COMMENT OF THE DAY: REDUCING THE USE OF PLASTIC ON THE TRAIL “why not have designated pooping grounds along the trails and get rid of the useless trash altogether? just treat your dogs like people and kids, kick them along and make them hold it until they can reach a ‘pooping grounds.’ only those that can’t reach the grounds should have to bag it.” [joel, commenting on The Multicolored Poop Bags of the Heights Hike and Bike Trail]
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: KEEPING PRESERVATION UP TO DATE “I’m glad to see it’s still standing, glad the wiring and plumbing have been upgraded so that it won’t burn down or rot in place. The rest is just personal taste, and fleeting. In other words, I’m delighted. I just visited San Antonio, where every other building dated back to the 1800s or early 1900s. A lot of them had been reno’d over and over again, at least on the inside. Some had kept a lot of period detail; some hadn’t. This made them alive, much in the same way that the English language lives by constantly changing. One of my tour guides had been born in a hospital building on the riverwalk. The place had long ago been converted to an office building with tchochke shops in front, but the guide was proud that the building was still standing after being the birthplace of a century of San Antonians. If we in Houston make our buildings stay vital, useful, desireable and, most of all, sound, they will live on and make Houston a place we’ll be happy to show to our grandkids.” [Sihaya, commenting on The Plan To Flip Houston’s LBJ House]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: MAKING IT UP WITH QUANTITY “Using numbers to determine what is ‘cool’ is a waste of time. One of the criteria used in the article was the number of pro and college sports teams in the city. Ok, fine, but do you really think the Astros are as ‘cool’ as the Yankees, Cubs, or Red Sox? Yet quantity wise, they each count as 1 and are considered equal. The same goes for museums. Is the MFAH really as cool as the Met? This exercise could be done for any of the categories Forbes used to rank the cities and Houston would come up short on almost all of them. So while Houston may be the coolest when you count numbers, its certainly not the coolest when you’re looking for the coolest things around.” [Walt, commenting on Headlines: Houston as America’s ‘Coolest’ City; Predicting Traffic Jams]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BUILDING AROUND TREES “. . . If the new construction were built around the tree branches, that could be used as a real selling point for a nice home. But construction is very hard on trees — Directly across the street is a development of new homes, and the property owner and architect specifically worked very hard to build around the huge tree on that lot and protect it during construction. It appeared that they had succeeded. But take a look at it today . . . the tree trunk is tall and fat . . . but there are only a few pom-pom sized clusters of leaves on the tree. It takes a long time for a tree to die, and damage from construction may show up years later. . . .” [Julie Young, commenting on Big Oak Tree in Little East Montrose Park Branches Out]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHO OWNS THE TREE “The location of the tree trunk does not determine ownership of a tree. If a neighbor’s tree hangs over your property, the portion of the tree that is contained within your property boundary belongs to you. You can do with it as you please. The same rule applies to a tree that hangs over the street. The City may do with it as it pleases.” [Bernard, commenting on Big Oak Tree in Little East Montrose Park Branches Out]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE LOWDOWN ON THE ELEVATION BURGER LEASE 
“Update on this corner: Elevation Burger is set to open up in the near future. Jonathan Kagan Properties bought the property and did a fairly extensive update to the structure, then turned it over to Elevation Burger for their build out, which is currently well under way.
Trust me, Mai Thai’s closing was a good thing. I own the property next door and saw a steady parade of roaches, rats, and various other vermin going in and out of that building over the past few years. Anytime you see a blue tarp on the roof of a building for months and months on end, it’s a pretty sure sign that they are in decline. If you don’t have the funds to fix your leaky roof in Houston, the end can’t be far off.” [Jared M, commenting on Bye Bye, Mai Thai? Feeding Another Kirby High-Rise Rumor]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: AND LIVING THERE WOULD DRIVE ME HALF OUT OF MY MIND “I pity the homeowner who has to enter ‘1513 1/2 E. 32nd 1/2 St.’ into any online form where they try to verify an address, or, god forbid, describe it to someone over the phone.” [j, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Double Barbecue Toast]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SCRAPES OFF A LITTLE EASIER THOUGH “Wallpaper is to houses what tattoos are to people. When you get it, you think that it looks great and cannot wait to show your friends. Twenty to thirty years later, you cannot look at it without going ‘ughhh’ and shuddering to yourself.” [Old School, commenting on Houston Home Listing Photo of the Day: Kitchen Sampler]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT SPRINGWOODS VILLAGE HOTELS WILL HAVE GOING FOR THEM “these hotels will kill it. even WITHOUT the exxon HQ there, hotels in the Woodlands area are underserved, try finding a room on a weekend night @ the pavilion. it’s about $150 to stay @ marriott/hilton/nothing special spots. and you must stay there, or be that guy with a real job who drives 30 miles drunk from the Jimmy Buffett concert. they will have that rarified air of both business travel monday-friday + just