HOUSTON HOUSING AUTHORITY AUTHORITY RESIGNS IN WAKE OF BRIARGROVE MIXED-INCOME KERFUFFLE 
By both letter and Tweet, Houston Housing Authority chairman Lance Gilliam has announced plans to resign early following Mayor Turner’s criticism of the agency last week, writes Erin Mulvaney. During Wednesday’s council meeting, Turner chided the agency for not having constructed new housing units in the past decade (though Gilliam’s Friday resignation letter notes that thousands of additional people have been added to the organization’s voucher program). The agency has had the majority of its recent proposed construction projects blocked following last year’s US Supreme Court decision, which struck down Texas’s system of awarding public housing project tax credits because it was found to promote racial segregation into low-income areas (deliberately or not). The Briargrove project, which involved replacing one of the Houston Housing Authority’s own Fountain View office buildings with a mixed-income apartment complex, was the Houston agency’s first attempt to build new affordable units in a high-income area; following extensive neighborhood pushback, Turner asked the agency to look for other locations in the same area, and blocked tax credit financing for the project by not bringing it to a council vote. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Rendering of proposed apartments at 2640 Fountain View Dr.: HHA
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE MORE HOUSTON CHANGES, THE MORE IT STAYS THE SAME 
“The problem is that Houston is in a constant state of flux. The Houston you know at 20 is unrecognizable at 50, no matter what year you were born. There is no classically recognizable Houston or Houstonian — the only thing most Houstonians share as a character trait is a mutual lack of interest in the past. When I wrote a novella about Houston, I made it ground zero of a global amnesia plague. Seemed appropriate.” [AMP, commenting on Novel Approaches to Houston] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE HIGH-SPEED RAIL BUBBA RESCUE SCENARIO 
“HSR going bankrupt isn’t the worst deal around. Consider: TCR takes a bunch of Japanese + hedge fund money, fails to pay off capital costs, goes into receivership, forfeits the right-of-way to the state for failure to pay back taxes, TxDOT leases right-of-way for 99 years to a consortium of investors led by Tilman Fertitta, after which all trains have cocktails and coconut shrimp served on board. I wouldn’t complain.” [Purple City, commenting on Land Purchases Beginning Along Proposed Houston-to-Dallas Bullet Train Route]
THE ODDS ON A PIERCE ELEVATED COMEDOWN 
Writing in the latest issue of Texas Architect magazine — which is now debuting a redone website with a new web address and a new all-articles-are-now free policy — Ben Koush surveys the prospects for the raised section of I-45 now dividing Midtown from Downtown: “While there have been some plans floated around to convert the decommissioned section of the Pierce Elevated into Houston’s version of the Highline, most people I spoke with didn’t think that was going to happen, simply because TxDOT needs the money it could get from selling that right of way to private developers. Some still hold out hope that at least some of the land or maybe even a small section of the elevated roadway could be made into a public green space.” [Texas Architect; previously on Swamplot] Plan of “currently approved scheme” for I-45 rerouting around downtown, showing possible green space: SWA Group
RESPONDING TO A FLOOD OF COMPLAINTS ABOUT FLOOD INSURANCE Meanwhile, in New York: A few months after a joint Frontline and NPR investigation noted how profits for insurance companies administering the National Flood Insurance Program regularly peak after flooding disasters, a new report issued by the office of New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman says there’s a lack of accountability in the program that is likely costing taxpayers millions and cheating the homeowners the program is designed to serve. The AG’s office “has now found flood insurance does not cover what it promises in its ads, that many engineers and others hired to evaluate damage were not qualified and that homeowners were wrongly prevented from seeing copies of their own reports,” reports NPR’s Laura Sullivan. In response, FEMA says it has adjusted its rules and will continue to do so to make sure costs of obtaining outside services are justified and documented. [Frontline; NPR]
