- Hunington Properties Under Contract for Nearly 200 Acres in Baytown Slated for Mixed-Use Project [HBJ]
- The Bracewell & Giuliani Law Firm Signs 189,061-SF Long-Term Lease Renewal at Pennzoil Place [Realty News Report]
- Inside the Hyatt Regency Houston Galleria, Now Open in Uptown [HBJ]
- MedSpring Urgent Care Opens Sixth Houston Facility with Heights Location, Another Underway in Midtown [HBJ]
- Will Shake Shack Be a Future Tenant for the Renovated Galleria III? [Culturemap]
- Newly-Built Home Closings Fell 27% in September from Year Before, According to Metrostudy [Houston Chronicle]
- What the Defeat of HERO Could Mean for Houston’s Tourism and Convention Industries [HBJ]
- 610 Loop the Third-Worst Freeway in the U.S., According to Thrillist [Click2Houston]
- New, 2-Mile Piece of White Oak Bayou Greenway Under Construction [The Leader]
- Toll Brothers Debuts Optional Dog Wash Station in Its Latest Model Homes in Katy and The Woodlands [HBJ]
- So Far 34 Utility Boxes Have Been Painted in City’s Mini-Mural Program, Another 52 Planned Next Year [Houston Chronicle]
- Life Hacks for Living in Houston [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of CityCentre Five: elnina via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Re: HERO
Re-write the ordinance to mirror the federal anti- discrimination law that already protects EVERYBODY in America from discrimination. Simply delete the ‘Parker loophole’ allowing men in women’s restrooms and it will pass.
GLBT folks are not federally protected.
“For my vacation, I’m headed to Houston since they have a HERO ordinance.”
– Said no one ever
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Seriously, I doubt that conventions or visitors will give one whit about the ordinance’s defeat in about a month. Conventions care about facilities, hotels, and fun for attendees. Visitors care about getting around town, seeing things, and maybe visiting family.
Federal anti-discrimination law is fairly limited. It bars discrimination only for certain groups in certain specified areas of public accommodation, like hotels, restaurants, etc. State and local anti-discrimination laws pick up from there and are much more far reaching, like the HERO ordinance. But you are right, but for the transgender part, no one would nit pick over the ordinance.
Re: HERO. There wasn’t much evidence that it posed an impediment to doing or attracting business prior to it being proposed.
If there is a negative effect, it has to do with the publicity and spin that’s been assigned to it nationally. But a reasonable person has to approach the issue understanding that it was a conservative cause célèbre, stoked by some recent events and outside influence, held during an off-year election. If the City had waited one year to put it on the ballot then it could never have received the attention that it did and it probably would’ve passed — the same as these things have passed in every other big city. That it got shot down doesn’t say anything about Houston; by contrast, that Mayor Parker is openly gay and got elected and re-elected until being term-limited out of office does say something about Houston.
I do understand that this sort of controversy appears to pose a no-win scenario, but if there is some kind of pushback from the business, convention, and tourism sectors and GHP can’t reverse the spin and set it back into an appropriate context then I’d argue that the GHP isn’t doing a very good job at handling the issue.