VACANT-LOT VEGETABLE GARDENS FOR HOUSTON GARDENS A little more than halfway through its 2-month-long Indiegogo fundraiser, a Houston company’s plan to grow vegetables on vacant urban lots has chalked up a little more than half of the $35,000 it’s hoping to raise to begin the project. Edible Earth Resources, the landscape-gardening firm that created the gardens at restaurants Coltivare, Haven, the Brooklyn Athletic Club, and Pax Americana (among other spaces), says it will soon have official approval from the city’s Land Assemblage Redevelopment Authority to plant production gardens on tax-delinquent lots leased from the citywide program. With $35,000 in startup capital, the company says on its fundraising page, Planted:Houston would begin its urban farming efforts on an acre of land available in Houston Gardens, a “rurban” neighborhood northeast of the intersection of the 610 Loop and the Eastex Fwy. — including a spot at 7414 Sandra St. The for-profit enterprise would sell its produce to various restaurants in the city and to individuals through a subscription program that includes a donation component; 10 percent of crops would remain in the neighborhoods where the gardens are planted, either through donations or discounted sales to local stores. [Indiegogo; more info] Video: Planted:Houston
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Tag: 77028
Armed with your suggestions, roving Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia set out to document the smallest freestanding commercial buildings in Houston she could find. And here are the results! Above, “The Spot” hair salon at 1207 Westheimer in Montrose, at the corner of Commonwealth.
More tiny:
More than 700 of the abandoned or problem properties documented and written up by the Houston Police Dept.’s Neighborhood Protection Corps over the last 3 years belong either to the City of Houston or Harris County agencies, reports 11 News reporter Jeremy Rogalski. Approximately half of those properties are located in 4 not-so-fancy Zip Codes — 77016, 77026, 77028, and 77051 — three of which are in the northeast area of the city.
One piece of the problem: those tax-delinquent properties the county puts up for public auction:
. . . if they don’t sell, it becomes the county’s obligation to maintain them. But [Harris County Facilities & Property Management Chief Administrative Manager Jim] Lemond admits, the county can’t even check them all.
“We have two inspectors whose primary function is to do many other things and not this,†Lemond said.
As for the violations the city writes, there’s another problem: The county claims for years, the city never told it about the violations.
“No that’s not acceptable. Obviously that’s not acceptable,†Lemond said.
He added that his office was puzzled when the city did send over a packet of violation notices in June 2009.
“What are these, and where did they come from and what’s this all about,†Lemond recalled of his reaction.
But Montecella Flaniken, Assistant Director of Field Operations with Neighborhood Protection Corps, maintains the city had been routinely e-mailing the county of violations all along.
- Hundreds of crime-ridden, eyesore properties owned by city of Houston, Harris County [KHOU.com, via BlogHouston]
Graphic: KHOU.com
THIS TIME, FOR THE DEVELOPERS Two proposals out of Mayor White’s office earlier this year — one to pay down the consumer debt of homebuyers, the other to give $5,000 bonuses to Realtors representing buyers in 8 revitalization areas — didn’t get very far. But City Council approved the latest version yesterday: $620,000 in construction subsidies from the TIRZ Affordable Housing Fund for 10 homes — 4 in Trinity Gardens and 6 in the Fourth Ward. The participating builders and CDCs are to be chosen by the city’s Housing and Community Development Director. “The developers may sell the homes after they are used for at least a year as models, but the net proceeds must be reinvested in the same community.” [Houston Chronicle, via Swamplot inbox; details on page 200 here (PDF)]
A whole lotta demo going on: A county outpost downtown, more industrial buildings along Studemont, plenty of houses, and more. Our daily list of addresses begins after the jump.
Twenty doomed structures today. Say goodbye to them—after the jump.
Another day, another set of demos. Today’s list features a downtown lunch favorite, more rubble in Greenview Manor, and some scraps leftover in an historic district. See it all after the jump.
Knocked down in Houston: Six end-of-life houses—after the jump.
Today’s list of Houston demolition permits features six houses ready to bite the dust. Where are they? Keep reading.