Swamplot Archives by Tag:
August 11, 2008 – 11:41 am
The new Costco on Richmond gets on okay for tree-free left turns: “According to Craig Cheney, spokesman for partner-developer Trammell Crow, nine bald cyprus and three other trees will be removed from the Weslayan median and replanted elsewhere. The developer will ‘buy out’ three live oaks that will be cut down on Richmond to make way for two left-turn lanes for a total of $17,000, a spokesman for the city said. [River Oaks Examiner, previously in Swamplot]
Read more about: 77027, Greenway-Plaza, Shopping Centers, Streets, Trees
August 4, 2008 – 12:14 pm
Calling it “perhaps the most elegant and beloved in the entire neighborhood,” some saddened neighbors send in a deathbed photo shoot featuring the former Southgate home of retired Rice University architecture professor Elinor Evans. Evans sold the home at 2202 Addison in January.
Lovett Homes plans to build a new house on the property. (HCAD lists the new owner as “5177 Builders Ltd.”) In June, the Planning Commission granted a variance allowing the new garage to maintain the existing 10-ft. setback along Montclair Dr. — in order to preserve a large live oak tree in the back yard. In applying for the variance, Lovett promised to maintain the existing home’s footprint.
After the jump: highlights from the photo shoot, plus a link to the riveting, tree-saving Planning Commission hearing video!
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77030, Demolitions, Development Restrictions, Houston Planning Commission, New Construction: Residential, Southgate, Trees, Variances
At last — maybe now we’ll actually be able to see the store signs on Kirby between Richmond and Westheimer:
TIRZ President Buddy Bailey said the new high-rise oaks, which can reach a height of 40 feet, “grow straight up and straight down,” which will reduce problems with root systems and underground infrastructure.
The plan calls for the exiting 135 trees to be replaced with 148 trees.
“We will match the old trees caliper for caliper,” he said.
Read more about: 77098, Kirby Street Trees, Streetscapes, Trees, Upper Kirby
Street trees in medians on Weslayan and Richmond will likely be disappearing soon, reports Sarah Kortemeier in the offline-only Village News. Three left-turn lanes on Weslayan and two on Richmond are planned for the new Greenway Commons Costco-powered Power Center under construction on the northeast corner of that intersection:
Trammell Crow Managing Director of Retail Development Craig Cheney says that the company was required by the City of Houston to put the turning bays in for traffic mitigation purposes, and his company was not made aware of any extra permitting required to remove trees. . . .
The median does not appear to be wide enough to accommodate extra lanes without removing trees. Cheney says that Trammell Crow is “open to any suggestions [the City] might have” about relocating or mitigating the effect on trees, but that the turning bays cannot be constructed without removing or relocating at least some of the trees.
Photo of Costco construction: Flickr user Graustark
Read more about: 77027, Greenway-Plaza, Shopping Centers, Streets, Trees
Some residents of Glen Cove St. have been encroaching on the Hogg Bird Sanctuary with their lawnmowers and destroying the birds’ habitat, complains an area resident. The sanctuary is nominally a part of Memorial Park, but is adjacent to Bayou Bend, the former Ima Hogg estate.
Abc13’s Miya Shay comments:
there are about a dozen homes whose own lawn shares a border line with the sanctuary. One of the women who actually lives there is complaining her some of her neighbors are mowing the grass, and putting up a hammock in what is technically city property. Instead of respecting land deeded by the Hogg Foundation, the neighbors are using the land as their own property.. for free.. forget the birds. As you can imagine, some folks are not so happy about it.. and demanding that the Parks department do a little more than just send angry letters and putting up “do not mow” signs….
Shay reports that City Council wants to get to the bottom of it . . . and maybe store some construction equipment in the sanctuary too!
Read more about: 77007, Bayou Bend, Birds, Crestwood, Gardening, Hogg Bird Sanctuary, Lawnmowers, Memorial-Park, Trees, Wildlife
In case it hadn’t already become obvious from watching the construction, that uh . . . “stealth” four-level parking garage in back is the real game-changer for the River Oaks Shopping Center.
