Existing Nonconforming Buildings in the Central Area of Kyoto City: Effects of the “New Urban Landscape Ordinances”

Abstract

Kyoto City’s “New Urban Landscape Ordinances” took effect on September 1, 2007, tightening architectural height restrictions across a third of the area zoned for urban development, approximately 50 square kilometers. Concerns have been voiced in response to this significant tightening of restrictions in the New Urban Landscape Ordinances in the context of private property rights and freedom of economic activity. The most serious problem among these is the fact that as a consequence of the tightening of height restrictions, an estimated 1,800 buildings across the city will become “existing nonconforming buildings” in violation of the new height restrictions.

In fact, however, this figure of 1,800 existing nonconforming buildings was no more than a provisional estimate made by Kyoto City, and was not based on any empirical investigation. This study, therefore, involved a detailed field survey in the central area, which has the highest concentration of existing nonconforming buildings, so as to gain a sense of the type, distribution, and quantity of existing nonconforming buildings.

The findings of this study confirmed 989 existing nonconforming buildings in downtown Kyoto, in an area where the city’s estimate was 443.

Classifying existing nonconforming buildings by type, 537 condominiums, 287 office buildings, and 97 commercial buildings together comprised 90% of the total. Also, the districts in which non-compliant condominiums were located corresponded very closely with districts that had experienced population increases since the late 1990s, indicating that the townscape conflicts accompanying the penetration of condominiums and the recent revival of the downtown population were two sides of the same coin. Of the office buildings, the majority are connected with Kyoto’s traditional industries, especially textiles, and are concentrated in the textile wholesale district along Muromachi Street.

These findings suggest the following points: (1) A detailed survey of the entire city is urgently required. (2) There is a need to re-investigate the particulars of the New Urban Landscape Ordinances, namely, whether the reporting of inaccurate information about existing nonconforming buildings did not in fact mislead discussion. (3) Until now, most debates over urban development and the preservation of urban landscapes have arisen out of antagonism between external developers and new residents on the one hand, and local industries and longstanding residents on the other. This example, however, indicates a complexity of interests that are not reducible to a simple dichotomy between new and old residents.