Where, where is the town? Now, it’s nothing but flowers.
From a proposed amendment to the Houston’s development ordinance:
A plat restriction limiting the use to residential or single-family may be amended to permit the use of that property only for landscape, parks, recreation, drainage or open space.
I thought that we’d start over
But I guess I was wrong
Lyrics: Talking Heads
Read more about: Development Restrictions, Parks, Redevelopment
This Methadone Clinic graphic was posted today on the Medusa Properties website, and conveys in slightly different fashion the same news we received in our email from a Heights-area reader:
The oh-so-neighborly Mr. Jared Meadors did *not* receive the variance he requested for the Baylor St subdivision.
Photo of 2601 Baylor St. and Methadone Clinic Graphic: Medusa Properties
Read more about: 77009, Development Restrictions, Development Strategy, Neighborhood Disputes, Planning Commission, Prevailing Lot Size, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Sunset Heights, Variances
Here’s just one paragraph from a nine-page variance request application submitted for consideration at today’s Planning Commission hearing:
So what message does this whole process send to people like me who are willing to go out and spend their time and their hard earned money and take risks in order to improve the city and improve our neighborhoods? The message is: Only the guys with deep pockets and deep connections—the Perry Homes, the Tricons, the Fingers, the Olmsteads, the Levits, the Weingartens—only those guys get to win at this game. Those guys can build what they want when they want. Everybody else loses. Everybody else gets bad advice and the run around. Everybody else should just stay home and sit quietly on their couches and watch TV.
There’s more to like in Jared Meadors’s request to subdivide the 49-by-120-ft. property he owns at 2601 Baylor St. in Sunset Heights into three separate lots — including an accounting of his annual net adjusted income over the last three years, two HAR.com screen shots, and some occasional heavy leaning on the CAPS LOCK key. But it’s nothing, really, compared to his more wide-ranging complaints about his difficulties with his neighbors and the Prevailing Lot Size ordinance that he has posted on the website of his company, Medusa Properties. It begins:
NEW CONSTRUCTION! SUNSET HEIGHTS - MODERN CRAFTSMAN STYLE - AVAIL SPRING 2008
*** UPDATE *** THE BLUE HAIRED LAWN NAZIS OF EAST SUNSET HEIGHTS STRIKE AGAIN!
More name-calling, after the jump!
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77009, Development Restrictions, Neighborhood Disputes, Planning Commission, Prevailing Lot Size, Proposed Developments, Renovations, Sunset Heights, Variances
February 18, 2008 – 5:05 pm
How do you reduce development in . . . uh, sensitive Houston neighborhoods — without imposing new regulations?
It can be done! A free market provides its own land-use controls.
Matthew Morgan and Kevin Kirton of Buckhead Investment Partners, developers of the proposed 23-story residential highrise at the corner of Ashby and Bissonnet, show how it can work:
In the Feb. 5 meeting, Morgan and Kirton offered to reduce the size of their building to 19 stories or to build a six-story project while accepting a $2.65 million payment to recoup their investment.
Street-level view of proposed Ashby Townhomes, 1717 Bissonnet: Buckhead Investment Partners
Read more about: 77005, Apartments, Boulevard-Oaks, Condos, Development Restrictions, Highrises, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Southampton
November 13, 2007 – 9:51 am
The lovely and heavily wooded Holy Name Retreat Center in Bunker Hill Village is selling off 10 acres of its 20-acre property at 430 Bunker Hill Rd. The Congregation of the Passion of Christ, which operates the retreat and is based in Chicago, needs the cash “in order to meet certain financial needs, including caring for elderly members of the religious order,” reports Norm Rowland in the Memorial Examiner.
Commercial buildings and apartments aren’t allowed in Bunker Hill Village, and homesites must be at least 20,000 square feet.
Read more about: 77024, Bunker Hill Village, Buying and Selling, Development Restrictions, Homesites, Land Sales
Continental pilot Stephen Williams and his wife Nancy are the proud owners of one of several homes built in airplane hangars at Hooks Airport, a private airfield in Spring.
Initially, the Williamses wanted to add on to a Hooks Airport hangar they owned which contained a small apartment. But that plan was rejected by the FAA because it would have been too close to the runway.
They worked with Architect Kyle Cox to create their new 3,300-sf hangar-home.
At the top of the spiral staircase is the pinnacle of this unique home. The tower room is complete with a 360-degree set of windows, providing guests an overview of the airport. It has a steel catwalk that adds to the design, and provides visitors a chance to step outside to enjoy the view as well as the weather. The room also houses a bar and a dumbwaiter to make entertaining simple.
“We put in the things that we wanted. I wanted a nice cooking area,” Nancy said.
With a host of friends and a community full of fellow aviation enthusiasts living at Hooks Airport is nothing short of spectacular. “It’s a neat, quiet community,” Nancy said. “We love it here.”
Photo: 1960 Sun Group
Read more about: 77379, Airports, Development Restrictions, Hooks Airport, Mixed Use, New Construction: Residential, Spring
Neighborhood obliteration never really took off in the Sixth Ward the way it did in the Fourth. Maybe the experience is something developers can learn from as they set about tackling the Third Ward. In the meantime, a new proposal would seal the Old Sixth Ward Historic District’s fate, extending a six-month moratorium on demolitions.
Here’s the concept: instead of being a plain ol’ Historic District, most of the Sixth Ward neighborhood would be renamed as a Protected Historic District. An entirely new concept.
This would be okay, really. The neighborhood is mostly small old Victorian houses. You don’t get the really spectacular demolitions unless the buildings have some concrete or steel.
Photo: 2015 Lubbock, available at Har.com
Read more about: 77007, Demolitions, Development Restrictions, Fourth Ward, Historic Districts, Neighborhoods: Old Sixth Ward, Old-Sixth-Ward, Third Ward
April 16, 2007 – 10:01 am
Don’t let this happen to U: City Council voted last week to limit the size of porches in West University. You see, that’s the problem with those giant new megamansions in Houston’s priciest Zip: It’s those damn arched entrances!
The new ordinance limits the height of front porches that encroach onto front sebacks to a mere 20 feet on 100-foot-deep lots. Peristyle patrons need not panic prematurely, however. The ordinance will have to pass a second time, over the objections of angry, front-balcony-loving newcomers, before it can be enforced.
[Photo: 6332 Auden, listed at HAR]
Read more about: 77005, Development Restrictions, Megamansions, Neighborhoods: West University, Porches, West University