NOVEL APPROACHES TO HOUSTON 
Noting the “daily clash” of old and new, local and immigrant, and very rich and very poor around these parts, “the tawdriness of those who control the city’s worst quarters,” and the density of terrific raw material for stories, Mimi Swartz wonders — as she considers 3 new novels set in the Bayou City — why Houston hasn’t served as the setting of more great fiction: “Anyone from Charles Dickens to Edith Wharton to Tom Wolfe would have or should have killed for the chance to take Houston on. And yet, so far, few have stepped up. The hands-down best novelist on Houston is Larry McMurtry; the best of his books set here — Moving On, All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers, Terms of Endearment, and The Evening Star — evoke the place with affection and authority. But McMurtry’s last Houston book came out in 1992.” Worth mentioning since then: short stories by Antonya Nelson; a few scenes in Justin Cronin’s vampire trilogy, The Passage; Alicia Erian’s novel Towelhead; and thrillers by Attica Locke. Still, she notes, “with Houston, every writer is pretty much starting from scratch.” [Texas Monthly] Photo: faungg [license]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOUSTON HEIGHTS HISTORY IN THE MAKING 
“. . . They probably looked around and saw hundreds of 3k-plus-sq.-ft. Faux Craftsman, Faux Victorian, Faux Colonial, Faux Historic, etc. ‘bungalows,’ that have replaced (or bastardized) most of the real Craftsman, Victorian, Colonial, historic bungalows and realized that the Heights ‘style’ is all fake anyway, so why bother replicating more Faux? They instead designed a building that represents its own era, 2016. . . . Don’t fret, in 100 years, this will be ‘historic’ too.” [John M, commenting on Once Bashful Heights Post Office Replacement Retail Now Willing To Step Up to the Street, Learn To Like Sidewalks] Illustration: Lulu
HOUSTON’S NEW OFFICIAL MESSAGE TO IMMIGRANTS: WELCOME, Y’ALL! 
Long derided by some illegal-immigration opponents as a “Sanctuary City,” Houston appears now to be rebranding itself to suit. The city’s Office of International Communities, along with 2 area nonprofits, are joining to label Houston an official “Welcoming City†for immigrants and refugees, focused on welcoming and integrating new Americans. In joining the nationwide Welcoming Cities and Counties initiative, Houston is joining such hotbeds of newcomer friendliness as Boise, Idaho; Crete, Nebraska, Salt Lake County, Utah; Dayton, Ohio; and Memphis, Tennessee (not to mention Austin, LA, NYC, Chicago, and other likely suspects). Participating community groups intend to create a plan for Houston to “improve the lives of immigrants moving to Houston” and present it to Mayor Turner in November. [City of Houston; Welcoming America] Photo of sign in Chile: Pipe Loyola M
LAND PURCHASES BEGINNING ALONG PROPOSED HOUSTON-TO-DALLAS BULLET TRAIN ROUTE 
Texas Central Railway’s CEO tells Realty News Report’s Ralph Bivins that owners of some properties in the projected path of the planned Houston-to-Dallas 200mph rail line have already agreed to sell their land to the company, which is hoping to get started on construction of the 90-minute route next year. Tim B. Keith says he’s “encouraged with the progress” of what he refers to as the project’s “voluntary land purchase program.” He notes that “Texas’ Constitution and state statutes have long granted eminent domain authority to railroads such as Texas Central, as well as pipeline companies, electric power companies and other industries,” but calls eminent domain “a last resort.” The line’s Houston station is now planned for “the area along the 610 Loop between 290 and I-10″ after a Federal Railroad Administration review rejected the idea of a Downtown stop because of projected high costs and environmental impacts. [Realty News Report; Houston Public Media; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Tokaido Shinkansen Tokyo-Osaka line: Texas Central Railway
COULD HOUSTON MAKE LIKE WEST VIRGINIA AND LEAVE TEXAS? 
