Long hamstrung by its lack of zoning ordinances, the City of Houston has in recent months turned to nuisance laws as a means of shutting down questionable businesses or forcing them to change their methods of operation.
The Houston Chronicle reported that the city used the laws to persuade a judge to shutter a topless club and convince a jury that a motel was "a common nuisance," a finding that could lead to its closing. Both have been the site of numerous prostitution arrests, city officials said.
In addition, the city has used the threat of shutdown under nuisance legislation to win concessions from an industrial waste processor cited by neighbors for sickening odors and explosions that sent debris into nearby yards, the newspaper reported.
Mayor Bill White told the Chronicle that, because of the city's lack of zoning, nuisance laws become more important in making sure one individual's land use doesn't interfere with another's. He said the city's recent success in using the laws has helped reduce pollution and close sexually oriented businesses near neighborhoods that had become magnets for crime.
But Matthew Festa, a professor at South Texas College of Law, told the newspaper that using nuisance laws in this way raises questions.
"It gives the impression that the government is trying to achieve its broader policy objectives, such as reduction of crime or environmental protection, by using this sort of legal action in place of regulation," he said. "If you want to reduce emissions or regulate the disposal of industrial waste, you pass a law instead of going after individual property owners."
