"it was rare to see development that was crazy or so "out of place" that it would have caused problems."

I was in Houston briefly in 1999.

We were driving through a completely residential neighborhood, and someone was running a liquor store out of their porch.

They had a house. It was a normal house in a normal neighborhood. That house had a porch. There was an I-shit-you-not liquor store being run from that porch.

I would characterize that as "crazy" and also "out of place".