ANOTHER BAYTOWN DROP City council members in Baytown are meeting this morning to try to figure out what to do about a sinkhole that’s opened up next to a sewer line that runs adjacent to a bend in Goose Creek. abc13 reported last night that the sinkhole was caused by a rupture in the line, but that repair work had already begun. [abc13]
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Tag: Utilities
FLUSHING FOR DOLLARS Houston’s City Council voted 12-3 yesterday to hike water and sewer rates for single-family homes by 27.7 percent, with the first increases beginning June 1: “Water rates for apartments will go up nearly 24 percent and businesses will see a nearly nine percent hike. However, single families will have gradual increases over three years until they are paying the full 100 percent cost of use, whereas apartments and business have to start paying that full cost right away.” [abc13]
Here’s a little video sent to Swamplot from this morning, showing what appeared to a reader to be the beginning of the end for the Wilshire Village apartments. But in a comment to that post, Lynn Edmundson from Historic Houston reports this demo work isn’t really all it’s been cracked up to be:
I just returned from the site…and it looks like they are just breaking up the surface concrete. The contractors on the site are installing plumbing/water lines…and are not with the demolition company.
New plumbing lines? What for?
Meanwhile, Historic Houston Salvage to the . . . rescue? Edmundson adds:
With the permission of the contractors on the site, someone with me was able to look into one of the apartments and there is beautiful oak flooring still inside the apartments waiting to be reclaimed!
- Breaking Apartments News: Demolition Begins at Wilshire Village [Swamplot]
- Wilshire Village coverage [Swamplot]
Video: Swamplot inbox
There’ll be no new Texas rebates for solar panels after all: That combined-solar bill that appeared to have support from legislators in both parties died at the end of the session from a procedural manuever.
In its last incarnation, the legislation would have given rebates over the next 5 years to Texas homeowners and businesses who install solar panels, and required electric companies to pay a fair market price for electricity pumped back into the grid by its solar-powered customers.
The only solar-related legislation that passed, according to Luke Metzger of Environment Texas, was a provision to let homeowners finance their solar installations with help from the local government, and pay back the cost via extra property taxes over 20 years.
- Solar Push in Texas Fails [Green Inc.]
- Texas Kills Solar Bill on Last-Minute Motion [Environmental Capital]
- High hopes on solar energy go unfulfilled this session [Houston Chronicle]
- The Latest on Houston and Texas Incentives for Solar Power [Swamplot]
A new single bill providing rebates over the next 5 years for Texas homeowners and businesses who install solar panels — and requiring electric companies to pay a fair market price for the excess electricity solar-powered customers generate — now appears likely to reach the governor’s desk.
The Chronicle‘s Tom Fowler provides a local angle:
An installed residential solar system for a 2,100-square-foot home costs about $25,500, according to Houston-based Standard Renewable Energy. Existing federal incentives would knock about $7,650 off the price. In Austin, residents can get another $13,500 in incentives, in Dallas about $7,900, but Houston offers no such advantages.
- Good Day (for Texas) Sunshine! [TexasVox]
- The state of solar power [Off the Kuff]
- Solar power [Houston Chronicle]
A Swamplot reader from the Missouri City neighborhood of Quail Glen writes in asking for help figuring out what to do about a neighbor who’s tapped her water line:
“. . . the guilty party had dug up the ground and connected a line from [their house] (previous and currently disconnected for several months) into the active line that provides water that we are paying for. This investigation was initially sparked during January 2009 due to skyrocketing water bills. After several visits to our home and meter, the City of Houston discovered the problem on today. When confronted, the inhabitants fabricated a story saying that they pay a 300.00 water bill each month to the City of Houston (despite their account being disconnected) and that they are moving anyway.
Our reader has a bit more to say about those neighbors:
These bright letters, dated this past Friday, are now posted throughout the Wilshire Village Apartments. They’re a friendly notice from the city Building Official, informing the remaining residents of the 17-building maintenance-deprived apartment complex at Alabama and Dunlavy that their residences “pose a serious and immediate hazard to the occupants” — and yanking all Certificates of Occupancy.
Oh . . . but all is not lost! The owner can appeal:
The Owner of the Property is entitled to request a hearing by delivering a written request to the Building Official at 3300 Main, Houston Texas 77002. The Building Official or his designee shall hold a hearing within three business days after receiving such request, unless the owner requests an extension of time.
Given the apparent owner’s evident interest in scrapping the place, that’s not likely. Any objections from anybody else?
The latest from the drawn-out, soap-opera-worthy Wilshire Village kick-’em-out festival: A source tells Swamplot that owner Matt Dilick’s Commerce Equities has informed a tenant that electricity for the 8-acre complex will be turned off on March 28th.
Plus: complaints about what our source terms the “psychological warfare” waged against the remaining residents of the complex on Dunlavy and W. Alabama:
[Dilick] has never identified himself as the owner or contacted [any of the residents]. An army of COH inspectors was here as well as the Fire Marshal touring the property with Jay Cohen, to whom [residents have] paid rent for 20 years. Now [the complex has been] papered with fire hazard and code violation signs. It preys on your mind. Why can’t Dilick say he’s the owner and give . . . a proper eviction notice? Guess it’s cheaper to scare [them] out.
