- September Single-Family Home Sales Jumped 7% Over Last Year’s Numbers, HAR Reports [Houston Chronicle; report]
- Katy ISD, Lamar ISD, Lone Star College System Will Have a Total $1.47B in Bonds Up For Vote in November [Houston Business Journal]
- Alliance Residential Buys 2 Parcels of Land in Woodmill Creek (Renamed from Woodland Creek) for Apartments and Townhomes [Houston Business Journal]
- Section of Riverside Terrace Receives City Council Approval for Lot Size Restrictions [Prime Property]
- Rising Cost of Building Materials, Strained Labor Market Biggest Challenges Facing Construction Industry [Houston Business Journal]
- Houston’s FM News Station News92 KROI Airs Last Broadcast; Becomes All-Beyonce Channel [mikemcguff.com]
- A Brief History of Houston’s Traffic Congestion Patterns [OffCite]
- Uber ‘Surge Pricing’ Hiked Fares up to 500% During Austin City Limits Last Weekend [KHOU]
- U.S. Army Corp of Engineers Expected To Rule in Coming Months on Proposed $6 Million Buffalo Bayou ‘Restoration’ Project [Houston Public Media; previously on Swamplot]
Photo of Gerald D. Hines Waterwall Park: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
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The city should be very cautious about approving minimum lot size requirements and other development-stifling zoning restrictions (because that’s exactly what they are). Houston is rapidly losing its distinction as a city with cheap housing, and these types of moves will only accelerate and worsen that process. Restricting residential density anywhere inside the loop is pretty much always going to be a bad move as it will cause skyrocketing housing prices and make it that much harder to develop a strong public transportation system in an area which is already destined to always be heavily traffic-congested.
People who hate Uber surge pricing irk me. Supply and demand, suckers, get with it.
If neighborhoods want minimum lot size and get the signatures they should get it.
uber is working exactly as it is suppose to when the prices go up like that. its called a market. if you don’t want to pay that much, then don’t get in the car and agree to that rate. this young lady got scammed b/c she let someone she didn’t know agree to the 500% up-charge. that’s unfortunate, but people get scammed like this everyday. you shouldn’t put price caps on uber as a result. if you do, then fewer drivers will show up, which means that I will have to wait longer even though i’m willing to pay more.
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i know how hard it is to get a cab during ACL, so i probably would have paid $200 to get home at the end of the night as opposed to waiting 2 hours. don’t take that option away from me b/c this girl got suckered.
Congratulations to this section of Riverside Terrace. This move will likely preserve these fantastic homes or keep the lots as single-family, at least for the next 20 years. Our neighborhood has had this protection since 2006 and has only become more desirable because of the protection.
Density=Hipster city, I’ll pass thanks.
The loss of News92 is quite a loss for all of us. I suppose the day of “news” on the radio is over. It should also send a warning signal to everyone about the state of the industry, and the state of radio. This was as shocking as the shut down of KLEF in the ’90s. A real loss for all citizens. Naturally, this is why so many radio stations feature the likes of Rush and Company. Folks, even rabid fascists, listen intently and support the program. I iwsh the general population had as much affection for news and information.
Houston’s cheap housing did not come about due to the ability of developers to chop up single lots to build town homes. Houston’s cheap housing was the result of endless sprawl outward where land was incredibly cheap and from internal decline that made once solidly middle to upper class areas like the Heights, GOOF and Montrose into dirt cheap working class neighborhoods with pockets of middle and upper class residents. The cheap land in the burbs is gone. Inside the loop has finally reached a tipping point in gentrification in that it is now completely mainstream to put up a lot of money to buy into these neighborhoods. Letting builders chop up the odd lot in a neighborhood to add a few extra residences has very little effect on density and housing prices. If anything, minimum lot size helps push developers out into underdeveloped areas like 1st, 3rd and 5th Ward, and the East Side.
Not only is News92 shutting down, but I heard on KPFT this morning that they’re probably not going to renew their subscription to BBC World News because they can’t afford it.
Kudos to Roverside Terrace! I hope more neighborhoods get the minimum lot sizes.
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Houston still has plenty of open land left to develop; and even more underutilized or blighted land that can be redeveloped. There is no good reason for developers to push into well-maintained, comfortable neighborhoods that people like just he way they are.
Michael Bludworth, I am still peeved about what happened to KTRH. I haven’t listened to that station in a long time. What I will miss most about News92 is the traffic reports. They were the only ones I have found on radio that could be bothered with more thorough traffic reports. (Even if they still called Richey Street in SE Houston “Richey Road.”) I can only hope that the nothing but Beyonce station is a temporary situation while the new format is prepared or a publicity stunt. As if Houston radio isn’t boring enough..
Googlemaster: I heard the thing about KPFT already. Thankfully, I can stream BBC News at my desk.
@Michael Bludworth and @GoogleMaster:
You can listen to BBC World News for free on smartphones. I have a bluetooth radio so I can hear it in the car. I can also hear other internet news feeds, Pandora, Slacker, etc. That’s why radio is dying. It’s a buggy whip.
there’s a lot more reasons to ban minimum lot sizes than there are to implement them though. future generations should not be saddled with placations to old / pre-existing homeowners from the past. it’s not like america isn’t already enough of a rentier society with the lowest social mobility of any major industrialized nation.
Riverside Terrace is one of Houston’s great neighborhoods so it’s exciting that finally Houston recognized the need to protect it. It’s particularly at risk because it’s going thru a very quick re gentrification. The neighborhood is laid out in the Olmstead manner, like River Oaks, but without all the billionaires to protect it. It’s good to see a grass roots movement have the power to sway council in a direction so foreign to them. Kudos to Bradford for seeing the value of protecting the beauty of this great neighborhood, but can you really see downtown from the houses of RT? I guess maybe from the 3rd floor of the Weingarten Mansion;)
It’s a bit of an oversimplification to say the least to equate minimum lot requirements to the wealthy taking over America, Joel. This is about preserving the crux of what makes neighborhoods like RT desirable. These grand homes also have high taxes which allow for the building of your roads and maintainance of your parks etc. If all those grand homes on generous lots were bulldozed for chock a block townhomes that would be a travesty (and most couldn’t afford these townhomes anyway). It’s just not credible to assert that saving the fabric of RT is somehow akin to class warfare.
@ Old School: If the cheap land in the suburbs seems to be gone, THAT is when you know that Houston is riding a very-temporary bubble. There does not exist any practical constraint on the supply of land further out (and actually, the geometry of a circle is such that for each additional mile of radius that is developed that there is a geometric increase in the amount of developable land), nor of jobs being created further out or of highways getting built and expanded to service those that should desire to live further out.
@ Shannon: Just what exactly is the “fabric of a neighborhood” and why is it precious? Think on that even the slightest bit and it should strike one that using that phrase actually validates Joel’s comments rather than that it challenges them.