Tag: Neighborhood Disputes

Boulevard Oaks
11/07/07 12:23pm

DelayAshbyHighRise.org

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Highrises, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Southampton
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Slow-motion news flash: City Council has just voted to put off a vote on the mayor’s whipped-up-in-a-jiffy highrise traffic ordinance for 90 days. The ordinance would have required traffic-impact studies for projects “very much like” the proposed Ashby Highrise, and allowed the director of public works to force building-size reductions as a result.

Guess those signs will be staying up through the holidays.

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Boulevard Oaks
10/01/07 9:43am

Uproar Update: Ashby Highrise

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Highrises, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Southampton
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Highrise Protest Sign on Rice Blvd. in Southampton

So much continuing excitement over the new 23-story tower proposed for the corner of Bissonnet and Ashby in Boulevard Oaks:

  • Mayor White sends the city a letter: “I will be prepared to use any appropriate power under law to alter the proposed project as currently planned.” Just wait’ll we get a mayor who’s actually an architect.
  • Next, the architect who wants to be mayor proposes a moratorium.
  • Gentle opposition guest editorial in the Chronicle: “Imagine the diminished joy of looking out from your peaceful garden . . .”
  • Wednesday: Protest rally!
  • Interesting traffic analysis from Off the Kuff commenter Trafficnerd:

    In my experience, the residents of the affected areas almost always object vociferously to the residential components of the project, yet give the typical ground level retail and restaurant uses a pass because they somewhat see those as desirable uses.

  • What’s it gonna look like? See an actual drawing of the proposed tower, after the jump! Yes, it’s cartoonish, but it doesn’t look like the cartoon.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Apartments
09/20/07 8:16am

Can’t Stop This: Southampton Pop-Up Tower

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Boulevard Oaks, Condos, Development Strategy, Green Design and Development, Highrises, Mixed Use, Neighborhood Disputes, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Retail, Southampton, Trees
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Cartoon of Highrise Planned for 1717 BissonnetOne advantage of keeping your Houston-style Big Tower in a Wealthy Residential Neighborhood project secret: You can plat the property, prepare traffic-impact studies, and upgrade utilities before anyone notices. One downside: Media-savvy neighbors might catch on and announce your project before you do. Or at least release renderings.

Here’s what Buckhead Investment Partners is saying about the 23-story mixed-use tower the company is planning for the current site of the Maryland Manor apartments, on the south side of Bissonnet near Dunlavy: A six-story base will include a 467-car parking garage, space for retail and a restaurant on the ground floor, and five live-work townhomes. An “amenity plaza” level on the sixth floor will have an exercise room, spa, and office space. Above it all: 17 floors of either apartments or condos.

Rainwater collection. LEED-Silver rating. Red-brick exterior with cast-stone details. But best of all is the spin:

The project design has been chosen so that all building residential units will be above the tree line, ensuring the greatest level of privacy for the surrounding neighborhood and the maximum view of Houston’s skylines and tree canopy from the units.

Emerging Boulevard Oaks development strategy: You won’t be able to see us, because we’ll be above the trees.

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Attractions
09/06/07 11:21am

The Roller Coaster Next Door

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Kemah, Neighborhood Disputes, Tourism
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Roller Coaster on the Kemah Boardwalk Under Construction, June 2007

Worried that deed restrictions won’t protect your home from someone putting up ugly townhouses on your street?

Big whup. On the Kemah Boardwalk, the next-door neighbors of Coy and Carol Killion decided to build a 96-foot-tall roller coaster.

The Boardwalk Bullet is now a few dozen feet from the house. For 12 hours a day, the family listens to the coaster’s squeaks and rattles and the screams of 800 passengers an hour rolling by at 50 mph.

“It’s such a shame, really. We all used to just love the peaceful quiet,” said Carol Killion, who built the house in 1962. “It’s what we enjoyed about it, away from the big city.”

The Killions, of course, still refuse to sell their home to Landry’s.

“As long as I live, it will not be sold to him,” she declared, referring to Landry’s President Tilman Fertitta.

This weekend, the coaster’s noise drove them all from the porch: Killion, her husband, Coy, and her son, daughter-in-law and two grandsons. “You can’t even carry on a conversation,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll even be able to barbecue.”

