The Chronicle reported yesterday on an interesting dilemma facing people who want to make Houston a more urban, walkable city: In many cases, they can't, thanks to existing development ordinances that defer to the almighty car.

The Chron article focuses on Midtown, where a lot has been done in the last 10 years to create pedestrian-friendly districts. Even so, "a lot" is relative — the area has gone from a no-man's land of abandoned warehouses and weedy lots to a neighborhood with a couple of walkable districts and a bunch of fancy, but ultimately forbidding, apartment complexes. It seems developers are wary of pedestrian-friendly construction in a city that has turned its back on pedestrians for so long, but that's not the only problem: A host of city rules regulating development outside downtown threaten to keep Midtown a district of strip centers and inward-oriented apartment houses. For example, one rule says buildings must be set back at least 25 feet outside downtown, which makes it hard to create walkable, sidewalk-oriented retail and restaurant space; another rule requires often-impossible amounts of off-street parking; and still another prohibits sidewalk awnings. Sure, it's possible to get around such rules, but doing so requires an often hard-to-get variance. And then there's this:

Theoretically, the Midtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone has the authority to write its own development rules. Reinvestment zones are districts where tax revenue from increased property values is reinvested in neighborhood improvements.

[TIRZ Executive Director Charles] LeBlanc said the redevelopment authority had submitted numerous drafts of a development code to the city Legal Department for review. All were rejected, he said, on grounds that they constituted zoning, which Houston voters have repeatedly rejected.

And so it goes. There is talk of making urban development easier: City leaders say they think they could tie special rules for neighborhood development to a condition like proximity to a mass-transit line (in Midtown's case, MetroRail's Red Line), but that's still all talk. We hope we'll see the day when there's a push toward real urban-style, walking-friendly development around here before we're too old to walk.

Photo: flickr ueser dreamsrey