COMMENT OF THE DAY: YOU WOULD CRY TOO IF IT HAPPENED TO YOU “ALAIISEBY: pronounced ‘Alayzbee’. As Long As It’s In Someone Else’s Back Yard. This is the principle of land use in Houston. No one gives a crap that a builder/developer is going to do something that adversely affects a homeowner as long as it is in someone else’s back yard. Homeowners think that no zoning is great because their back yard is just fine. And when something happens to someone else’s back yard, it doesn’t matter. Thus, instead of coming together around attrocities like the Ashby High Rise and the Heights Walmart, homeowners cast scorn on those who are affected by bad land use decisions because it is someone else’s back yard and doesn’t matter. Let the West End take one for the team so people can [buy] bb guns at 3 am at Walmart. Southhampton should have to live next to a highrise because they make too much money and deserve a little taste of how much Houston sucks. Homeowners who do not live within the protective confines of deed restricted developments should come together and support some sort of land use restrictions in Houston. But they don’t because it doesn’t matter as long as it is in someone else’s back yard.” [ALAIISEBY, commenting on Riverside Terrace Assisted Living: Whatever It Is, You Should Be Against It]
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Neighborhood Disputes
Passed on to Swamplot: an “anonymous call-to-arms of sorts” distributed to the front doors of a few residents on the Hwy. 288 edge of Riverside Terrace. A reader who received the crooked yellow flyer complaining about the encroachment of businesses into the area tells Swamplot “I would find it hilarious if it didn’t make me so angry.” Our tipster notes in the author of the double-sided note an apparent “disjunction between the things that irritate them (‘Speed Racers’ and ‘sexual deviants’) and the alleged causes (businesses, like Denny’s).”:
I don’t even know how to respond – I thought about creating another flyer, actually using my name, and systematically debunking each of their complaints, but that would probably just get my house egged.
At issue: a future “assisted living facility” apparently being planned for 2323 Prospect St. The author of the flyer doesn’t exactly know what’s going in there, but writes adamantly that it can’t be good:
What kind of services are being provided and to whom these services are being provided is unknown at this time. Will this pending facility provide services for the released mentally fragile, released prisoners, sexual deviants, homeless or for drug rehab? Whatever! This business is not safe for you, your family, our block, our neighborhood and our community.
The complete flyer:
HANS’ BIER HAUS ON THE ROCKS 
Restraining orders may have put a little damper on the back-and-forth between Hans’ Bier Haus and some of the fun-loving residents of the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby condo building that towers over it next door, but Miya Shay reports things are back to uh, normal now. Bar owner Bill Cave tells her he “believes a big chunk of ice crashed through his roof and into the bar” in the wee hours of this past holiday weekend. But gosh, where’s the evidence? (Note: Video posted with the story is out of date; Hans’ Bier Haus already renewed its license.) [abc13; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Jack H.
H-E-B agreed several months ago to wall off the ends of Sul Ross and Branard streets, which dead-end into the site of its future Montrose market at West Alabama and Dunlavy, and which served as entrances for the Wilshire Village Apartments that were torn down there last year. But what about devotees of that obscure local Montrose pastime known as walking to the supermarket? If they’re coming from the neighborhoods to the west, should they be able to get through that way?
Over the weekend, the Lancaster Place Civic Association worked out a “compromise” between homeowners on the dead-end portions of Sul Ross and Branard — mostly opposed to having pedestrian gates at the ends of their streets — and homeowners and renters in that neighborhood to the south and southwest of the site, most of whom wanted them included. H-E-B Houston prez Scott McClelland says he’ll have H-E-B’s in-house architects design what the association came up with: A pedestrian gate on Branard, with a timer that will lock it after dark. Sul Ross, which is closer to the store entrance, won’t have a gate, but will have a panel in the wall that would make it easier to put one in later.
