COMMENT OF THE DAY: COMES WITH THE LAND “If you take the Houston blinders off for a minute, you’ll realize that ‘deed restrictions protect property values’ and ‘zoning distorts property values’ are the same statement. Other things that ‘distort’ property values are: having a functioning police force so you have a reasonable certainty that a band of pirates won’t come steal everything you own; having roads to connect your property to other things; being located in a country with a functioning economy; public support of decent schools; a public health system that prevents outbreaks of Ebola; lack of a brutal murderous dictatorial regime; and not living downwind of a sewage treatment plant. Which of these are ‘evil planning’ vs ‘sensible government’ is, of course, determined by the political views of the speaker.” [John (another one), commenting on Comment of the Day: Keep Houston Cheap]
Sign up for the Newsletter
Tag: Development Regulations
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE DETAILS THAT MATTER “. . . The .5% grade, bathroom clearances and many of the other minutia of the ADA are the difference between a wheelchair bound person living a diginfied life (being able to go where everyone else can go and do what everyone else can do) and living as a second class citizen. Just try maneuvering a wheel chair around an ADA compliant bathroom or storefront. It is still a serious challenge. But if the door to a ADA stall is too close to the wall, it can be impossible. Poorly graded ramps can mean having to sit in the rain waiting for someone to give a push. And if you think the ADA requirements are an unfair burden that harms businesses, just try living with the burden of a disability. Anyone who wants to build a public building but doesn’t believe that they have a responsiblity to make the build accessible to everyone shoulnd’t be in the business.” [Old School, commenting on GHPA to Weingarten: We’ll Fix That Trader Joe’s Terrazzo Problem for You]
The recommendations of a planning commission subcommittee aren’t going to get any Houstonians in the growing anti-free-parking crowd too excited — they only propose a series of incremental adjustments to the city’s existing off-street parking regulations. Among the newly issued report’s more notable suggestions: requiring shared-driveway townhome developments to provide a single guest parking space for every 6 units, or at least preserve on-street spaces; allowing takeout- or drive-thru-only restaurants and dessert shops to provide fewer off-street spaces and requiring all other restaurants, bars, and clubs to provide more; a minimum 5-year length for any parking lease agreements used to meet minimums, as well as language that automatically revokes an establishment’s certificate of occupancy when they expire; extending the maximum distance to offsite parking to 800 ft. and giving the planning director the authority to stretch it further in some instances; more notification — including signs — when parking variances are applied for; adjusting the rules for how locations can be “grandfathered” under previous parking requirements; and allowing the creation of new “parking districts” in free-for-all areas such as Washington Ave.
The restaurant dog ban is over. Ziggy’s Bar + Grill at 302 Fairview in Montrose, one of the first establishments to get involved in the Paws on Patios campaign begun last year, was the recipient last week of the first-ever city of Houston dogs-on-patios permit. Establishments that want to follow suit will need to maintain a separate self-closing doggie entrance gate to the patio, labeled with a sign identifying it as a “dog friendly patio”; keep hand sanitizer and disposable water bowls available; keep the patio free of visible “dog hair, dog dander, and other dog-related waste or debris”; and make sure restaurant personnel don’t pet or serve any four-legged customers. Owners are supposed to keep their pets on leashes and away from the tableware.
- Paws on Patios success: Ziggy’s is first to get restaurant variance [A Pets Chronicle]
- Montrose restaurant gets first dogs-on-patio city permit [Houston Chronicle]
- Dogs to be allowed on restaurant patios [abc13]
Photo: Paws on Patios
Update, 1/5: Unless, of course, city council decides to shrink a few of them anyway.
The results are in, and it looks like the great campaign to dissolve Houston’s historic districts has been a bit of a bust. Houston planning director Marlene Gafrick reports that the “survey period” for Heights East, Heights West, Heights South, Boulevard Oaks, and Avondale West historic districts has closed and that the planning department has determined that “none of the districts achieved the 51% threshold that requires the Planning Director to recommend repeal of the designation or, in the case of Heights South, recommend denying the designation.” Neighborhood meetings and subsequent “surveys” for 2 more districts — Norhill and First Montrose Commons — haven’t taken place yet (the meetings are scheduled for January 8th and 18th, respectively). That’s it for the 7 districts where petitions from owners triggered the “reconsideration” provisions of the preservation ordinance changes city council approved last fall. According to the new ordinance, if owners of 51 percent of the lots in any of the districts had returned notices sent to them by the city, the districts might have been dissolved — or, more likely, had their boundaries adjusted.