Clearly, what’s unfolding is a strategy even more ingenious than anyone could have imagined. With a new monster garage looming behind the next targeted would-be landmark, Weingarten will soon have people begging it to rip down more of the north side of the center and build something taller, just to screen those four stories of cars from West Gray. Meanwhile, focusing attention on the complaints of a few pesky neighbors in back is a classic outrage-bait move. Throw in a little hush money to make sure those protests aren’t too loud, but then make sure news of the offer gets leaked, so the decoy works. Send in the demo crews, redevelop, and repeat!
The site plan above comes from a Weingarten variance request that will go before the Planning Commission on Thursday. The city’s landscape ordinance apparently requires the new development to switch out some of those existing sickly-but-iconic palm trees for live oaks. Naturally, Weingarten wants to save the palms!
River Oaks Shopping Center landscape plan: Heights Venture Architects, via Houston Planning Commission
Read more about: 77019, Demolitions, Development Restrictions, Development Strategy, Historic Preservation, Landmarks, New Construction, Parking-Garages, River Oaks, River-Oaks-Shopping-Center, Shopping Centers, Trees, Weingarten Realty
From the course description for Anthropology 325L: Ethnographies of Ordinary Life, spring semester, UT Austin:
This course tries to approach the “ordinary” through ethnographic research. Each student will choose a project for participant observation. Questions include: how is the ordinary made to seem meaningful or made invisible or naturalized? How is ordinary life experienced by particular people in particular situations? How is it the site of forms of attachment and agency? What are the practices of everyday life? How do people become invested in the idea and hope of having an ordinary life? How does ordinariness dull us, or escape us, or become a tempting scene of desire?
And an excerpt from a recent posting of student fieldnotes on the Ethnographies of Ordinary Life class blog:
Bellaire has a different story. My mom often tells friends of the family about how over the course of our first ten years in this house, there was always at least one house being torn down and rebuilt. Our house along with three or four others are now the only original houses on the street. And they are now dwarfed by the pseudo-stucco three story behemoths that have come to characterize Houston exurbs. The street is littered with showy luxury vehicles, and most of the new neighbors don’t really socialize with us or one another. And you should hear my father lament the plight of the trees on our street (and I am totally with this one). My mom stopped organizing the block party a few years ago simply because no one else expressed interest or willingness to help out.
Read more about: 77401, Bellaire, New Construction: Residential, Redevelopment, Trees
January 29, 2008 – 1:21 pm
A real estate agent writes in to report that the grand compromise to save all those Live Oaks lining Kirby Dr. between Richmond and Westheimer isn’t going to save anything:
Despite a compromise that reclaimed 7 feet of paved width from a plan to revamp Kirby Drive, it now appears that all of the trees between Richmond Avenue and Westheimer Road will be lost to construction.
Houston foresters told a group of about 30 residents Thursday that after walking the site Dec. 7, it was determined that even with a roadway that is 73 feet across, the majority of trees will be unable to survive.
City Forester Victor Cordova said only eight trees within the area have a “realistic chance” of surviving, and that is because they are relatively small rather than in a viable location. He called moving those trees “a very expensive venture.”
Our agent-informant is aghast, and tells us that either the trees stay or she leaves Houston. That sounds kinda drastic, and doesn’t give much credit to the real improvements to Houston’s quality of life the Kirby Dr. reconstruction will likely achieve:
The City insists that the street be widened not to increase capacity but to increase the lane widths. A Public Works engineer told me recently that drivers of Hummers and some large SUVs find the current Kirby lane width “uncomfortable.”
Read more about: 77098, Kirby Street Trees, Streetscapes, Trees, Upper Kirby
October 15, 2007 – 10:00 am
The wisdom of King Solomon lives on! The promised grand compromise on the Kirby Dr. street trees has been officially unveiled: Many of the oaks lining the busy street will get to keep most of their roots! The street surface will be expanded
to a standard of 73 feet, widening to 74 feet for left-turn lanes without signals and 77 feet at intersections with stoplights. Kirby is currently 66 feet wide.
