Christof Spieler looks for a mayoral candidate’s winning coalition: “Pro-Planning and Anti-Growth people don’t want their neighborhood to [change], and they want [the] government to protect it. These are NIMBYs; in local terms, they’re the “Stop Ashby Highrise” crowd. Pro-Planning and Pro-Growth people think the city will grow and change, but want that growth to guided. Locally, this is Blueprint Houston. Pro-Growth but Anti-Planning people think the city should grow, but that private developers should be left on their own to figure out [how] that growth will happen. That’s Houstonians for Responsible Growth. Anti-Planning and Anti-Growth seems like an oxymoron in a city like Houston. But there are people in this group — they see their city is changing and they don’t like that change, but they think that change is being driven by government. Call them the tea partiers. Here’s what makes that split important: none of these four segments are big enough to govern the city alone. Pro-Growth/Anti-Planning ruled the city for decades — but Pro-Planning/Anti-Growth neighborhoods are pushing back. And, as the Ashby Highrise shows, they’re nearly at a stalemate.” [Intermodality]
-
Subscribe to Swamplot
1031 Exchanges
Home Design
Houston Blogs
Houston Media
Mortgages & Financing
Neighborhood Associations
Property Research
Real Estate News
Sustainable Development & Green Design
Comment of the Day: What’s the Plan?
“. . . It would be nice if someone would come up with a ‘master plan’ for these areas of unrestricted land and at least ask the developers to work within that plan. I suspect if some had been a little nicer the developers of 1717 Bissonnet might have been nicer as well. They did buy the land in good faith as they say. They were not legally obligated, nor are they, to get anyone’s permission to build whatever they wanted to build beyond meeting the requirements of city code. There was also no indication on the part of the city or anyone else what was “desired” for that area. As it stands, it’s a hodgepodge of multi-family and commercial. Neither of which fits the definition of ’single-family’ which seems attached to every argument made against 1717 Bissonnet. I’m not sure you can have a perfect plan but someone needs to at least attempt some sort of plan for future development in Midtown and the Museum District and Montrose and the Heights and of course Galleria which at this point is at critical mass in terms of traffic. . . . We don’t have zoning but we do have unrestricted land. Which is the same thing when you think about it. No one thought about possibly restricting the unrestricted land until the plan for 1717 Bissonnet was announced. . . . The problem here should have been addressed a long time ago. As for urban planning, it should have happened yesterday. Hopefully tomorrow the next mayor will make some sort of ‘master plan’ a priority for these unrestricted areas and we will have something developers and neighborhoods can work with. . . .” [Matt, commenting on Comment of the Day: Missing That High-Density High Density]