10/04/10 11:22pm

Got a question about something going on in your neighborhood you’d like Swamplot to answer? Sorry, we can’t help you. But if you ask real nice and include a photo or 2 with your request, maybe the Swamplot Street Sleuths can! Who are they? Other readers, just like you, ready to demonstrate their mad skillz in hunting down stuff like this:

Well, our readers didn’t come up with answers to these questions from last time, so Swamplot did a little digging:

  • River Oaks: Will the recently denuded River Oaks Blvd. host any actual oaks again? According to River Oaks Property Owners general manager Gary Mangold, that decision hasn’t been made yet. ROPO, the River Oaks Foundation, and boulevard residents will eventually vote on one of 3 separate proposals for reforestation.
  • Houston Heights: Design firm APD‘s Mark Van Doren tells Swamplot there never was a plan to put parking under the scooted-over and raised Perry-Swilley House now settling into its new digs at 1103 Heights Blvd., one lot north of its original site (see photo below). But there are plans to park an enclosed wine cellar and gameroom under about 30 percent of the house’s elevated footprint. What’s going into the lot on the corner of Heights and 11th St. the house vacated? Either a single-story commercial building or a 2-story house fitted for commercial purposes, Van Doren says. Either one would be “historically styled.” But nothing’s happening for now — the property owner is waiting for an anchor tenant to appear.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

09/21/10 11:25pm

Got an answer to one of these reader questions? Or just want to be a sleuth for Swamplot? Here’s your chance! Add your report in a comment, or send a note to our tipline.

  • River Oaks: A reader wants to know how River Oaks or the City of Houston could “get away with not replacing the 30+ trees they destroyed when resurfacing River Oaks Blvd. [(above)] . . . Isn’t there an ordinance requiring trees to be replaced?”
  • Houston Heights: Another reader has joined the saga of the traveling 1903 Perry-Swilley House (photo below) on the northwest corner of Heights Blvd. and 11th St., already in progress: “[They] moved the house across the lot and [then] raised the house by building brick columns underneath. I’m not sure what the point was.” Why, more strip centers and more parking — isn’t it always? The house was moved from the corner so the project’s developer might be able to fit in a small shopping strip with Heights Blvd. frontage; 2 years ago the city historical commission approved plans to raise the house so that parking could be fit underneath. But . . . what’s the current status of this project?

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

06/14/10 10:24am

Those of you who feared the appearance in Swamplot comments of a second warning sign might be the signal of an escalating fruit-tree security threat in West U need not be alarmed: It’s apparently nothing new. The reader who first sent in a photo of the best-protected fruit tree in town — on Tangley Rd. west of Buffalo Speedway — claims not to have even noticed that the second sign a few steps away was any different from the first. And yet it is! The uh, somewhat enhanced wording on the second sign is en Español.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

06/09/10 2:36pm

And here we have perhaps the best-monitored fig tree on Tangley, west of Buffalo Speedway in West University. Practicing for the thorough investigation that is sure to follow, the reader who sent us the tip claims to have been “in the middle of a public street when I took the photo.” Fig poachers, you have been warned! Says our reader:

who knew these figs were so valuable they’re worth the sign, netting, security camera, and wiring installed to protect them?

Oh, but have you ever tasted a West U fig?

Late Update: The fig tree has been outed by several commenters. C’mon — fess up! You’re really a peach, aren’t you?

Photo: Swamplot inbox

05/24/10 11:20am

How’d that foreclosure auction go for the humongous early-eighties brick house on Harold St. in Montrose used in recent years as a party pad and chainsaw test site?

Let’s just say that the auction listing is gone, the property is back on MLS — and the price has been cut another $45K. But unlike the sudden, swift, and unexplained felling of the mature street trees surrounding this property, the chopping of the list price has resulted from a series of 6 hacks, from $644,900 last October to $469,900 just last week.

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04/30/10 3:20pm

With several neighbors and a city council member speaking in support and no one protesting, Houston’s planning commission granted a variance yesterday to the new owners of the former site of the Wilshire Village apartments at the corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy. The variance will allow Sul Ross and Branard streets, which currently dead end into the 7.68-acre vacant tract, to remain dead ends as the property is redeveloped into a new Montrose H-E-B market.

In return, the planning department will get some vaguely defined involvement in planning the site. “As a condition of granting the variance,” explained the planning department’s Brian Crimmins,

the applicant will be required to coordinate with the planning department during the site plan stage to establish a reasonable landscape buffer between the subject site and and adjacent properties as well as reasonable preservation of the mature tree canopy on the site. The applicant has agreed to these conditions.

