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Zoning isn't enough for me

By

Bizzy Oberstrassa and Jacques Gruny

  The recent tirades against zoning show how much the notion of private property has infected everyone in this county.  Since no man is an island, it stands to reason that no man owns anything either.  Using this logic of no man is an island, it is perfectly reasonable to expect everyone to have a say-so when it comes to our community property.  Some people think they can do whatever they please with their so-called private property, like paint homes in colors that are so wild they cause their neighbors eye strain, cut down precious trees, plant heaven knows what in their yards, and mow lawns with gasoline powered mowers.  Zoning is the best tool we have against urban sprawl, and sprawl allows people to move to wherever they please, and that just uses up our farmland.  Zoning can help prevent urban flight by making it nearly impossible to build new housing developments in outlying rural areas.  There is plenty of perfectly good housing in the inner city, though some of it just needs a little fixing up.  If someone needs to move, they can just move downtown.

  Zoning can also help prevent excess business competition by limiting the number of retail stores selling the same type items in the same area.  By limiting competition, the existing store can make a profit and therefore be taxed more heavily than would otherwise be possible.  So, both the greedy merchant and the community benefit from the lack of competition and the eyesores of too many stores and new malls.  Zoning is the tool that can be used to help business by preventing too much price competition.  Of course, prices will be high, but it will be worth it.  Lack of competition would also help to relieve sign pollution, since there will not be the need for such large advertising signs, because there wouldn't be anyone else selling the same items for miles.   

   Zoning can also help mass transit and bicycle transportation.  Citizens of Louisville, like the citizens of Beijing, can learn to ride bicycles and buses to get around if zoning is used to the degree the enlightened people feel it should.  With proper zoning enforcement, one could easily imagine Louisvillians, like millions of happy Communist Chinese, merrily peddling their way to work or cramming aboard buses bound for the factory district.  Older narrow roads, such as Bardstown Road, could be designated as automobile free zones with only pedestrians, buses and bicycles allowed.  A sort of cheery cyclist camaraderie would permeate the atmosphere, with bicycle bells jingling in the auto free zone, interrupted only by buses loaded with cheerful workers.

Zoning can save farmland by making it nearly impossible to build a new home on rural property, thereby saving the family farm.  The price of farmland would go down, and the farmers would have no incentive to sell out to developers, since nothing but farming could be done on the land.  Zoning could be used to determine which crops or animals could be raised as well, making farms more pleasing to the eye and less noxious to the nose.  Keeping the farmer on the land is just one more benefit of zoning.  The American dream of owning a private single family home will just have to give way to the new order, and zoning will help this smart growth dream come true.  Zoning is smart growth, and it can be used to make an automobile-free, population-dense utopia of Louisville and every Kentucky community enlightened enough to adopt zoning and a smart growth agenda.

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