Opponents of the preservation-ordinance changes had focused their dissolution campaign on the Heights historic districts. But if the 51 percent threshold wasn’t attainable in those districts, it seems less likely their efforts will succeed in Norhill and First Montrose Commons. Meanwhile, the city’s planning commission and archeological and historic commission have both recommended that city council approve 2 additional pending historic districts, in Woodland Heights and Glenbrook Valley.
The City of Houston permitting office has worked its artistic magic: There’s a house now sitting on the lot at 3705 Lyons Ave. in the Fifth Ward that’s officially classified as a sculpture. Last week, it was just a run-down bungalow a couple of miles to the northwest, at 3012 Erastus St. At what point along its journey — which after several postponements finally took place last Thursday night — did the transformation occur? City officials and demo artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck can’t pinpoint it. But we’ve got a few photos of the move. Maybe someone can point out for us the exact moment the art began?
“Sometimes I look back and wonder WHAT WAS I THINKING,” writes Jason Perry in a press release he sent to local media outlets announcing the closure of his late-night and after-hours establishment near Montrose and Fairview — and its coming reincarnation as a perhaps quainter little bistro. “Did I really open a penis shaped muffin restaurant, did I really spend more than half of a million dollars on a restaurant that promised to toss peoples salad[?]â€
Housed in a 1940 foursquare at 2310 Converse St., the MuffinMan, which opened only a few months ago, actually promised customers a bit more than that. Perry’s possibly NSFW farewell-to-muffins press release explains it best:
Over the weekend, city officials posted the simple petitions that owners of properties in designated historic districts will need to sign if they want to un-designate their neighborhoods. Which means the 30-day clock for the one-time-only opportunity for districts to free themselves of the burdens of history (and the newly revised historic-district regulations) has already begun ticking. Really, though, the bar’s been set pretty low. What neighborhoods (besides the Old Sixth Ward and Main St./Market Square, which are both excluded from the process) won’t be able to rustle up the signatures of the owners of a measly 10 percent of tracts in their districts who want out? (That’s the threshold designated by the new law for triggering a re-vote.) The petitions describe the process as “reconsideration”; if that term doesn’t mean anything to you, you might find yourself halfway through the petition before you get a real sense of what it is you’re being asked to sign.
One stumbling block property owners in historic districts might come across in deciding whether to sign the petition: The text of the newly revised preservation ordinance doesn’t seem to be posted anywhere. The petition’s very brief second page includes a link to a city web page about the new ordinance “and proposed amendments,” but as of this morning, you won’t find the new rules — already approved by a vote of city council last week — there. We’ve sent messages to a few city officials asking when they’ll be posted; we’ll let you know when we hear back.
Update, 11 am: Public-affairs manager Suzy Hartgrove tells Swamplot the planning department hopes to have the revised ordinance (including the new “transition” ordinance) posted today, after a legal-department review.
