Danger zone
Houston blast prompts safety debate in city with no zoning
HOUSTON — Houston’s lack of zoning restrictions has left many residents with neighbors they don’t want: petrochemical facilities and businesses that handle hazardous materials.
That unease was laid bare again last month when a massive explosion leveled a metal fabricating and manufacturing business in the northwest of the city, killing two workers, damaging hundreds of nearby buildings and homes, and terrifying their occupants.
The city and region has endured six major industrial accidents in the past year that have killed three people, injured dozens of others, and forced temporary evacuations and school closures.
While the accidents have stoked the debate over zoning, it’s highly unlikely that the nation’s fourth-largest city is going to embrace major development restrictions. Instead, city leaders have begun discussing other measures, including requiring such businesses to submit to more frequent inspections and to disclose more information about the types of hazardous materials they are handling.
“We just can’t have these incidents occur without us looking for ways to mitigate future risk,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said recently.
Even modest new local regulations could face pushback from higher up, though, in a state that aggressively bills itself as open for business.
It’s unclear why Houston never adopted zoning, making it the largest U.S. city without it. It’s not for lack of trying, as there have been five attempts to do so in the self-proclaimed energy capital of the world since 1929, most recently in 1993, when voters declined to embrace zoning.