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lithiumaneurysm

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lithiumaneurysm last won the day on June 21 2016

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About lithiumaneurysm

  • Birthday 09/29/1995

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    St. Louis, Missouri

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  1. They also want the Ion coalition to take preemptive action against Third Ward gentrification:
  2. What compensation does the city offer to businesses affected by regular road construction? I don't think the dozens of businesses on Memorial Drive on the west side are getting anything for the pain of that disastrous project. I'm not sure why transit projects should be (and often are) held to a different standard. Infrastructure projects are disruptive by nature and a necessary evil. Is this what the people want? Houston voters approved a five-line light rail system over a decade ago and never got what they were promised. District 7 just flipped from an anti-transit congressman to a pro-transit congresswoman. Kinder Institute surveys every year show half of all Houstonians would prefer to live in in more dense, walkable neighborhoods as opposed to car-dependent suburbs. It's inaccurate to conflate the use of freeways in a heavily car-dependent city with popular demand. The only accurate way to measure what Houstonians want is by scientific surveys and ballot referendums, which suggest the opposite of what you say.
  3. True, which is good. But TOD Streets are a much more limited classification than Walkable Places, which can be created anywhere if property owners support it. TOD Streets are, of course, limited to where fixed transit exists, which doesn't cover much of the city. Better than nothing, though.
  4. These are great improvements over the current code, especially mandatory compliance near transit stops and more stringent site planning standards. However, if I'm reading slide 21 correctly, development in Walkable Place zones will still have to meet 100% of the city's minimum parking requirements. That's disappointing—excessive parking is probably the biggest issue on corridors like Lower Westheimer, but at least with this new ordinance future lots will be placed behind buildings. Requiring additional bike parking doesn't offset the impact of surface parking lots on walkability. I wish the committee would have been a bit bolder here; if we want these Walkable Places to represent something other than the Houston status quo, parking needs to be completely optional.
  5. I was bored a couple of months ago and made a map of all the filming locations (that I could identify) in Houston. The only scene I'm missing is the one with Travis Scott at a swimming pool - not sure if that was filmed in Houston, but the rest of the video was.
  6. Seriously. Off-street parking will remain a mainstay in Houston in the absence of parking requirements—new developments in Downtown are still consistently accompanied by parking. But removing these requirements will at least give small businesses a fighting chance to participate in urban development alongside big developers, instead of being pushed out of the game by onerous parking requirements that mandate they double their land purchases just to construct a private lot. It's completely absurd that we push the enormous cost of supplying parking entirely onto private landowners via legal mandate. It's an authoritarian solution to a problem best solved by the market, and it's particularly egregious in a country like the U.S. which (often smartly) prioritizes market solutions and private property rights. Minimum parking requirements also act against Houston's own interests. The city's annexation days are over—the only way to grow property tax revenue is through developing existing land. Every unwarranted parking lot created by these requirements neutralizes land which could otherwise be productive and reduces the city's tax revenue per unit area.
  7. If a lot on a major thoroughfare in one of the densest and most walkable areas in Houston isn't a logical place to put a multifamily tower, I don't know what is. The only way it could be more appropriate is if it were on a rail line and had less parking. I have faith the city will not buckle to NIMBYs when reviewing this development. The only way Houston can become truly walkable is by developing the right urban context. We can have TIRZs funnel as much money as they want into complete streets with fancy brick paving, but all of that means nothing if our urban environment is still a no-man's-land of parking lots, empty fields, and blank walls. This kind of development is a sign of a healthy city. The only successful places are ones which are adaptable. Houston shouldn't shoot itself in the foot to appease people who want to keep it static.
  8. The Fulton/San Jac connection wasn't constructed alongside the other Hardy Yards improvements due to objections from Union Pacific. That's why the Main Street tunnel was shortened and a new intersection with Burnett was created instead. Not sure if it'll be attempted in the future but it seems very difficult politically, as most things are with the railroads. Source: have had some exposure to the project at work
  9. No, it's boundless greenfield suburban development that exacerbates our flooding problems. The relentless expansion of the White Oak Bayou floodplain into the Heights isn't because of development in the Heights – it's because of what's happening all the way past Beltway 8. Blaming a single high-density building for exacerbating flooding is like claiming the Ashby high-rise creates traffic – the effect is negligible, and ironically, the development in question is part of the solution, not the problem.
  10. I assume most of these developments have to hire landscaping services anyway. Getting them to cut a few extra square feet of grass every couple of weeks probably doesn't amplify the cost much. Maintaining extra sidewalk space, especially in a city where concrete settles so poorly, would probably be pricier. Anyway, I wish the city would do more to promote wider sidewalks. Our politicians pay plenty of lip-service to the concept of walkability, but there's little talk of changing the ordinances which make it so difficult to achieve (parking minimums, building setbacks, etc). Of course, changing these laws would be far more controversial and politically costly than the subpar status quo.
  11. The city's sidewalk ordinance mandates 5' minimum (6' for transit corridors). Sidewalks cost money; developers usually won't build more than what's expected of them.
  12. There's also Rice's gigantic Greenbriar Lot two blocks to the east. Parking for $1 a day. Just a 5 minute walk to the center of Rice Village. Even at peak times there's a significant oversupply of parking in the Village – and that doesn't include Greenbriar Lot. We really need to get over this idea that there needs to parking immediately in front of every building. It's had an immensely negative impact on our urban landscape.
  13. No, it will be south of Shepherd in the space between the Center for Continuing Studies and Reckling Park, where the tennis courts used to be.
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