The owner of the property at the southeast corner of Kirby Dr. and North Blvd. has indicated he might attempt to evict the Wendy’s franchise whose operator appears to have ordered the nighttime removal of 6 oak trees on public property surrounding the fast-food outlet earlier this week. Lias J. “Jeff” Steen, the property’s landlord, says he sent an email saying “I am extremely disappointed he took down the trees under cover of darkness . . . And I am looking at terminating our lease,” according to a report by abc13’s Deborah Wrigley.
Removed ‘in Good Faith’
“I hate watching this complacency about Houston’s problems. Yeah, we’re not like Boston or San Jose, and in some ways that’s good, but there is a lot we can do to get better without losing some sort of the mystical ‘Houstonness’ that makes us special.
To those marveling at how great and ‘vibrant’ Houston’s flaws are, would you like to go back to 1980 when billboards were three times more crowded along our freeways? Would you like to rip out all the trees that have been planted along those same freeways? Would you like to remove the historic restrictions in the Heights and Sixth Ward and watch those neighborhoods turn into Rice Military? Do you want to see another giant revolving gas station sign atop a downtown skyscraper? Shall we return Hermann Park to its former scraggly state, or put the sewage back in Buffalo Bayou?
If the answer to these questions is ‘No,’ then you must not be a fan of ‘Keeping Houston Houston,’ because before all that happened, Houston was a lot more ‘Houston’ than it is now. I would argue that the way it is now is a vast improvement, and that we should keep going in that direction.” [
“I wonder if the city would consider a change in the parking ordinance where you need x spots per unit (or SF of commercial space) or the equivalent in green space.
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but we’re about to build a new set of apartments and I wanted to have a big garden where all tenants get their own ‘spot.’ Nothing huge. Maybe 10 feet by 5 feet. We were going to do this by not putting in much parking. But I found out we need a TON more parking than I thought. We were told we had to pave paradise, and put in a parking lot (oooh, bop bop bop bop . . .).” [
“City of Houston only requires fire sprinklers on homes 4 stories and higher. That’s why so many townhouses stop at 3 stories and have an unfinished room leading to a roof terrace on the 4th floor. Also, exterior finish materials over 40 feet high must be non-combustible.” [
Among the new requirements for game rooms in Harris County 
A reader is hoping to get a handle on the current state of City of Houston regulations regarding prefab homes: “As far as I can tell, the 
