FLOODING IN SOUTHEAST INDIA WORSENED BY MANMADE ISSUES OTHER THAN JUST CLIMATE CHANGE Meanwhile, in Chennai: An unusually heavy winter monsoon season led to serious flooding in the coastal Indian city earlier this month, costing hundreds of lives, disrupting local infrastructure and economic sectors, and interrupting access to food and water for millions of residents. The city’s plight precipitated discussions during the Paris Climate Conference of how the impacts of extreme weather events may be exacerbated by poor urban planning. The New Delhi-based Indian Express released a short video walking through some of the local planning issues that contributed to the catastrophic flooding — including illegal construction in floodplains or on top of filled-in water bodies, stormwater runoff infrastructure built without crucial topographic data, and valuable projects never executed at all. [Indian Express, Citylab]
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A reader snapped a few shots of construction over at 8877 Frankway Dr.: a midrise apartment complex taking shape in a long-vacant strip of land next door to the Houston Orthodontics building and a ProGuard public storage facility, just west of where S. Braeswood jumps across Brays Bayou to become N. Braeswood. The project will fall into a row with the next-door Meritage and freeway-adjacent Halstead apartment complexes to the west, both on N. Braeswood between Frankway and the West Loop. Just east of the Proguard facility is the Southwest Wastewater Treatment Plant, which accidentally released nearly 100,000 gallons of raw sewage into Brays Bayou and the surrounding area during this year’s Memorial Day flooding.
A crane is on the scene, and some preformed concrete segments have been trucked in:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: PRICING OUT TAKEOUT OPTIONS FOR THE HOUSE-SLASH-TAQUERIA ON CAROLINE ST. “I think ‘less is more’,
in that I’d pay more for the house WITHOUT the attached taco stand. Don’t get me wrong — I love me some tacos — but I don’t need a stand attached to my house. That’s taking convenience too far.” [Major Market, commenting on 2-Story Single Family Home with Built-In Taco Stand Now Available in the Museum District] Photo of 4504 Caroline St.: HAR
Too close, too far for tacos
SIMON SAYS DON’T BRING YOUR GUNS TO THE GALLERIA 
Galleria manager Greg Noble released a statement last week on developer Simon Property’s decision not to allow open carry on Galleria premises: “As a private property owner, Simon will continue to enforce its existing policy of not allowing possession of any weapon on its property whether concealed or displayed openly, other than licensed weapons carried by law enforcement personnel. Once the law goes into effect, any shopper in possession of a weapon will be individually notified of Simon’s existing policy by a member of the security or management team and asked to comply.” Olivia Pulsinelli of the Houston Business Journal also notes that grocery chains H-E-B, Whole Foods, and Randall’s have posted the signage required to refuse open carry; so far, Kroger’s has not. [HBJ, previously on Swamplot] Photo of Nieman Marcus in the Galleria: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Just in time for the holiday season, the residential floors of the Elan Heights midrise apartments (officially located at 825 Usener St.) have been packaged up in a shiny new layer of building wrap. A sign outside the construction site announces an early 2016 opening for the 327-unit complex, nestled in next to Mango Beach snowcone shop and Little Buddy gas station and convenience store on White Oak Dr. (bottom left in the aerial photo below):
Swamplot is stepping out for a few minutes — actually, for the rest of the week. We’ll be back bright and early Monday morning with a sleigh-load of real estate stocking-stuffers, though. Happy Holidays!
Photo: Swamplot inbox
- 5627 Seclusion Dr. [HAR]
An excavator and friends were spotted on Westheimer this week having a go at the long-empty lot directly next to upscale Indian-fusion spot Indika. Also on the agenda were the freshly-empty and moderate-length-of-empty lots next door — all three spaces (520, 524, and 528 Westheimer) are currently held by Rok Bros Holdings.
