14 Comment

• Frustrated about flooding January 18, 2017 at 10:04 am

  Don’t worry about flooding. The mayor’s “SWAT” team will be performing minor maintenance around town to help drain better to the bayous.
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  Oh, the bayous are at their banks, you say? Well that’s not the city’s issue. It’s the county’s job to handle the bayou.
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  Let’s get real folks. Only regional dentention ponds around the city and stricter water retention rules for new developments will fix what’s wrong in this city.
• J January 18, 2017 at 10:31 am

  Great scoop Chronicle. Any trailer parks adding spaces that we should know about?
• Wolf Brand Chili January 18, 2017 at 10:31 am

  Re: Houston Homebuyers Need 50% of Annual Salary for Down Payment
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  It may be a symptom of high home prices but saving for as large a down payment is a good thing, even with historic low mortgage rates. While 20% will knock out the PMI requirement, 30% will put a dent in that monthly nut for the next 30 years (or 7 years for the average tenure).
• Houstonreader January 18, 2017 at 12:39 pm

  @ Frustrated: there’s no single solution to this problem. Instead, retention ponds *and* the mayor’s SWAT team—which is a very good idea—are both effective in mitigating the problem. Even continuing to remove submerged cars from the bayous will help.
• Dj January 18, 2017 at 2:33 pm

  i have a house in the heights area,my mortgage is only $569 per month.my house is 1,845 sqft and the lot size is 4,000.i could cash out,but the only way im doing that if someone gives me an offer i can’t refuse.
• Dj January 18, 2017 at 2:45 pm

  i forgot to mention my mortgage balance is $76,000,i bought in late 2011.i still cant believe my mortgage is only $569 per month and that includes insurance and taxes.it pays to be a urban pioneer.my house in the heights is 1,845 sqft and lot size 4,000.
• Cody January 18, 2017 at 4:25 pm

  DJ: Property taxes are going to be a killer. My property tax bill for a house I own in River Oaks (ish) is more than my mortgage. Even if all the rent paid was available to pay the property tax, it would take almost 4 rent payments.
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  Property tax is getting out of control.
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• Old School January 18, 2017 at 5:39 pm

  When can we finally come to an agreement that there is a new normal for flooding in Houston that poses a problem that is way beyond the capabilities of the current flood control system and the very modest proposals for improvements to that system? How many hundreds of thousand of dollars of damage were done to flooded out vehicles today? How many hours of worker productivity were lost today? How much public safety overtime was incurred in doing rescues and manning flooded intersections?
  The current approach is to look busy and hope that no one notices. They sent around the fancy diggers to the Heights to dig out some of the drainage ditches that had filled with soil and vegetation over the years. It made no difference. Many streets were flooded and a bunch of cars got flooded out. There is a big detention pond on Rutland. But White Oak Bayou still jumped its banks this morning and submerged Houston Ave. The current thinking is that these rain events are so rare that we can just deal with them like they are a cost of doing business in Houston. But they are not so rare anymore. And the little nips and tucks that the City does here and there on drainage aren’t fooling anyone.
• Dj January 18, 2017 at 6:27 pm

  Cody,do u qualify for homestead?that’s the reason my mortgage is so low.since a million more people will move to houston by 2020,not only property taxes are going up this year and they will keep going up in the future.since many people from california are moving to texas,we could soon have prop.13,i learned people who bought early in los angeles before their property skyrocketed in value they are paying the same rate of taxes when the house was valued at $100,000,even though the house is now worth a million dollars or more.i also learned the heirs will also pay the same amount of taxes,thats pretty cool.i learned all this by going to los angeles real estate blogs.i think we should keep our properties since home values will keep rising and if you’re area doesn’t flood,your neighborhood will even be more desirable.
• Frustrated about flooding January 18, 2017 at 11:13 pm

  @Reader – the swat program is just basic maintenance projects. It needs to be done but is not the solution that city council made it out to be when they were all patting themselves on their backs. Calling it SWAT is ridiculous. I don’t refer to my lawn crew as a SWAT team. If I only mowed every six months then sure, I guess…
• Houstonreader January 19, 2017 at 4:40 pm

  @ Frustrated: you’ve come a long way from “Only regional detention ponds around the city…,” and nothing you’ve said here contradicts my point.
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  Frankly, I couldn’t care less if they called it a SWAT team or Barbie’s Dreamhouse Flood Plan, so long as it helps.
• Frustrated about flooding January 19, 2017 at 9:47 pm

  @Reader, I didnt see a coherent point to refute.. Obviously there are other things needed. Basic maintenance and pulling junk out of the bayou are good things. However my original point is that without regional detention ponds and reforming the building code to prevent storm water runoff on new properties, the city will not be solving flooding.
• Houstonreader January 20, 2017 at 9:17 am

  @ Frustrated: the point, again and announced for your comprehension: there’s no single solution to this problem. Retention ponds will do little good if the water can’t drain away, hence the “SWAT” program.
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  Your thinking on the matter is simplistic and uninformed. It’s no wonder that you’re frustrated.
• Frustrated about flooding January 20, 2017 at 11:21 am

  @Reader – your comprehension appears to be seriously impaired. I never said that detention and permitting reforms were all that was needed. Without them,however, we arent being serious about fixing the problem. You seem to be someone vested in defending the status quo and reading only what you want to see.