Later Update, 10/20: As of 7:30 this morning, the new ordinances — and a summary (PDF) — have been posted.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: FREE ENTERPRISE CITY “And can we stop repeating the myth that Houston is some big unzoned city of freedom? Houston has a ton of ordinances regarding building forms and how property is used, from parking requirements that are stricter than most cities, to rules about setbacks, weirdly random designations of areas as ‘suburban’ and ‘urban’ with accompanying rules, rules about the sizes of townhouses, and so on. People love to say that we’re some kind of mecca of affordable housing because we have ‘no zoning.’ It’s nonsense. We have affordable housing because we have no natural boundaries preventing expansion and therefore have spread out more than most cities, and because we subsidize the building of big roads to make it easier to get to remote places. . . .” [John (yet another), commenting on Preservation Ordinance Passes]
A VAGUE OPT-OUT PROVISION FOR HOUSTON’S 16 HISTORIC DISTRICTS Will each existing historic district get to vote on whether it wants to be governed by new, toothier preservation regulations than the ones they signed up for? Maybe: “City officials will hold public meetings from the end of July to mid-August to gauge public reaction to the proposal. If it appears a majority of residents who live in one of the city’s 16 historical districts oppose the ordinance, officials will allow them to vote on whether to remain a historic district, said Councilwoman Sue Lovell, chair of the council committee dealing with preservation issues.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
The mayor’s office is out with a “public comment draft” of proposed changes to Houston’s Historic Preservation Ordinance. The biggest (and most expected) change: There’ll be no more 90-day “compliance waivers” issued for historic-district properties. Under the previous ordinance, owners of contributing properties in historic districts whose plans for new construction, demolition, or renovation had been rejected by the city’s historic commission could proceed with those plans anyway after simply waiting 90 days. Under these changes, the Old Sixth Ward — labeled a “protected” historic district because the waivers weren’t allowed there — will now be the model for all others.
But the changes also include a completely revised process for neighborhoods to vote on historic-district status. Previously, for a neighborhood to file an historic-preservation application, it needed to submit a petition signed by owners representing more than 51 percent of its tracts. But the new system puts power into the hands of owners who are willing to express an opinion and takes it away from those who can’t be bothered or found. It allows an application to be filed if 67 percent of the property owners in a district who send in special cards distributed for that purpose indicate on those cards that they’re in favor of the designation.
There’s more. Here’s the city’s official summary of the changes:
Continuing his commentaries on city off-street parking requirements, blogger Andrew Burleson takes a snapshot of parking conditions near the often-crowded corner of West Alabama and Hazard. To the east: the little 8-parking-space head-in strip center that houses Candylicious, Retro Gallery, and The Chocolate Bar. To the west: Erick’s Auto Center.
Among Burleson’s startling finds: On a weekday evening, actual empty parking spots appear to be available in front of The Chocolate Bar! But what’s going on down the street?
Courtesy of Planning and Development Dept. public affairs manager Suzy Hartgrove, Swamplot now has a copy of the variance application submitted by the new owners of the vacant 7.68-acre site at the southwest corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy — where H-E-B has announced plans to build a new Montrose grocery store. At the property’s western border, Sul Ross and Branard streets used to lead directly into driveway entrances to the Wilshire Village apartments on the site. Under current development regulations, those streets would have to be connected to other streets (or perhaps each other) or turned into proper cul-de-sacs.
The variance would allow the property’s new owners to bypass this requirement and leave Sul Ross and Branard as they are — minus the driveway access.
Oh — the property’s new owners! Who are they?
The new H-E-B at “Lancaster Center” makes its first appearance at the 7.68-acre Dunlavy and West Alabama corner lot. Any neighbors want to send us the plat drawings they should have received in the mail by now? An interested observer sends in this snapshot and comments:
Some time in the last few days, a “Notice of Variance Request” was posted on the old Wilshire Village / soon-to-be HEB property, for the apparent purpose of dealing with “cul-de-sac standards”. One assumes this has something to do with the current dead-ends of Sul Ross and Branard into property–but what, exactly? Does this mean that part of the property is going to be used to construct cul-de-sacs? Does this mean that the Montrose Land Defense coalition might get thrown a minor bone or two in the way of public green space?
- Wilshire Village coverage [Swamplot]
Photo: Swamplot inbox
THE GOLDEN AGE OF FORT BEND COUNTY HOUSE CONSTRUCTION IS OFFICIALLY OVER Damn! Y’all are ruining the last bastions of suburban homebuilding freedom. Could be worse, though. They could have made it so you don’t get to hire your own inspectors: “As of April 1, Fort Bend County residential home builders are required to report inspections for new construction within unincorporated areas of the county. A minimum of three inspections during construction will be required and include inspection of the following: the foundation, before the placement of concrete; the framing and mechanical system stage before drywall; and the final inspection once construction is complete.” [Fort Bend Now]