When zoning hurts diversity

I'D LIKE to report a theft. My neighborhood in Iowa City has been stolen. First it was alittle bit at a time, but now it's in big chunks. Even the night sky has been stolen.

But I don't know who to call. It turns out that the theft of our neighborhood is quite legal. In fact, it's encouraged by our city's zoning.

Zoning was originally created to protect people and their homes from such things as smoky factories and city dumps. The reasoning went like this: Separate the industrial uses from the residential uses and people will not only have more pleasant neighborhoods, but healthier lives.

Later, zoning was advanced as a way to bring order to the urban landscape. Urban planners suggested that stores shouldn't be in neighborhoods, but in separate areas. The idea of street corner shopping was dismissed as old-fashioned and passe.

Today zoning is still being used as a tool to reduce the diversity of aneighborhood. But now it is also being used to reduce the diversity of people.It has turned into a tool to isolate people by income.

Oh, the veneer of bringing order to urban landscapes is still there. But the reality is that zoning is now being used to cluster people of similar incomes into neighborhoods (and to keep out people of other incomes, especially lower
incomes).

It works as well as building walls or creating gated communities. But itdoesn't stir up as much controversy as "real" walls because zoning is an invisible force. In addition, because zoning can't be seen it is difficult to challenge.

Our neighborhood on South Dodge Street had long been an example of urban diversity. It's one of the streets in the city with a broad range of ages, incomes and backgrounds. There are people who have lived here all their lives and people who are living here for just a summer. There are young students and retired couples; working people and college professors.

That human diversity comes from the housing diversity. There is a range of housing from stately single family homes to homes converted into apartments, from duplexes to modern apartment buildings.

To keep that diversity in people requires maintaining the diversity on
housing. That requires zoning which protects the diversity of housing. Otherwise, the neighborhood is overwhelmed by economic interests which would replace what is here by the homogeneous housing which characterizes too much of Iowa City's newer neighborhoods.

But zoning offered no such protection to our block on our block of South Dodge. As a result, our block is underwent a striking change during the summer of 2005. Three of the houses on our block were turned into "duplexes."

But these are not duplexes in the way you and I think of them. In each case, a two story, three bedroom "box" is being added onto the back of the house. There is no attempt to match the addition to the house. Each is exactly the same, reminding one of the Malvina Reynolds song "Little Boxes": "They're all made out of ticky-tacky...and they all look the same."

Not only is the "look" of our neighborhood being changed substantially. The addition of nine bedrooms will also boost the number of people living on our block by 50 percent or more. To get an idea of the impact of this, just
imagine nine to 12 more people moving onto your block or cul de sac.

In most Iowa City neighborhoods, zoning wouldn't allow such an increase in density. But this block is in an "in between" zone -- between the suburban neighborhoods and downtown. Here the property owner is "permitted" to do this. Plus, the zoning in our neighborhood permits such additions without an
additions to parking.

But wait, there's more. Despite the size of this development and its huge effect on a single block, the owner didn't even have to consult with the neighbors before building this project. In other neighborhoods, it's likely that these three "duplexes" would have to be submitted as a "planned unit development" triggering special and carefully scrutiny. But the zoning in our neighborhood didn't require any such consultation because we're in the "in between" zone.

Finally, these new boxes have even "stolen" the night sky. I can't look out
and see the moon and stars from the second floor porch anymore. All that I see
now is a giant box.

These boxes are very large examples of the failure of zoning to protect the people on our block. Zoning is failing other people on other blocks in the "in between" zone, too. But usually, the changes don't happen so quickly. Instead, it is bit by bit, block by block.

Yet the result is the same. Zoning is pushing out diversity in the "in between" zones and replacing it with homogeneity. It is a sad legacy for a planning tool which was originally advanced as a way to protect neighborhoods.