Jump to content

woolie

Full Member
  • Posts

    820
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    17

Everything posted by woolie

  1. Is this the highest and best use of this park land? My rough outline of the course and club house is about 125 acres. Note: Topic title should be "COURSE" obviously. "Coarse" is jargon in my field... Can someone correct the title?
  2. Yes, parking at the VA is awful. Fortunately there is a shuttle bus I can use from my office when I need to go over there.
  3. It's just an article I came across today, from Seattle. It's not the specifics of the situation there, but I think development in Houston will be more and more regulated by neighborhood associations in the absence of zoning and land use regulation. Afton Oaks, Ashby, etc. As the city becomes more dense, the once loosely defined boundaries of neighborhoods are starting to harden as they become real political entities staking out space to protect their interests. As in this article about Seattle, Houston's nicer single family neighborhoods in close-in areas are coming under much stronger pressure for multi-family development. Informal groups will become formal as a reaction to this pressure, start defining themselves as in opposition to developers. Some of Houston's "pro growth, developer friendly" attitude might shatter.
  4. The future of Houston: http://crosscut.com/2012/05/21/urban/108702/seattle-neighborhoods-land-use-reform-density/
  5. I like to drive up and down Bissonet whenever I can to help increase the traffic count. I'll even go out of my way to use Bissonet as my crosstown street. Fortunately my car has "stealth mode" and looks like every other car in the neighborhood. I might even put a "Stop Ashby" sticker on it for further cloaking.
  6. It's easy to tell the construction quality if you watched them go up. And they were abandoned halfway through, with the bare plywood sheathing exposed to the elements for years. Someone then bought them for 70k each, finished them, and flipped them within a year for 300+k. Observe, before and after: http://www.har.com/HomeValue/1706-BREMOND-ST-HOUSTON-77004-M16767394.htm http://www.har.com/HomeValue/1706-BREMOND-ST-HOUSTON-77004-M85903774.htm
  7. Obviously the developer wanted to add 50k to the price by calling them "detached, free standing."
  8. Went to Kenny & Ziggy's for dinner. They are making good progress on this tower. Untitled by wools, on Flickr
  9. New rendering posted on SW. http://swamplot.com/the-numbers-on-that-35-story-tower-planned-for-weslayan-and-west-alabama/2012-05-18/
  10. Untitled by wools, on Flickr The Jackson/Bremond/Chenevert/McGowan block, showing the completed-after-abandonment houses being discussed above. Closer inspection reveals they are all in fact nominally free-standing. Untitled by wools, on Flickr Dennis at Jackson Untitled by wools, on Flickr Other side of that block on Drew. I quite like both of the existing house types on this block. Hopefully the new ones will be of similar style.
  11. It's my understanding that most very high end cars are leases because many of them are corporate leases as perks for executives, or high net worth people who don't want to bother with selling or trading every 2 years.
  12. Screen Shot 2012-05-16 at 1.46.31 PM by wools, on Flickr Something is going on at McGowan at Jackson. I presume new townhomes -- the current batch on the back side of this block at Bremond sat half-complete for a couple years before someone bought the project and finished it off. Now they have fenced in the remainder of the lot and started pouring foundations. Actually, there are several new townhome sections going up. I'll ride around collecting some more photos to post this afternoon. Looks like East Midtown is finally coming back with some new construction. See also: Milhaus Development.
  13. Actually, it makes me quite sad to think about how this country totally abandoned our cities for 50 years, mostly for incredibly stupid (racial and auto-utopian) reasons. That is a big thousand dollarsing opportunity cost. We're sure eating it now.
  14. I'm married, but I don't have children. I don't plan on ever having children. But I pay about $2,000 every year to HISD.
  15. Uhm, you're just playing around here -- this opportunity cost is a standard infrastructure argument -- it applies equally to freeways, transit, water, electricity, etc. Houston is experiencing a period of dramatic growth -- including higher density developments inside the loop. There is huge value in making it explicitly clear where transit lines will be to shape development to maximize their use. Otherwise we'll be 30 years down the road (again) and trying to retrofit transit into an even more difficult to change landscape, which will fare even more poorly than the current efforts, and require even more compromises. Now, when we play Sim City or China, it's easy to make a modern metro system appear overnight by fiat. But in this world of property rights, (semi) accountable government agencies, and environmental impacts... it's a messy process. Compare Beijing Metro to 2nd Ave Subway.
  16. I fail to see the insight in your comment. It's self evident the Tokaido Shinkansen is in Japan. It is the busiest and most successful HSR line in the world. You're implying none of that experience is transferable to the US, but I'll disagree. The Acela carries 2% the passenger volume, even though the corridor population is 50m.
  17. My friends went to the opening game.
  18. Well, the main player is Japan Central Railway. They have as much experience as anyone in operating successful high speed region rail systems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dkaid%C5%8D_Shinkansen Operating speed is 170mph, carrying 140m passengers annually -- that's 400,000 people per day. http://english.jr-central.co.jp/company/ir/annualreport-backnumber/_pdf/report-2007.pdf
  19. Since I didn't get my dream house, part of me is getting a little bored and fed up with owning a house and wants to go back to renting -- preferably in a cool downtown loft.
  20. The idea makes too much sense to actually happen
  21. Wait, you posted it in THREE THREADS?
  22. Renderings get alot of attention when they're posted along with the announcement of a new project. This project has already broken ground, and site plans have been available for a long time. It looks pretty much how people expected.
  23. I looked at the plan; this will be on their existing land; the track will be where the baseball field is, it doesn't go all the way to S. Post Oak.
  24. It's beautiful. Eight stories, built to the sidewalk line. Nothing more to ask. Build these up and down Kirby. Quoted since my last comment put these pics on the previous page.
×
×
  • Create New...