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:
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The 70-year-old 2,812-sq.-ft. home in question is wedged between Dowling and the Hwy. 288 feeder road. A lot of traffic cuts by the property to avoid the red lights at Southmore and 288, our reader notes: “The property has been vacant and on the market for a very long time, but [Friday] morning I noticed that the for sale sign is down and there is a dumpster in the driveway. The idea of it being used as a single family residence is laughable. I have no idea what the neighborhood advocate wants out of it.”
Photos: Swamplot inbox
While the flyer is sort of crazy, I do agree with the author about late night loud speeders and extremely loud motorcycles on Dowling. There are a couple of clubs and bars on Dowling at Blodgett that draw these folks, and living one house away from Dowling has turned out to be a really noisy existence from about 7pm Friday-midnight on Sundays. I do wish there was more HPD presence catching speeders. As far as the future of that house, I for one would much rather have something there than another vacant house, one of a huge number in the neighborhood.
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 by 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.
They guy with the flier does sound a bit nuts, but who knows. Someone may be planning a drug clinic or halfway house and is trying to sneak it in the neighborhood by pretending that it is an old folks home. But as long as it is in someone else’s back yard . . . .
NIMBY is alive and well in Houston!
I wonder how many people moved to Houston before zoning was repealed, thinking their neighborhoods would never change? Oh, wait….
When will Riverside Terrace get it’s act together? I want to buy one of the old mansions there and restore it but I always hear bad stories from the area.
Maybe I’ll print up my own fliers asking people to get on with it :p
An assisted living facility is a fancy term for retirement home. With the baby boomers about to reach old age, these will be popping up all over the place. Because in America, we want to forget about our elderly. Other countries have multi generational homes to deal with this.
PS I highly doubt old people will blight that area.
Yeah, when I read “assisted living facility” I think of the elderly or disabled adults…not exactly the blight on the neighborhood the yellow note-writer seems to swear it will be.
Whoever posted that flier must be familiar with what assisted living facilities have done to the area around 19th St in the Heights. These people come into a neighborhood and before you know it, they’re clogging your sidewalks with their motorized scooters and ruining your Kroger by writing checks in the express lane.
It’s best to put a stop to this scourge before it starts, otherwise it’ll very quickly get out of hand.
To be fair, it doesn’t look like a Brighton Gardens is going in there, if you know what I mean. That size house looks like those scam assisted homes and those are really hard on a residential neighborhood. A couple popped up near family and friends’ houses right outside the loop near Oak Forest; an “assisted living facility” would rent a house in the neighborhood (and then another) and basically just leave old people on their own and collect the government checks. The elderly, sometimes with dementia, would wander out and pee in bushes, the trash cans would fall over and adult diapers would fall out and open, among other joyful things. Based on the fact they seem to be basically taking that house as-is, I’d expect a similar sort of Medicaid scam and I don’t blame them one bit for being concerned. This one is not going to be run by Marriot, I’m pretty sure. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think it’s a fair concern on their part.
@Brandy – The situation you mention certainly sounds awful.
However, the flyer writer never substantiated the facts. Based upon other things mentioned in the flyer, it sounds like a lot of hoop-lah based on hearsay. For all we know, it could end up being an attorney’s office or a Wicca store, or even a residence.
I like how the Yellow Flyer Writer contends that the neighborhood is now “the ‘Business District’ of the city.” Because, you know… compared to Denny’s and this alleged old-folks home/methadone clinic, Downtown looks kinda puny.
The idea of this block becoming the business district of the city is laughable. At the end of the block is a doctors office( been there for many many years) and I understand there is an architecture office in the block too. I hardly believe this is a tsunami of business activity and definately not on par with the corner of fowling ( pun intended) and southmore.The author of the flyer has some grammatical issues… Perhaps a tutoring business would be helpful.
Still, what will it take to turn this neighborhood into a thriving community? A boutique business district?