THE NEXT NEIGHBOR IN LINE FOR 2520 ROBINHOOD WON’T MIND GETTING WET 
Hudson Lounge owner Adam Kleibert is hoping his new bar directly to the east of the 2520 Robinhood at Kirby condo tower will get better treatment from his neighbors than the drenching and projectile greetings Hans’ Bier Haus directly to the west received last year. And he tells the HBJ‘s Allison Wollam that he and his brothers have some plans for the rest of the property they own directly adjacent to the tower. Once the lending market turns around, he says, they’d like to build a 33-room boutique hotel with a rooftop pool on the site. Kleibert says the Hudson Lounge is already planning a reception expressly for condo residents. [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia
How many cars showed up? “If Steven Colbert can get away with 6 Billion on The Mall, we can call this 22,000…what’s in a number?” asks a reader who says there were actually probably 70 to 100 cars lined up at about 10:15 at last Saturday’s traffic-themed protest of the planned West End Walmart. Comments sent to Swamplot yesterday:
We made the scene at 18th & Rutland during preparation for what one organizer described as a “Flash Mob sort of thingâ€. . . . The mood was fairly lighthearted; it was a beautiful morning after all. Plan was to drive down and around the Koehler Street site and make general mischief, I guess. Saw one TV station camera crew, but did not see anything in print over the next couple of days. Admittedly, I didn’t look real hard.
While I don’t agree with these folks . . . I have to admit, I honor their activism.
“What we need is sustained outrageâ€, indeed!
- Walmart CARNAGE Protest [Stop Heights Walmart]
- Protesters Hit The Streets To Stop The Heights WalMart [39 Online]
- Heights Walmart critics use ‘mobile protest’ to demonstrate traffic impact [11 News]
- West End Walmart coverage [Swamplot]
Photo: Swamplot inbox
“Closer inspection,” reports one of 2 readers who sent us photos of these heartwarming signs found on Studewood just north of Fitzgerald’s, “reveals these to be re-purposed campaign signs…Bill White ‘welcomes’ and Jessica Farrar ‘hearts’ Walmart, apparently.” Okay, so what have people been doing with the Rick Perry and Fernando Herrera signs?
- West End Walmart coverage [Swamplot]
Photo: Swamplot inbox
CANDLELIGHT TRAILS IS GOING DOWN 
The demolition of the 11-acre Candlelight Trails empty-condos-and-crime site could begin as early as today. Officials at city hall tell 11 News reporter Sherry Williams that a judge approved the demolition of the abandoned complex — in the 5500 and 5600 blocks of DeSoto, off Antoine north of Tidwell — this morning: “The city recently sued about 150 of the condo owners to get them to sign off on the demolition. Some of those lawsuits added up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties. . . . ‘As long as they agree to sign over their title to the city, then we’re not going after them for money,’ said Houston City Councilwoman Jolanda Jones. ‘It’s really sad that they bought into a place where the people who ran it absconded with their money, but I’m thankful that we are not further, I don’t know, kicking them while they’re down.’” Update: The demolition is now scheduled to begin at 1:30 pm, according to the Near Northwest Management District. [KHOU; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Matt Stiles
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WE’RE ALL INTRUDERS HERE “Now, if I lived next to it . . . I would be vocally opposing it based on its proximity to me, but I have to say, those of you living near its proposed location were on the WalMart end not too long ago, changing the quality of life for many of your neighbors with your big stucco three and four story homes going in next to small bungalows. So, while you are throwing stones, you might want to consider that in the not so distant past those stones were being thrown at you.” [EMME, commenting on Y’All Can Discuss the West End Walmart on Your Own]
Y’ALL CAN DISCUSS THE WEST END WALMART ON YOUR OWN Missed all the fun at last week’s big celebration of Walmart’s impending arrival in the Inner Loop? Two ways you can still get in on the action: Mayor Parker’s office has posted videos of the presentations given by the mayor and chief development officer Andy Icken at the gathering. And a second public meeting is scheduled for tonight, at a venue guaranteed to keep things orderly — The High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. But the folks from Ainbinder and Walmart won’t be around this time, according to the mayor, who’s announced the meeting “will focus solely on areas of the development that are under the city’s control.” [CitizensNet via Off the Kuff; previously on Swamplot]
Neighbors in the Freeland Historic District who imagined the nationwide economic downturn and neighborhood protests a few years ago would have been enough to kill a threatened 65-70-condo development on a wooded tract next to the new Heights hike-and-bike trail have been buzzing about the project’s apparent reappearance. On the agenda for this week’s planning commission meeting: the Emes Place Subdivision, which will give the long-landlocked site access by connecting Frasier St. and E. 5th St. across the trail, just north of White Oak Bayou. The subdivision plat is listed as a “consent item,” meaning its approval is not scheduled to be put up for a separate vote.