That means up to five-and-a-half feet of trimming.
In order to protect trees during construction, a process called “water sawing” will be used to trim roots away from the construction area.
It won’t hurt a bit!
Read more about: 77098, Kirby Street Trees, Streetscapes, Trees, Upper Kirby
September 20, 2007 – 8:16 am
One 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.
Read more about: 77005, Apartments, Ashby Highrise, Boulevard-Oaks, Condos, Green Development, Highrises, Mixed Use, Neighborhood Disputes, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Retail, Southampton, Trees, Utilities
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Read more about Apartments, Condos, Development Strategy, Green Design and Development, Highrises, Mixed Use, Neighborhood Disputes, Neighborhoods: Boulevard Oaks, Neighborhoods: Southampton, New Construction, New Construction: Residential, Proposed Developments, Retail, Trees
September 11, 2007 – 9:37 am
The oaks along Kirby Dr. between Richmond and Westheimer have spoken, and they appear to be against being removed so that traffic lanes can be widened by twenty inches.
Since FEMA is providing funding to install massive 72-inch culverts under Kirby from 59 to San Felipe anyway, folks at the Upper Kirby TIRZ figured, why not go all the way and make the street safer for buses and fat-ass trucks? And while we’re at it, why not pave those intersections with giant stars? Sure, that might mean less space for trees and sidewalks, but we’ll be able to squeeze some new ones in.
None of this is making Trees for Houston, the organization that planted many of those trees umpteen years ago, very happy. But maybe they’re just not being appreciative enough of the new 14-foot-wide median they’ll be able to drop their tiny saplings into. Got it? On Kirby everything gets rebuilt.
Read more about: 77098, Kirby Street Trees, Streetscapes, Trees, Upper Kirby
Sure, the canopy of coastal live oak trees along Sunset Boulevard north of Rice is purty and all, but what’s really great about it is that it’s going to block views of a new six-story medical tower going up in Southampton. Well, okay, the fact that car windshields don’t curve all the way up over our heads—that helps too. Just don’t look up while you drive by, okay?
Now if Southampton residents would just shut up about the new Medical Clinic of Houston building long enough to watch this drive-by video produced by the new building’s nice architects—showing the still-leafy drive along tree-lined Sunset Boulevard, they’ll see how silly their complaints are.
After the jump, un-foliated views of the new tower, plus the seven-level parking garage that’s going to face Rice Boulevard.
Continue Reading This Story >
Read more about: 77005, Medical Clinics, Proposed Developments, Rice-University, Southampton, Trees
“You are the first line of defense against these deceptively beautiful, but deadly invaders in our midst,” warns the Bellaire Examiner.
Who is this evil interloper? The Chinese Tallow Tree. Don’t get caught harboring one of these nasties on your property.
Yeah, it’s a bad tree. Because it takes over and forces out other plants, right?
Chinese tallow alters light availability for other plant species. Fallen tallow leaves contain toxins that create unfavorable soil conditions for native plant species. Chinese tallow will outcompete native plant species, reducing habitat for wildlife as well as forage areas for livestock.
This alarming description is from a website on invasive species put together by the Houston Advanced Research Center and the TCEQ’s Galveston Bay Estuary Program. But read carefully between the lines and you’ll realize that to the authors, the Chinese Tallow isn’t just an alien invader—it’s proof that Houston needs land-use controls:
Chinese tallow will transform native habitats into monospecific (single species) tallow forests in the absence of land management practices.
Do these folks realize what they’re advocating? Let’s hope they stick to gardening and stay out of urban planning. No telling what they’d do if they got hold of Houston’s development regulations.
Photo: Flickr user ultraviolet_catastrophe
Read more about: Chinese Tallow, Gardening, Invasive Plants, Land Use Restrictions, Landscape, Trees, Zoning