The source also claims a city representative had instructed residents not to pay rent for March, but also told them they could be evicted with only 24 hours notice. And then there’s a little rumor Swamplot’s source has heard — that the place will be bulldozed on March 29th.
The solar-powered portable building fashioned from recycled shipping containers that’s been waiting patiently at the corner of Hyde Park and Waugh since last September isn’t just the sales office for the Mirabeau B. condo. It’s also a prototype.
Designers Joe Meppelink and Andrew Vrana of Metalab have teamed up with ttweak Renewables (creators of the Mirabeau B.’s sales graphics) and Harvest Moon (the condo’s developer) to market the structures, which they call SPACE. That stands for Solar Powered Attractive Container for Everyone — though more likely it’ll be for companies that want a sales center that also works as a big green sign.
What’s this? A new clean, modern design for the high-voltage power line structures along the Sam Houston Tollway, just west of I-45 South?
Naah — it’s Sagemont Church’s new 170-ft.-tall steel cross, viewed in its natural setting. Plus: It lights up at night!
Michael Reed from the River Oaks Examiner documents a rumor floating around the Wilshire Village Apartments on W. Alabama at Dunlavy — that former-and-maybe-still-current owner Jay Cohen has been telling tenants they don’t need to leave after all:
Monday afternoon, there was confusion about the order to vacate on the part of another tenant, who would only talk to the Examiner if he were not identified.
The tenant said he and another resident had been told by Cohen shortly after the notices were issued that they did not have to move.
He added he was under the impression Cohen still had the controlling interest in the property.
Cohen could not be located for comment.
According to the Secretary of State’s office, the property’s owner is Alabama & Dunlavy, a limited partnership. The general partner — or manager — is listed as General Commerce Equities II. Limited partners are not a matter of public record.
- Amid confusion, eviction notices come to Wilshire Village [River Oaks Examiner]
- Previously in Swamplot: Wilshire Village Utility Work, Wilshire Village Update: “A Nice Messâ€, Wilshire Village Apartments: Actual Tenants Actually Being Evicted
Photo of Wilshire Village Apartments: Katharine Shilcutt Gleave
A reader sends in this photo of the corner of Sul Ross and Woodhead, just west of the Wilshire Village Apartments, showing what appears to be work on wastewater lines connecting to the complex. Sul Ross dead-ends into a parking lot at the garden apartments at the end of the block.
The utility work was mentioned in this reader comment on Swamplot’s original story on Wilshire Village. Two weeks ago, tenants at the 70-year-old complex received mysterious notices demanding they vacate the property by the end of this month.
- Wilshire Village Update: “A Nice Mess†[Swamplot]
- Wilshire Village Apartments: Actual Tenants Actually Being Evicted [Swamplot]
Photo: Swamplot inbox
A few fun pics from around and about town! First, this crowd of black vultures ponders its next real-estate venture from atop a communications tower parked in a gated community in Cypress. Photographer Karen Morris happened upon the scene on Eldridge near Grant Rd.:
It was an awesome sight. Personally, if they adorned my rooftop every evening, I’d clean the roof, sell the house and move to the other side of town. . . . Black Vultures/Buzzards are a bit smaller and less colorful that the Turkey Vulture. They tend to follow the Turkey Vulture because it has a keener sense of smell and can find it’s meal through use of that sense. They eat dead animals and occasionally capture small live animals (field mice, etc.). Although they do not build a nest, they will take an abandoned nest. Often roost together as seen in this set of photos. If startled while roosting, they will regurgitate with power and accuracy.
More local habitat:
A few months after Ike, this tricked-out FEMA trailer rolls into Houston as . . . art?? Paul Villinski’s reworked 30-ft. Gulfstream “Cavalier” trailer, which took the artist 7 months to mod, will be parked outside the Rice University Art Gallery starting later this month.
Re-born as the Emergency Response Studio, the trailer’s formaldehyde-ridden original materials are replaced by entirely “green†technology and building materials, including recycled denim insulation, bamboo cabinetry, compact fluorescent lighting, reclaimed wood, and natural linoleum floor tiles made from linseed oil. It is powered by eight mammoth batteries that store energy generated by an array of solar panels and a “micro†wind turbine atop a 40-foot high mast. Not only practical, Emergency Response Studio is a visually engaging structure with an expansive work area featuring a wall section that lowers to become a deck. A ten-foot, elliptical geodesic skylight allows extra headroom and natural lighting in the work area. Though designed as an artist’s studio and residence, Emergency Response Studio is an ingenious prototype for self-sufficient, solar-powered mobile housing.
Party on the back deck!
HOLIDAY HEAT “Fireplaces in Houston are kind of like spleens or tonsils; probably used to be necessary, but really just for decoration now, until they flare up and cause a problem, or allow racoons, birds and rats unfettered access to your living room. Along with all the other picturesque images of family life I gleaned from Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney, I always envisioned my home with a fireplace. The only trouble is, Drew makes so much of his own heat that he can barely stand to be near himself without sweating. I’m always moments from losing a limb to frostbite, so it’s difficult for us to agree on a mutually comfortable temperature. But, as you can tell, the fireplace is lit in this photo, so we must be learning to compromise. Indeed. All I have to do to make Drew thrilled to sit in front of a lit fire in December is turn on the fan. And the air conditioner.” [A Peine for Your Thoughts]