about any weekend packed. it won’t be anything architecturally or intellectually inspired, but it will be a runaway success.” [HTX Rez, commenting on Closest Hotel to ExxonMobil, from Scratch]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: SELL THE STREET, SLOW THE TRAFFIC “Agreed that we need more “super blocks†about as much as an aneurysm. Why is the Galleria area traffic such a cluster? Because they took the streets out. Why does downtown usually flow pretty well? Because they left the streets in, in a nice neat grid pattern that is only confusing if you try to get too hung up on true north, south, east, and west.” [mollusk, commenting on Finger Minute Maid Apartments To Hang Low, Cut Off Leftfield Block]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT THEY’RE PLANNING TO BUILD IN HOUSTON “I always have to chuckle when people are discussing what is being built somewhere in town. ‘Why don’t THEY build . . .’ or ‘Why don’t THEY put in . . .’ There really is no ‘THEY’ sitting back and ‘planning’ what to put in. When property is up for sale, there are numerous buyers out there who already have their OWN project (whatever it is they do) looking for a place at a price they are willing to pay, and usually in a certain part of town. If it’s a medical group, ‘they’ are not going to say ‘Hey, this neighborhood needs a restaurant’ — unless of course they decide to put one inside the medical building they build. But you get my point. These are not planned communities with someone (called ‘They’) at the helm, making decisions. As long as the citizens let the rich ‘good-ole-boys’ swing the vote every time ‘ZONING’ comes up, people can generally build what they want — where they want in Houston, TX.” [Mr-DJ, commenting on Clearing an Empty Lot in the Museum District]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HURRICANE RITAS “I know there are people who ‘go out for Margaritas’ . . . that is, they are looking for a good ’Rita and don’t care that much about the food. However, I don’t think that means a place can succeed if that’s all they’ve got. No shortage in this town of good ’Ritas or good Mexican food or places that can do both, like Hugo’s or Sylvia’s. On the other hand, I have a fond memory of the Ninfa’s on Kirby because they were open right after Ike when most of the city was still without power. Under those circumstances, I thought the food was awesome.” [toadfroggy, commenting on Out with Mama Ninfa’s, in with Maggie Rita’s]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: MONTROSE, GOING VEGAS “. . . It took Montrose it’s whole lifetime to get to ~7000 units. Yes there is strong demand, no one would doubt that . . . which is why you have people building. But they’re building at a frantic pace. So while it took Montrose it’s whole life to ~7000 units, we’re about to DOUBLE that in a few years. So strong demand brings strong supply. I believe turds is saying that the supply is coming so strong that it’ll outpace demand and thus create the need for incentives. Personally I think we’re going to have a Vegas (strip) style disruption in econ 101 where supply tends to CREATE demand. As these units come online, they’ll make the area better, and increase demand to live here. These units won’t be for the people living here. They’ll be for new people coming here. So I think Montrose can take these units on and be just fine (with respects to multifamily operator demand).” [Cody, commenting on What To Make of the Museum Gardens Sale]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: LIGHT RAIL FOR THE PEOPLE “One very interesting upshot to delaying Uptown and University is that it heads the ‘LRT is elitist’ argument off at the pass. If you open the E, SE, and N lines without Uptown and University then you’ve just created an LRT system that predominantly serves black and hispanic neighborhoods. Possibly the first such new-start system ever built in [the US and Canada]. Opposition to the ‘white man’s train,’ whether it takes a grassroots, Los Angeles Bus Rider’s Union form, or whether it’s simply a talking point for people who will always think rail is a ‘boondoggle,’ is thus impossible. Considering that H-town will be minority-majority by the 2020 census, I think it’s kinda cool. And I’m an elitist white dude.” [KHH, commenting on Light Rail Scorecard: 6 Miles Down, 9 To Go, Culberson Blocking Goal]
COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: COWARDS SHAPE THE CITY “. . . Has it ever occurred to you that developers (whose core competency is development) develop apartment complexes for long-term investors and operators? What you refer to as cutting and running is actually just an element of their business model. It is a hand-off of ownership from one entity preferring stability to another that demands it. Neither entity is assured of stability, however. A developer can’t pretend (with a straight face) to know what is in store for a nation, a metropolitan area, or a submarket over a five-year period of planning, permitting, financing, construction, the first year of lease-up, the second year of burning through concessions, and the third year of stability so that they can generate a reliable set of T-12 profit and loss figures. As it turns out, they have to make an educated guess about the future, close their eyes, hold their nose, and jump in. The business model may be different, however the same lesson is analogous for subdivision developers and home buyers, too. They can only try their best to make the right decision, then hope for the best. But eventually . . . they all sell. Everybody sells. The only consequential purpose in owning real estate is to be able to sell it. If selling something is cutting and running, then our entire society is founded on cowardice.” [TheNiche, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Shelf Life of Apartment Complexes]