Neighbors had complained about earlier plans submitted for the property — which did not require city approval because they followed the city’s development ordinance. Those plans connected Sul Ross and Branard to form a loop, like this:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

04/07/10 2:56pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE BEST KIND OF NEIGHBOR FOR YOUR LAWN “I live on a large lot in the heights with a couple of mature trees. I haven’t bagged one leaf, actually I have picked up lawn clippings and leaves from neighbors that have been set out, and put both into my compost. I’ve filled 2 5′x25′ raised beds with the compost in the last 2 years. I now have a 3 pile/annual rotation taking up a 4′x12′ area. I doubt I will ever run out of capacity for waste generated by my property. Sorry but this arguement about not enough space is not a logical one.” [SaintCyr, commenting on New Rules for Yard Waste]

04/07/10 12:46pm

Robert Boyd snaps this photo of the new mural on the side of the parking garage for the Fountains at Memorial City condos. The 13-story building is under construction at Gaylord and Bunker Hill, next to the new Cemex headquarters building just east of Memorial City Mall. Writes Boyd:

The mural . . . is nothing especially clever or innovative, but it looks nice and it’s a lot more than most builders do for their parking garages. And it works well with the real trees in front of it.

Photo: Robert Boyd

03/29/10 3:10pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: YOUR LOVELY NEW HOME IN TALLOWOOD “. . . I was in Dallas this weekend and while flipping through channels in the hotel room, I came across one of those Sunday morning suburban real estate infomercials where they showcase a single builder in one neighborhood that is under construction. During a testimonial from a recent homebuyer, the guy lauded the ‘acres of beautiful forests’ surrounding his new home. As the camera panned the landscape, I saw nothing but 10 foot tall invasive mesquite trees as far as the eye could see. Seems like our Houston realtors should start cashing in on the ‘aesthetic value’ of the ‘tallow forests’ – especially emphasizing the ‘fall color’ and its function as an ‘environmentally friendly privacy screen.’ Most homebuyers would have no idea what they’re looking at. Carefully rewording reality is usually what realtors do on HAR, anyway!” [Superdave, commenting on What Happens If You Don’t Garden the Wild]

03/26/10 5:17pm

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DON’T GARDEN THE WILD Starting from her own back yard, Lisa Gray tracks the local Chinese tallow invasion: “They breed explosively — one tree pumps out around 10,000 seeds — and they grow much faster than trees native to Texas. In China, moths and other predators keep them in check. But here, native animals and insects don’t eat them, and neither will cattle. Grasslands, wetlands, established forests: Tallows devour them all. Forget the Piney Woods. More likely, you’re in the Tallow Woods. Around here, if you leave a piece of land alone — don’t mow it, don’t burn it, just let it go — tallows will probably blanket it within 10 years. Within 20, you’ll have what ecologists call a ‘closed-canopy tallow forest,’ a single-species ecodisaster unfriendly to birds, bugs and animals. Drive from Houston to Galveston, and most of the woody areas you’ll see are covered in tallows. Around the Addicks and Barker reservoirs, the woods are almost all tallow. According to the Texas Forest Service, Chinese tallows account for an astounding 23 percent of all trees in the eight-county Houston area.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]

03/15/10 12:07pm

About 100 people showed up to that Saturday protest on the former site of the Wilshire Village Apartments, organized by a group calling itself the Montrose Land Defense Coalition. Organizers had originally expressed a desire to have the 7.68-acre site at the southwest corner of West Alabama and Dunlavy be turned into a park. Protesters told reporters they wanted the property’s trees preserved. But the organization’s website now features this clarification:

The aim of our campaign is not to alienate or place our Coalition in direct opposition to any one entity seeking to develop the land. We are concerned with the degree to which communities have a say in the development of land directly adjacent to their places of residence.

Specifically, organizer Maria-Elisa Heg tells Swamplot,

We are still fighting for a green space, a public commons, and we need to show HEB that they need to be mindful of smart urban planning.

And . . . uh, they have some plans for the site to present — shown to them by an unnamed “group of architects”:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

03/08/10 9:49am

COMPLETING THOSE WEST U FINAL INSPECTIONS Covington Builders will get to keep its license to build in West University after all. Ten homes the homebuilder had constructed since 2000 had never received occupancy permits from the city, but they’ve got ’em now. At issue on 7 of those homes: tree inspections. “‘They went to them and were able to determine what trees were there, measured the inches. I gave him some credit for some of the growth inches that were there, over time,’ [Chief Building Official John] Brown said. ‘He paid the tree trust the balance of money that was owed, which closed out his cases.’ Covington paid about $8,250 to the tree fund for the 82.5 tree inches that were missing on the seven outstanding properties. Before completing all the inspections, the city had estimated that Covington owed $10,300 to the tree fund.” [Instant News West U; previously on Swamplot]

01/25/10 4:16pm

HOUSTON’S GROWING SCALP The Center for Houston’s Future reports on the continuing disappearance of the region’s trees, mostly from sprawling new development: “The total loss of tree canopy in the greater Houston region between 1992 and 2005 is 680 square miles. This loss equates roughly to the physical size of the city of Houston, and since 2005, tree loss has continued. . . . No data exists as of December 2009 to inform the region how much tree cover we lost between 2005 and 2008. . . . Since 2005 the region experienced Hurricane Ike which literally decimated the tree population on Galveston Island. The island lost many of its 100 year old live oaks, most of which were planted after the Great Storm of 1900. Meanwhile, since 2000 the trend has been a steady increase in the number of trees planted by government agencies, volunteer organizations, and individual citizens. . . . From 2000-2008, almost one million trees were planted by public and private efforts, according to organizations that reported as part of this study.” [Center for Houston’s Future; full report (PDF)]