9 Comment

• slugline December 5, 2014 at 9:28 am

  Re: the new Aldi’s — I think this may be a former site of Molina’s Mexican Restaurant years ago. Every time I drive by I keep wondering if the city has plans to pave that last half-mile to make Westpark Drive continuous across Highway 6.
• anon22 December 5, 2014 at 10:58 am

  Houston grew by less than 200K people over a 14-year period? That doesn’t sound right.
• Hooligan December 5, 2014 at 11:18 am

  RE: SpaceX Farmer story: To call the tax setup a “loophole” is fairly disingenuous. The tax law is set up that way to keep the cost of food low for consumers. If farmers had to pay fair market value for farm land, there wouldn’t be much farm land in the USA. I’m not sure about you, but I’d rather not have to get my “fresh” fruits and veggies from China or India.

  And I’m not a farmer or know any one who is.
• HEB December 5, 2014 at 11:56 am

  Aldi=sucki
• Local Planner December 5, 2014 at 12:29 pm

  @ anon22: The figure is for the incorporated City of Houston only. While there’s much discussion of all the growth in the urban core and a few other select districts, remember that much of the rest of the city has had stagnant or declining population. Furthermore even net growth in some parts of the core is limited – old single family homes that used to include children move out and are replaced with one or two-person households in townhomes (usually admittedly with much higher incomes). In redevelopment of existing residential areas, you really need a bunch of multifamily units as a net add to the housing stock to get a substantial population increase.

  Most regional net growth has been in unincorporated areas or our limited set of incorporated suburbs.
• Old School December 5, 2014 at 12:38 pm

  In the hands of real farmers, the ag exemption is a very important tax benefit. In the hands of wealthy attorneys, doctors and oil execs, it is a grotesquely misused tax dodge that allows them to skip out on tens of thousands in taxes on their multi-million dollar hunting ranches by keeping a few head of cattle on the property.
• anon22 December 5, 2014 at 1:33 pm

  Yeah it’s easy to assume that the parts of Houston you never visit are burgeoning just as well as, say, the places you can see from the freeway.

  But 180K new residents (according to the article) added directly into Austin, I have to say, is a little staggering.
• Spoonman. December 5, 2014 at 2:31 pm

  @anon22, Austin (along with Fort Worth) also has an active annexation program, unlike Houston, which has suburbs older than I am still sitting unincorporated.
• Anonymous December 8, 2014 at 4:25 pm

  Sorry to see the hospital go. Spring Branch residents could use an alternative to the terrible Memorial Hermann.