Viewpoint at the Heights, slated for that subdivision, is a project of Canada’s Group LSR, which goes by the name Inner Loop Condos in Houston. The company developed the Serento Condominium near the Med Center and the Piedmont sorta near River Oaks. Freeland residents have heard the building being proposed for the 1-acre site will be 4 or 5 stories tall.
- Viewpoint at the Heights [Inner Loop Condos]
- The Heights and lows: Condos face neighborhood opposition [Houston Business Journal]
A few highlights from last night’s meet-and-jeer on the third floor of the George R. Brown Convention Center Downtown, where representatives of Walmart, Ainbinder, and the city gave presentations on the Walmart and related retail developments proposed for the area around Yale and Koehler streets in the West End:
- Mayor Parker announced she had originally hoped to hold the meeting at the United Way building at 50 Waugh St. in Memorial Heights, but the nonprofit turned her down — probably because of concerns it might get “rowdy,” she joked. But the night’s meeting format seemed designed to keep public outbursts to a minimum: After the presentations, attendees were asked to break up into smaller groups and gather around tables in the back to get their questions answered, one by one, from city officials or developer representatives. Before attendees could be dispersed, though, a few people managed to work their way to a microphone and ask questions or make statements in front of the entire room.
- A significant percentage of the crowd wore “I don’t want that Walmart” red shirts. It wasn’t clear what portion of the less-vibrantly-dressed people there supported the development, but during his presentation Walmart senior VP Jeff McAllister did announce that many of the company’s suppliers were in attendance.
Just ahead of tonight’s meeting, Ainbinder Company has released the requisite mostly-empty-parking-lot and pedestrians-standing-in-a-median renderings of the Walmart the company is hoping to seat off Koehler and Yale in the West End. The renderings come from a 5-page brochure for the company’s Washington Heights development that includes an aerial view and plenty of lovely images documenting the site’s industrial recent past, going so far as to call the former Trinity Industries plant on the site — where beams, columns, and other structures were fabricated from supplied raw materials — a “steel mill.” But no official (or updated) site plans for the current proposal are included.
Here’s a view of how the Walmart might look in the early dawn, as you drive up:
MORE THAN A COLLECTION OF RED SHIRTS AND BLUE SHIRTS 
Hearing the news that Mayor Parker will be hosting a public meeting Wednesday evening at Downtown’s George R. Brown Convention Center to answer questions about Ainbinder’s Walmart & friends development targeted for a 24-acre property near the intersection of Yale and Koehler streets in the West End (just south of the Heights), the folks behind the Stop Heights Walmart website have come up with an interesting plan: Urge opponents of the discount chain’s first foray into Houston’s Inner Loop to attend the meeting wearing red shirts. Notably, that’s the daily uniform of the hundreds of thousands of “team members” who work for discount rival Target. One Walmart opponent noted on the group’s Facebook page that red shirts are available for low prices at Walgreens. “Please don’t buy them at Walmart :) Given, right?” asked another commenter. A few representatives of Ainbinder and Walmart itself will be on hand at the meeting, wearing blue vests and greeting visitors at the door. [Stop Heights Walmart; previously on Swamplot] Photos: Rufus Quail; Alice Wright
A few neighbors actually picketed this home on the corner of Decatur and Silver streets for months after it was built. In 2001 Cite magazine labeled it “probably the most scrutinized — and criticized — private home in recent Houston history.” What was all the fuss about? It was a brand-new home built on a long-vacant lot around the turn of this century in a recently designated historic district: the Old Sixth Ward.
The protest signs have been down for years, but a for-sale sign went up in the yard last fall. After a failed closing, the house came back on the market this summer. Then a second buyer couldn’t come up with financing. The sellers cut the asking price $20K, to $539,999, just last week.
The 3 bedroom, 2 full- and 2 half-bath house was designed and constructed by Houston’s MC² Architects. A picketer-free photo tour is below:
