COMMENT OF THE DAY: A SCOFFLAW’S URBAN CHICKEN PRIMER “I have 3 hens. I’ve had 3-4 hens for 15 years now. Don’t tell. Hens for Houston is not talking about roosters (I hope – they SHOULD be illegal). You don’t need a rooster; hens will lay almost-daily eggs with no rooster around. 2 – Hens make very little noise – they might crow a minute or two after they lay the mid-morning egg, that’s it. And they do make a great alarm – we always know when something unusual is going on. Once, one of our chickens came to the back door, squawking, and pecked on it to let us know that a sick possum had broken into the coop (about 60 feet away from the house). 3 – Personally, I think a limit of 5 birds would be reasonable. That’s 3-5 eggs per day. 4 – Composted chicken manure is gold. And it doesn’t smell. 5 – Most of my neighbors have no idea that I have chickens. The others have kids that have minded them for me when I’m out of town. 6 – They make a fantastic first pet for a child; introducing the concept of twice-a-day feeding and watering, putting them to bed each night and letting them out in the morning, without having to deal with litterboxes or accidents. . . .” [Practically_Yours, commenting on Chicken Ordinance Has Hens for Houston Seeing Way Too Much Red]
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NIMBY IN PASADENA 
This scruffy corner at Genoa Red Bluff and Space Center, right on the border between Pasadena and Houston, is the proposed site of a few 90- to 150-unit housing developments for low-income residents — a category which can include seniors and those with disabilities, reports teevee’s Samica Knight. But one potential neighbor Knight interviews doesn’t seem likely to prepare any welcome baskets: “‘If I had been looking for a new home and there had been low income property across, I wouldn’t have chosen this neighborhood,‘ said Pasadena resident Janet McClellan. ‘I would be afraid of crime, more crime. . . . Everybody does have to have a place to live, but I just think there are better more appropriate places to build those kinds of homes.'” [abc13] Photo: abc13
MICHAEL JORDAN’S ALL-STAR BIRTHDAY BASH IN MANSION BEYONCé LIKES FOR HER MOM? 
Though rumors suggest that Beyoncé might soon snap it up for her mother, Tina, this steeply discounted Piney Point Village mansion near Buffalo Bayou has been the getaway destination for luxury-seeking out-of-towners like rapper Wiz Khalifa, reports CultureMap’s Shelby Hodge. According to its Vacation Rentals By Owner listing, the 21,640-sq.-ft. lodging goes for $25,000 a week from September to April — chump change for an NBA demigod like Michael Jordan, who, reports Hodge, might be renting the mansion to get his 50th birthday on while he’s in town during NBA All-Star Weekend in February. The VRBO listing doesn’t mention a security deposit; let’s hope Jordan hires someone to clean up before Beyoncé’s mom moves in. [Houston Chronicle; CultureMap; previously on Swamplot] Photos: HAR
The windows on this 1964 Sharpstown Country Club Estates property showcase a variety of ways of admitting light while altering views in or out. But the windows looking into the back yard are different: The stretch of sound barrier across the back of the lot, blocking the Southwest Fwy., is just a blank canvas. A really big one.
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One more of each, thank you: Creekside Park Village Center, rendered above, will be the Woodlands’ 7th and will be anchored by its 4th H-E-B, the master-planned community says. The shopping center will serve Creekside Park, a 100-acre community planned to go in up there west of Lake Paloma. It appears that the center will herd its shoppers inward toward a 4,300-sq.-ft. glass-walled restaurant, which you can see in the rendering. And there’s gonna be a fire pit in that park-like median-thing. (And a water feature on the other end. You know. Just in case.) In all, 80,000 sq. ft. of retail and office space are proposed for the site on Kuykendahl.
DOWNTOWN WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHOP DOWNTOWN 
Around the same time that Macy’s announced it was closing its store at 1110 Main St., Mayor Parker announced that she’d organized a task force to figure out how to plug up the gaps in Downtown retail; accordingly, the Downtown Management District’s recruiting whichever Houstonians it can to respond to a 20-question shopping survey. It’ll be up through January 31. [Downtown Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Flickr user cjt3
- 5637 Pine St. [HAR]
Hasn’t this city always struggled to set appropriate boundaries? That’s at least what this photo, snapped on Silver St. near Washington by a Swamplot reader, suggests.
Photo: matt Curtis, via Swamplot inbox
- Pearland the Fastest-Growing Retail Market in Texas, Finds State Report [Houston Chronicle]
- Hines’ BG Group Place at 811 Main St. is Now 92 Percent Leased [Prime Property; previously on Swamplot]
- Clear Lake Indoor Go-Kart Track Opening This May on State Highway 3 near Ellington Airport [Houston Business Journal]
- 1 Year After Twin Peaks Opens Nearby, Kirby Hooters Gets a Makeover [29-95.com]
- I-10 Westbound Lanes at Waco Street To Be Shut Down This Weekend for Bridge Repair [abc13]
- Yale Street Bridge Rehab To Begin in April To Increase Its Load-Bearing Weight [Home in the Heights]
- Deterioration, Congestion on I-45 Between 610 Loop, Beltway 8 Major Transportation Challenges in Houston, Finds Report [Houston Business Journal]
- Recent Rain Makes Dent in Houston Drought [abc13]
- Weather Experts Say Bay Probably Won’t Freeze This Year [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Houston’s Ranking Drops on List of Cities with Most Bed Bug Treatments [Culturemap]
Photo of the Galleria and Greenway Plaza: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SECRET CHICKENS NEAR DOWNTOWN “There are at least 2 coops very close to downtown, but they are hidden enough that you would never know they are there unless you walk right next to them. As recently as 2009, there were a couple roosters (from yet another, third location) that would roam the streets almost daily. I guess someone complained. This all happened less than 5 blocks from downtown.” [eiioi, commenting on Chicken Ordinance Has Hens for Houston Seeing Way Too Much Red]
YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY 
Has Midtown become too hip even for the federal government? The Social Security Administration is leaving, having lost its lease at the low-slung building at 3100 Smith (shown at right), reports CultureMap’s Whitney Radley: “Once a sort of wasteland, the surrounding neighborhood teems now with development, restaurants, bars, mixed-use complexes and multifamily units . . . . speculation that the building might be prime space for a restaurant or even torn down to make room for a mid-rise, is rampant.” [CultureMap] Photo: Panoramio user Wolfgang Houston
The four squares that were the Bissonnet Village Apartments are gone, and Hanover Co. has now denuded the site near Bissonnet and Dincans, preparing it for something else “residential,” says a company rep. The site extends along Dincans between Bissonnet and North, backing into the Bank of America that faces Kirby. Swamplot reported last week that Hanover has purchased property on Morningside for Phase II of their mixed-use midrise now under construction, less than a mile away, in Rice Village.
- Previously on Swamplot: Hanover Reaping More Rice Village Property, Garden Gate Shutting
Photos: Allyn West
In Dallas, you have to keep at least 20 ft. between your chicken coop and your neighbor’s stuff. Here? It’s 100 ft. That’s why this map of the Greater Heights looks the way it does. Hens for Houston founder Claire Krebs, using GIS technology she learned as an engineering student at Rice, created a series of these maps (what she’s calling “policy-making tools”) out of HCAD data to show just how few Houstonians are allowed to keep hens — if they wanted, that is — because of a city ordinance requiring the 100-ft. setback.
The driving force of a project that Uptown Houston District has proposed to the city to transform Post Oak Blvd.? Big beautiful buses. With both residential and commercial developments like Skanska’s 20-story office building popping up along the major transit corridor and METRO’s Uptown/Gold Line nowhere in sight, the District has developed a $177-million project featuring light rail-like BRT to update Post Oak — a street “that has long outlived its original use,” says John Breeding, the District’s president.
