of way are the same as they were 100 years ago. Instead, these projects represent a change in behavior, a different way to use the same streets.

Likewise, as the city implemented these pilot programs, there’s been plenty of bluster but no real disagreement about the city’s overall strategy: streets that are safe for all users. One of the lessons from NYC DOT’s programs is to emphasize the link between the tactics (pilot programs) and the strategy (safety). It helps to have a strategic goal that is unassailable – After all, who would be against safety? Yet, the existing procedural requirements aren’t advancing a strategy so much as they protect the status quo.

There’s a difference between incrementalism and experimentation, and while incrementalism is important to Tactical Urbanism, it has limits. Larger capital investments require more planning. DC’s streetcar project is struggling to get on its feet due to a history of ad-hoc decisions regarding implementation. For a large, capital-intensive project, this is not the way to go.

However, not all transportation projects are large, expensive pieces of infrastructure. Detailed planning studies and documentation of environmental impacts might be worthwhile for a new highway or a large infrastructure project, but can we really justify that level of analysis (nevermind the what counts as an ‘impact’) for changing the allocation of road space by installing bike lanes? Part of the appeal of Tactical Urbanism stems from this mis-match of onerous processes required for minor projects.

Mike would be the first to talk about the limits of Tactical Urbanism. One is a limit of scope: housing policy? Inequality? Addressing those issues is more complicated than improving pedestrian safety at a few intersections. The scope of the challenge is too large, too complex.

Likewise, Tactical Urbanism’s best examples are in re-allocating space to better match human behavior; where you can physically test the idea, show people how it can work. Often, zoning reforms suffocate under the same kind of lengthy public process with multiple veto points that hamstring safe streets projects. Can you envision a tactical urbanism approach to zoning reform? How can you apply the same lessons about pilot projects, testing concepts, and earning citizen buy-in for an entirely abstract concept like zoning?

Contrast the examples of incremental development in Mexico (highlighted here by Charlie Gardner) compared to the rigid, rule-based urbanism in the US. Our political processes and legal frameworks don’t allow for much incremental change to buildings or to the physical fabric of the city. Allowing that kind of incremental change requires changing laws and regulations; changing laws and regulations requires a legal and regulatory process. None of these potential changes has an obvious analogue to the current applications of Tactical Urbanism.

Tactical urbanism can circumvent rules to achieve a physical change; but can it be used to create a legal change? If not, what lessons can we learn about improving public process for other kinds of changes? Can these lessons be applied to controversial projects?

Is an issue like zoning reform controversial because of our archaic processes (e.g the tactics), or is there a more fundamental disagreement about the overall strategy for our cities? If the latter is true, can Tactical Urbanism provide any useful lessons for resolving disputes about strategic urbanism?