All your reasons are reasons I couldn’t turn down buying a place there.

My house at $180k 4.5 years ago.

There are still some $190k $210k. A couple of $380k were just sold.

You can’t be the location. It’s quiet yet not far from anything.

Cottage Grove was a dump 20 years ago and probably even further back than that. Today’s Cottage Grove is FAR better than it has ever been and it’s only getting better by the day.

Parking is problem? So what? It’s not the end of the world. It’s apparently not enough of a problem that developers won’t continue to build townhouses there and buyers won’t continue buying them.

Scary townhouses are “looming” over termite infested cracker boxes. Again. So what? That problem will solve itself soon enough… when all the cottages are gone and replaced by townhouses.

Cottage Grove is walking distance from Memorial Park. Five minutes from Downtown. Five minutes from the Uptown (which is probably bigger than downtown Pittsburgh). Close to restaurants. Close to night life. And guess what? It’s AFFORDABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you don’t like Cottage Grove, don’t live there. It’s a big city. You have lots of choices. So did all those townhouse buyers. They looked at all the available choices and decided Cottage Grove was their best choice, despite it’s flaws.

I have read the posts. It does not mean that I agree with them. I believe that many problems arise from allowing builder/speculators to erect what they want where they want. I do not think that dense urban areas are best served by a laissze faire approach. And I am still amazed at how much new building went up in areas that I know were under water after Allsion.

No amount of planning could have prevented what has happened.

Even if you Houston had planning back in the 20s and 30s (which they did to a degree), this neighborhood wasn’t in Houston and was actually considered a little ways out of Houston. This is what happens when and existing established rural community becomes part of a growing city.

Anything within this neighborhood would have to be retrofitted into the old design used in the gridded street pattern.

Only in Houston is that seen as a negative.

I really don’t consider our city to backwards on the catch all abstract buzz word concept of “quality of life”.

Living in Cottage Grove for the last 4.5 years, I’ve seen this neighborhood through some dramatic changes. The new town homes are the ones putting in the new sidewalks (thank you developers and the city requirements). Many of the existing residents are happy with this from local civic club meetings.

For me, I love the neighborhood. It’s extremely quiet. The trains nearby don’t bother me at all. I’ve lived near trains all my life. Even without continuous sidewalks throughout the neighborhood, there is a lot more walking by the residents. The roadside ditches are a cause by some in the neighborhood and with support from many organization to keep versus cover over based on an environmental “quality of life” issue. Many residents are resisting the push towards putting in storm sewers with curb and gutter streets. It would require the tearing down of many trees in the community. Also, Cottage Grove just like the Heights was not part of Houston originally. It was a small suburb that was annexed many years later. the intersection of Larkin and Radcliffe was sort of a mini downtown area. Stevenson Elementary is where many existing buildings stood. I-10 cuts through the south part of the old town. Being built in the 20s and 30s as a rural and generally poorer community explains the narrow streets and right of way along with the lack of sidewalks. This was never an urban neighborhood just like much of the Rice Military and Shady Acres areas of town. What these area are experiencing is a conversion to an urban area. Some existing areas of the city can handle it better than others. Cottage Grove and the Rice Military area will take many years to transition the existing streets to a more urban style.

After living in the vicinity since 2005, I drove through Cottage Grove street by street in early 2008 and was actually shocked at what a slum (sorry kjb34 and Matt) it was.

Chalk up another one for the City of Houston for perpetuating and exacerbating another ill conceived neighborhood with no density contols, requirements for parking,
street improvements etc….I don’t know why after 20 years of living here, I am still shocked at how backward our city is
when it comes to quality of life, development and traffic management issues.