The central lot, at 524 Westheimer, was demolished shortly after mid-2011; the more recently demolished house on the westernmost lot (528 Westheimer) held LV Massage and a psychic, after the 524 house crossed over into the great beyond. A request to merge the 3 lots was approved at a Houston Planning Commission meeting on July 10, 2014; the request refers to the space as Rok Bros Westheimer Plaza, and was filed in conjunction with Houston-based Momentum Engineering.
Swamplot reader sfalumberjack sends the twilight snapshot above, along with a few others of equipment on the site (bounded on the other side by The Cat Doctor):
- 5207 Braesheather Dr. [HAR]
DUBAI’S ENERGY PLAN WOULD PUT SOLAR PANELS ON EVERY ROOFTOP BUT WOULDN’T CUT CONSUMPTION Meanwhile, in Dubai: The United Arab Emirates, long a global symbol of extravagant wealth derived from the oil industry, is hoping to step into an equally dramatic role in the green energy scene — the recently-announced Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 calls for 25 percent of Dubai’s energy to come from clean sources by 2030, ramping up to 75 percent by 2050. The plan calls for solar panels to be placed on all rooftops in the city, and for a 5,000 megawatt solar energy park, which will generate nearly 10 times as much electricity as the next-largest such park currently in existence, California’s Solar Star. The push comes alongside neighboring Saudi Arabia’s movement toward solar energy, rooted in efforts to reserve more oil for export and remain a dominant fossil fuel force. [CityLab, the Atlantic]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A WARM UNWELCOME TO HOUSTON TRAVELERS 
“Glad to see these improvements — I hope that one day the airport system will invest some money in making the terminal more appealing to those who arrive in Houston. Baggage claim sucks, and the exit into a dark, humid, and sometimes-overwhelmingly-filled-with-fumes parking garage is even worse. I have never flown into another airport anywhere that has created a less welcoming environment than Hobby, especially in a major US city.” [sjh, commenting on Checking In at Newly Upgraded (and Once-Again International) Hobby Airport] Illustration: Lulu
Vegan-friendly dance landmark Te House of Tea, at the corner of Fairview and Woodhead, will officially close its doors tomorrow at 7 PM — then briefly reopen them for an after-Christmas sale of equipment and interior furnishings the following Saturday. According to the restaurant’s December 1st closing announcement, owner Connie Lacobie attempted to sell the nearly 10-year-old business citing health issues, but a buyer couldn’t be found before the landlord made other plans for the space. Te opened in March 2006 with a lion dance for good luck (above); the final weekly swing-blues-fusion dance was held this past Saturday, and Monday was the last Open Mic. Photos: Te House of Tea
Something is missing: Reader Jamie Guidry snapped this shot of overcast Downtown this morning, noting that “a big chunk of 1010 Lamar” appears to be absent. The breached facade is shown here from the south, from the circular GreenStreet pedestrian bridge over Fannin. (A permit was issued on December 9th for the remodel of an upper-story suite of the office building, but a representative from permittee R.L. Hart Construction confirms that it has nothing to do with the hole.)
1010 Lamar was one of the properties snapped up in 2007 by Texas office space tycoon Zaya Younan, along with the former Sakowitz department store building (currently a parking garage) across the street at 1111 Main.
- 3900 Aspen Dr. [HAR]
DUTCH ARCHITECT READY FOR FUTURE MIXED-USE RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT IN ABANDONED OIL TANKERS Meanwhile, in Amsterdam: As the IMF announces predictions of oil prices as low as $20 to $30 per barrel, architect Chris Collaris is already deep into planning for the conversion of empty oil megatankers into residential and mixed-use spaces. Collaris refers to “an overdose of pretentious iconic buildings” in oil-wealthy Persian Gulf states such as Dubai, and suggests that retrofitted tankers would serve as “a true icon” of today’s economic landscape “into the present and next era”, referencing a hypothetical post-oil future. Check out interior and exterior renderings and plans for the group’s inaugural design: the enormous Black Gold. [Chris Collaris, via CityLab]