COMMENT OF THE DAY: CHEAPER, CLOSE-IN “I would just add to what Cody said. You can avoid traffic AND get a big house and lawn here in Houston. You just need to set aside your prejudices about certain neighborhoods. We’ve been living in the Brays Oaks area, formerly known as Fondren Southwest, since 2007, and it’s wonderful. Houses prices are on-par with far-flung suburbs like Jersey Village and Spring; far less than Inside the Loop. Barring any major accidents we can get from our house to the Museum District in less than 25 minutes; the Medical Center in under 20. My commute to work only takes me one exit on the Southwest Freeway. I take a certain satisfaction and watching all the people from Sugar Land sit in traffic, knowing that they spent more and got less house than we did. (Crime issues here are overblown, by the way – the result of sensationalized local news reports. The public schools are lousy, but we have some great private schools.)” [ZAW, commenting on Comment of the Day: First We Crowd]
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: MANIFEST DESTINY “One day, this entire area will be called The Texas Medical Center.” [john@UHD, commenting on The New Mixed-Use Building in the Museum District]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: FIRST WE CROWD “. . . those folks thinking Houston would ever actually be capable of creating infrastructure to adequately manage increased density developments are living in a fool’s paradise. you live in a state where voters actively vote against such propositions by favoring no income taxes and keeping the pressure on no property tax increases to fund such transit initiatives. the density will have to come first, that’s a given.” [joel, commenting on Comment of the Day: Bring It On]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BRING IT ON “As we all learned from the Ashby debacle, anyone who lives within a 2 mile radius of a proposed project has the right to go all NIMBY on it. Well, I live within a 2 mile radius of this project, and I’d like to declare myself to be a BIMBY — Build In My Backyard. I purchased inside the loop so that I could be in a dynamic urban environment; that includes high density housing options mixed in with single family; that includes the associated traffic; that includes noisy bars letting out at 2am right in the middle of neighborhoods; that includes Ferraris wailing at 120db at 7am on Sunday even if they’re only going 15mph. Bottom line, I’d love it if the Heights became more like Greenwich Village or Tribeca. While the Heights, or Montrose, aren’t likely to get there in the near future, projects like this (and Ashby) help get us just a little bit further in that direction. And I consider that to be a good thing. BIMBY!” [Walt, commenting on A Land Use Counterattack from the Yale St. Alexan Heights]
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: WHEN RANDALL’S WAS SWANK “It sounds crazy nowadays but I remember back in the ′80s when this store opened up and they had valet parking under their porte cochere with valets wearing tuxedoes. We were very impressed by the little restaurant inside, too. It was so ritzy! Sad to see the prosperity all gone now.” [AW, commenting on Yes, the Voss Rd. Randall’s Is Closing]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SCOURGE OF THE PEDESTAL SINK “. . . I noticed from the photos that the sink was replaced with one of these impractical pedestal sinks — one of these things where you can’t put *anything* except a tiny bar of hotel soap on. I realize that the previous sink probably was small, too, but if you’re going to replace a sink, can’t you replace it with something more practical? I know that some interior designers love them because they think a tiny sink makes small bathrooms look bigger, but there must be better solutions than this. Pedestal sinks may be fine for powder rooms, but certainly not for full bathrooms. I know of one case where a woman sold her house because she was fed up with not having any storage space in the bathrooms (among other reasons). And I once toured a house where someone had replaced a double-sink vanity with 2 pedestal sinks and then ended up building a really ugly, made-in-garage storage thing to put in between the sinks to compensate for the lost storage space. Ugh.” [Sabaushi, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Mint Condition]
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: HOW TO MEMORIALIZE A CITY OF OPEN SPACES, ONCE ALL THE VACANT LOTS ARE FILLED “. . . I’ve been saying for a long time that the city should be actively acquiring and developing one lot in each neighborhood as a pocket park with some kind of unique sculpture or statue as its centerpiece. Some kind of consistent theme of that sort could form the basis for grassroots tourism of a unique variety. Sort of a park crawl rather than a pub crawl . . . or perhaps both at the same [time]. Houston’s best assets, after all, are our neighborhoods. We should show them off.” [TheNiche, commenting on Headlines: Vargo’s Comes Down; The Honeywood Trail House of Honey]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE PLEA OF THE ANONYMOUS BICYCLIST “To all the anti-bike crew, I see some cyclists pull some pretty stupid maneuvers and I apologize that y’all have to put up with that. I mean, I see folks pull some really stupid stuff. Running signals without even checking for oncoming traffic, cutting people off, riding right down the middle of gaddang West Richmond at 5mph . . . On behalf of the majority of cyclists who don’t ride like jackasses please accept my condolences. They give all of us a bad name. But please, let’s realize two very important things in this situation: 1) Just as some cyclists pull stupid crap on the road, so do folks in cars. It’s not all drivers, of course not! But dang, Some folks are just straight-up dangerous. Running signals without even checking for oncoming traffic, cutting people off, driving down gaddang residential streets at 45mph . . . I mean, all those wrecks on 59 I keep hearing out my window at 7AM certainly weren’t caused by bikes. 