No public hearing was ever held to inform residents about the coaster.

The city has no zoning, and the coaster met all setback requirements, a Kemah city administrator told the Houston Chronicle in July. Carol Killion said a lawsuit would be just too exhausting.

Boardwalk Bullet photo: Kira Hamilton

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Medical Buildings
08/30/07 7:42am

Sunrise for the Sunset Medical Clinic

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Neighborhood Disputes, New Construction, Parking, Sharpstown
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New Six-Story Medical Clinic of Houston Tower in Southampton

The construction permit for the Medical Clinic of Houston’s new six-story building on Sunset Blvd. in Southampton has been approved by the city. So up it goes! Behind the new building, facing Rice Blvd., will be a new seven-story, 600-space parking garage.

After the jump, a view of the new garage from the adjacent alley.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

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Apartments
08/01/07 6:00pm

Mood in Former Hospital on Former Cemetery: Not So Lofty

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First Ward, Historic Preservation, Lofts, Neighborhood Disputes, Renting
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Elder Street Artist Lofts in the Former Old Jefferson Davis HospitalSome residents of the new Elder St. Artist Lofts (formerly the Old Jefferson Davis Hospital) in the First Ward are upset with the building’s management:

“To me it’s not an artist loft anymore,” says one resident who’s been there since the beginning. “We receive the newsletters from ArtSpace in Minneapolis and we see the artist live-work spaces that are opening up in Buffalo, New York and in San Francisco and other parts of the country, and they’re active and they’re artist-run and they’ve got the support of the city, they’ve got the support of the community and they’re vibrant. And we’re not on that level, and I don’t know if we ever will be.”

Current and former tenants gripe to the Houston Press that the resident managers play favorites and will only rent month-to-month, and that there aren’t enough artists in the building.

Photo of Elder St. Artists Lofts: Greater Houston Preservation Alliance

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Blue Creek Ranch
06/08/07 9:30am

Blue Creek Ranch HOA to Residents: Stop Living in Your Garages

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Homeowners' Associations, Neighborhood Disputes
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Fountain Hills Ct, Blue Creek Ranch

Channel 26 news reporter Isiah Carey’s Insite blog features scans of a scalding memo distributed recently to residents of the Blue Creek Ranch subdivision, near Highway 249 and Beltway 8. The memo scolds four residents by name (and address) who “wish to make the neighborhood a ghetto” and urges residents to attend a Blue Creek Homeowners Association meeting at Doss Community Center last Wednesday night, with this gentle rejoinder:

IF YOU REMAIN SILENT AND DO NOT SHOW UP THEN YOUR HOME WILL BE WORTHLESS AND THE NEIGHBORHOOD WILL BE A GHETTO. [original emphasis]

Way to increase attendance at neighborhood meetings!

Among the attendees: reporter Vicente Arenas from Channel 11 News, who asked association president and memo author Tamika Harris exactly what she meant by the term “ghetto.” Maybe he hadn’t read the memo carefully enough:

The Ghetto Agenda:

  • Play loud music
  • Allow the kids to play in the street
  • Barbeque in the front
  • Let the gang roam the neighborhood
  • Use the garage and driveway as a place for family meals, hanging out, parties, and hair dressing
  • No deed restriction enforcement
  • Get rid of security
  • No consideration for the many cultures in this neighborhood
  • Allow trucks, trailers, and commercial vehicles in the neighborhood
  • Not concerned with the books being in proper order
  • Allow people not to pay their assessments
  • Use the Association as a social club
  • Increase annual assessments

The memo ends with what appears to be an invitation to some sort of real-estate duel:

. . . PUT UP or SHUT UP. If you lose, you move. The Board challenges these women to sign a legally binding contract where each side agrees to put their house up for sale and move if they lose at the Special Meeting. This Board is willing to put their money where their mouths are. Ellen, Lorraine, Patricia, and Wendy are you? We are waiting to hear from you to set a time to sign the contract.

No word if this strange challenge was accepted, but after an election, Harris did survive the meeting as board president.

Photo: View from 13426 Fountain Hills Ct., on HAR

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