In light of the onslaught of global, national, and local post-Brexit musings, Houston Matters’ Craig Cohen takes a listen look this week at a few other breakups of historic proportion (from the Virginia-West-Virginia split, to the quashed but perennially resurfacing attempts to pull New York City out of New York). Cohen and a few other voices then ponder the potential for a Houston exit from the Lone Star state: While the conversation seems to suggest that Houston maybe could make it alone, University of St. Thomas professor Jon Taylor rates the chances that Houston would want to leave the state at a solid inconceivable. And the chances of the necessary state and federal bodies being ready to let go without a fight? Slim to none. [Houston Matters; previously on Swamplot] Map of Houston Territory per U.S. DOE EV Project: FHWA
COMMENT OF THE DAY: START SAVING WATER EARLY FOR LOWER FLOODING RETURNS 
“Like I said before, the real solution is engineering and good land cover practices upstream. By the time the flow gets to [the Bay], there is no real answer. Just like your child and your 401k, the earlier in the life cycle you contribute, the more impactful that contribution will be further down.” [Rex, commenting on Comment of the Day: All Houston Floodwater Backs Up in the Same Drain] Illustration: Lulu
THE ART GUYS SAY BYE, BUY, FOR NOW 
Recently dissolved arboreal polygamist duo The Art Guys is holding what it’s labeling a Final Sale through August 15 on its website, which currently declares that The Art Guys are not artists. Michael Galbreth and Jack Massing, whose antics under the name have included navigating Houston in various configurations, encouraging visitors to explore a Garden Oaks median strip, and conducting the sounds of the Ship Channel, spoke with Molly Glenzter — who writes this week that the pair still has other plans and ideas, but won’t be executing them under the Art Guys guise.  The pair mention the possibility of creating a virtual drawing of Houston by sending people walking around town with a special path-tracing smart-phone app: “It’s so poetic,” Galbreth tells Glenzter, but the company that makes the app hasn’t shown interest in sponsoring the project. And their imagined sculpture of a randomly-chosen Houstonian hasn’t gotten funding yet, either — “Our culture is just at low tide right now,” Galbreth says. [Houston Chronicle, The Art Guys; previously on Swamplot] Image: theartguys.com
FRIENDLY LOCAL BOT NOW CONTINUOUSLY TWEETING ABOUT HOUSTON’S ELEVATED AIR TOXIN LEVELS 
Benzene levels have been relatively high near the TCEQ’s Channelview and Galena Park sensors today, according to the Twitter account of Kuukibot, the air-quality-obsessed automated program which Neethi Nayak, James Van Dyne, and some of the other civic-minded tech types at Sketch City launched last week with the Houston Air Alliance. (They were high yesterday, too — and the day before that, and the day before that.) Upon launch, Kuukibot’s feed immediately started filling up with short, sunny notes about levels of the carcinogen in those 2 neighborhoods; the lung-irritating 1,3 butadiene makes an occasional appearance in the feed as well, though few other places have shown up so far. The tweets, generated on the hour, don’t necessarily mean there’s a specific health hazard or legal violation occurring — just that the sum of the last 24 hours of TCEQ data for a particular sensor has crossed a certain threshold the team picked for each chemical as a reference point. The team is still working up public notes on the methodology, but according to Sketch City founder Jeff Reichman, the program wouldn’t be too hard to expand to most of the other chemicals (and other locations across the state) that the TCEQ monitors. [Previously on Swamplot] Capture of Kuukibot tweets: @kuukihouston
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW GREENSPOINT COULD TURN OVER A NEW LEAF 
“A 50 percent occupancy rate created because a company moved a slew of employees to a shiny new corporate megacampus is a good thing.  . . . This is just a good composting of office space. The piles of old office space will turn into new low cost space that will hopefully attract some diversification for the Houston economy.” [Old School, commenting on Comment of the Day: Don’t Try To Lump All That Empty Houston Office Space Together] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: DON’T TRY TO LUMP ALL THAT EMPTY HOUSTON OFFICE SPACE TOGETHER 
“ . . . Worth mentioning that 50 percent [vacancy] in Greenspoint versus 26 percent in Houston as a whole tells me a much different story than the one they are telling: that the damage may be regional and dependent on location. I’m sure it’s down all over, but Houston is a big market. It’s irresponsible not to recognize regional differences in an article like this.” [MrEction, commenting on Levy Park’s Transformation; Moving On from the Bayport Cruise Terminal Boondoggle; previously on Swamplot] Illustration: Lulu