2) We live in a city, y’all. . . . Part of living in a city means people getting in each other’s way, like ALL the time. It sucks, it does. . . . Just look at the traffic on the freeways! At 5PM you’d get through Midtown faster going 15mph stuck behind my slowa** on Fannin than parking on 288. Being inconvenienced by the existence of other humans is part of living in a big city. . . . If you can’t take the heat, get outta the kitchen. Just don’t blame it on bikes if your commute sucks. So, here’s what I propose: I’ll do my best to stay out of y’alls way. I’m not a spokesperson for cyclists or anything but I’ll encourage my friends to do the same. Believe me, I don’t like holding up traffic and I do my best to avoid it. In return, all I ask is not to be treated like some insidious pain in the arse that is intentionally destroying Houston — and especially your life — because I cost you an extra 13 seconds on the trip to Randall’s. I’m just some dude who’s trying to get to work so I can pay rent and taxes and buy groceries and beer. Please cut me a break if I’m taking up the right lane and going all slow because there’s a headwind. Drop it into 3rd and write off that few seconds you’ll be delayed, or, I dunno, go around if there’s another lane. Just be nice. Getting angry over minor things will give ya heart disease or something. Truce?” [dangdang, commenting on Ordinance Now Protects the Vulnerable from Passing Cars, Projectiles]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: NEIGHBORHOOD UPGRADES “. . . right now we have policies that are actively working to get rid of our affordable housing in Montrose (and other places as you point out). They’re just disguised as ‘registration’ and ‘certification’ to make sure places are ‘safe.’ That whole process should be scrapped. If someone has a run-down property people will either 1) not live in it, or 2) decide to live in it because the rent is conducive to the building quality. A ‘smart’ property owner might decide to upgrade the place to raise up the rents, whereas another owner may want to keep his place basic and get lower rents. Renters will decide where they want to go. It’s not the government’s right to force someone to pay more rent because they don’t feel something is at a given level. I’ve said it here before: Almost every building we’ve upgraded and raised the rent on gave us new tenants simply because the previous tenants couldn’t afford it. So who really benefited by our upgrades? Most of our upgrades were done by us outside of government interference (we don’t need to be told to fix things that are obviously not right about the property, our renters, banks, insurance company, etc. do a good job at that) but there have been plenty of times where we’ve done things per city demand that have raised rents and driven current tenants out. I’m sure they’re really stoked that our hand rails in Montrose are now 36″ high vs. 32″ while they now are living in 5th ward rather than the neighborhood they loved and were priced out of . . .” [Cody, commenting on Comment of the Day: Saving Houston for the Next Generation of Newcomers]
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: Y’ALL COME BY NOW, Y’HEAR? “I am thankful for Ben’s research and for putting me in touch with Robert who had the right buyer for my Dad’s house. I have always loved this house and have great memories here. It’s where I learned to appreciate unique architecture. I now live in NYC. I will have an open house on June 1st 10a to 4p if anyone would like to stop by, say hello — see the ‘before’ and the Texas shaped hot-tub my dad made in the back before it probably goes. If you are allergic to dust, wear a mask. PS — the boat is gone. long story.” [laura kellner, commenting on The Century Built Home in Garden Oaks That Sold in About an Hour]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SAVING HOUSTON FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF NEWCOMERS “i’d just point out that Houston is a large and growing city. although the inner-loop is changing, so are all the other hoods within 20 miles of here. nobody says you have to live in the same ‘hood all your life and i’d even go so far as to say that to expect to live in the same neighborhood indefinitely without seeing major changes is just selfishness. i’ll gladly pick up and move once the montrose has finally been redeveloped for the $150K+ income bracket only. i think it kills diversity and character of the area, but i’m glad it’s growing and more people are able to live near work and greater amenities while providing a larger tax base to make this city better for all the areas . . . i think my fellow citizens deserve that at least. if it changes it changes, but there’s no shortage of places to move to. as long as it’s making the city better. move to a poor neighborhood if you don’t want to see any changes, there’s plenty around. and that’s the danger of giving neighborhoods rights over [what] can be developed. by nature they will only have their desires in mind, not that of the millions of others that could benefit from growth and new developments.” [joel, commenting on Comment of the Day: Who Cares What the Neighbors Think?]
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: BOGARTING THE ASTRODOME “The only roadblock to redevelopment of the Dome, as I see it, are two self-interested organizations that are afforded an unwarranted and undeserved say in the matter.” [TheNiche, commenting on Headlines: Itemizing Astrodome Tax Expenses; El Tiempo Cantina Heading South]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHO CARES WHAT THE NEIGHBORS THINK? “The fact is that the neighbors are not part of the transaction. The transaction happens between a developer who legally acquired land and new customers who will come from an outside area. Therefore developers do not have to and do not listen to them.” [commonsense, commenting on Comment of the Day: An Atmosphere of Mistrust]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: AN ATMOSPHERE OF MISTRUST “I’m inclined to believe the owner on this one. Who knows better what Sharifi plans to do with the property, than Sharifi himself? It’s not just that he said there were no immediate plans to develop the property – how many times have we heard that one — it’s the good brick award and the quip about townhomes that does it — for me at least. The real story here is the level of mistrust that exists between the public and the building community (developers but also architects, engineers, and contractors). It’s a nationwide phenomenon that’s especially strong here in Houston. There’s a common misconception that our lack of zoning leaves us more vulnerable. We’ve suffered a lot of bad development since the 1960s. It has made us paranoid. And with affordable garden apartments Inside the Loop falling one-by-one to luxury mid rises, it’s understandable that people in complexes like the Gramercy Place Apartments would be especially paranoid.” [ZAW, commenting on The Confusing Continuing Story of the Gramercy Place Apartments]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HERE COME THE GOOF-Y TOWNHOUSES “The revisions to Chapter 42 mean that the fringes of Oak Forest, Garden Oaks and Spring Branch can be built up with lots of townhomes and other inner loop-esque density. Given that you now have to shell out $500-$800k to live in OF, GO or many parts of Spring Branch, I would bet that, all things constant, this listing would be seen as a steal in five to ten years . . .” [Old School, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Number 1, Fan]