- Randall Davis, DC Partners Break Ground on Marlowe Condo Tower Downtown [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Zimmerman Family To Turn Buildings near Allen’s Landing on Main St. into Co-Working Space [HBJ]
- Greystar Begins Preleasing at Active-Adult Community Overture Sugar Land [HBJ]
- Relish Restaurant & Bar Set To Open Monday in Former Bird & the Bear Space on Westheimer [Houston Chronicle]
- 8-Month Project Starting Next Year Will Add Grooves to Katy Freeway Pavement To Help Minimize Noise [abc13]
- How Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio Power the Texas Economy [City Journal via Opportunity Urbanist]
- Lessons Learned from the Oil Slump [Houston Public Media]
- City Council To Vote on Daytime Sidewalk Sleeping Ordinance To Reduce Vagrancy, Trespassing in Near Northside [Houston Public Media]
Photo of Judalon Lane: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
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@daytime sleeping ordinance. It’s news to me that midtown already has this ordinance in place. You would never know it by driving by the mcdonalds and greyhound station.
About time they start doing something about the hobos, it’s a small start but they need to ban vagrancy and panhandling in all of Houston. As the mayor said, don’t give them any money, most of them are not homeless but are grifters and criminals.
Look at that picture. All this time you thought you were buying a authentic brick vaulted ceiling. Little did you know you bought a faux copy.
It’s just not a situation that can or will be solved by passing new ordinances, fines, or laws. I remember seeing a good comment on reddit about this issue last year:
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“There is no law in Texas penal code against pan handling. There are city ordinances. It is a violation of these. They are not allowed in the median or roadway, they must have a reflective vest, must have a city permit. The violations are ticketable offenses. The fines are $100, $113, and $113 respectively.
As far as HPD officers not doing anything, generally it is because it is seen as a wasted effort. You can ticket the individuals, but they will never go to court, so they just turn into warrants. You can arrest them a couple months later when the warrants are valid, but they will be off the street for a day and then get time served. Or you can class c arrest them on the spot, but they will be back out on the corner in 24 hours. All the time they are in jail is at tax payer expense. So most officers spend time harassing them by taking away the window washing gear, and trying to convince them to move to the county.
You could theoretically have officers ticketing and arresting them 24/7 but they would only be doing that. As far as priorities go, you’d probably have those officers sitting up on crack houses to put them out of business, or spending their time inspecting and ticketing salvage chop shops to lower auto theft, or running shop lifters from north line mall to jail, or a large number of things most citizens would prioritize higher than panhandlers. And to do this you’d have to get rid of the property tax cap, so HPD can close the 1500 officer shortage, something like a 20-30% shortage.”
These nimby delta bravos knew they lived near a freeway when they bought their houses, 8 months of freeway closures is beyond ridiculous. The needs of the many who use that freeway far out weigh he needs of a couple noisy nimby’s.. Not to mention we as tax payers are picking up the costs for their convenience. Vulcan logic mode: off.
dampening freeway noise is also beneficial for those of us without super-sound-insulating-active-noise-canceling cars. The stretch of 610 they did is now much more pleasant to drive on.
@Will, unless you’re in an old European castle, everything here is faux this or faux that. Nobody is pretending new construction has old world structures while labor was cheap and gold coin was flowing. Hell, even most new fireplaces built are just gas faux fireboxes that are more of TV of a fire than to heat a room or cook a hare.
Re: Daytime sleeping ordinance (panhandling issue in general)
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I used to call the HPD non-emergency line on a regular basis to report panhandling in the middle of the roadway. I was impressed that a cruiser rolled up within 10 minutes of the call. But, I realized that these grifters just work in teams: when one is ordered off the street by the cop, the other one comes off the curb and takes his place after the cruiser leaves.
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And, the police cannot really do much since they don’t have a complaint about the second beggar. I’ve largely given up and I’m letting the “free market” take care of it. There’s an upper limit to how many beggars can be at a given intersection without a turf war breaking out OR until they milk it dry. I can also only hope that no one gives money to these guys and that they drift off.
@ Heights CM
Many of the old-time residents bought their houses when the freeway was narrower and not as noisy. You can hear the freeway noise at night even north of Westview (over a mile away from the freeway). I’m a big fan of the grooved freeway on 610- its’ more pleasant to drive on, and I think this will be worth the construction hassle.
Today’s Katy Freeway is a different animal. The expansion more than doubled its size, swallowing up both a parallel local road (Old Katy) and a railroad right-of-way. Also, I seem to recall that the old freeway surface was quieter asphalt. So, for those neighborhoods to the north, the freeway got closer and now generates more road noise per vehicle than before.
I live north of westview. It isnt the highway noise that I hear. At all. It is the damn helicopters. Some rich oil guy bought 10 acres and put a heli pad in, at westview and post oak. Maybe the helos cancel out the big rigs noise :/
commonsense “Hell, even most new fireplaces built are just gas faux fireboxes that are more of TV of a fire than to heat a room or cook a hare.”
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Okay, that was good.
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But I’ll contend there is a major cheese factor in having faux brick like that. First, even real brick up there would be a bad idea. So to fake something that would be bad in the first place is extremely lame.
The biggest cheese for me is when someone has a brick facade on the front of their house and then cheap wood/etc siding on the rest of it. I’ve seen that on quite a few McMansions inside the loop and it just blows my mind. You’re spending all this money on the land, and then you cheap out on the construction like that? Why in the world would you do that?
Blerg, facade is not the right term…is it veneer? Anyways it’s uggo
@ Bocephus, could that be a Fertitta helicopter you are hearing? Landry’s has a big plant on Old Katy Road @ West Loop, a mile or two north of corporate HQ on the West Loop near San Felipe. Tillman F wouldn’t take a car 10 blocks if he could take one of his helicopters.
Re brick vaulted ceilings: I’ve seen real brick vaulted ceilings in Europe. The fact that they work at all is amazing, and that they last more than a century or two is almost beyond belief. I remember thinking how heavy one of them must be, and if it failed everyone in the museum cafe would be squished, along with their lingonberry jam crepes.
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At leas the fake ones might not kill you if they fail. But yeah, that’s just architectural cosplay.
Tillman, Hildebrand, and Star Motors all have helipads about a 3 wood from my house. For some reason helo noise doesnt come up much at city meetings though.
I hope that dude is using some good glue to stick those up there. Can see someone walking in, slamming the door and BAM on the head as a bricklet falls down.