Furious Jam

I am opposed to entire houses being used as short-term rentals in residential neighborhoods. They are unlawful hotels and absolute nuisances: Hurricanes Couldn’t Destroy Galveston’s Spirit. The Vacation Rental Boom Just Might. ‘Chronic party houses’ on Airbnb and Vrbo have become hot topics in Houston HOA disputes Inside the Bro-tastic Party Mansions Upending a Historic Austin Community Parties, dumped deer heads, dented fence: trials of living next to short-term rental

These are entire houses he's building for short-term rentals - they are particularly infamous for house parties as opposed to apartments or condos. Anyhow, I'm glad you like his plans because, guess what?, he's got more coming. Per an interview he gave to Houstonia a few weeks ago, he's already got 10 lots inside the loop and he also wants to "move out into more popular suburbs like Cypress, Katy, The Woodlands, and Sugar Land". I think you'll feel differently if one of these opens up next to you.

On February 21, 2023, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, former Houston Texans player Darryl Sharpton, Jr. revealed that he intends on building 6 homes in the neighborhood of Montrose to serve as short-term rentals under his hospitality brand “The Sharpton”. Lots located at 2302 & 2308 Dunlavy Street are among the Montrose properties either directly or indirectly owned by him. Mr. Sharpton recently filed a replat application with the City of Houston to subdivide 2308 Dunlavy Street under the name Bria Place and preparatory to building the first of his short-term rental homes. His proposed replat contains a representation that Mr. Sharpton will limit his homes to single-family residential activity, but that does not comport with his true plans as revealed in his interview. The Sharpton houses will not be single-family residences but rather hotels both in fact and as a matter of law. Section 28-201 of the City of Houston’s Code of Ordinances defines a “Hotel” as being any “building or buildings in which the public may obtain transient sleeping accommodations” and expressly includes “tourist homes” and “houses” in the definition. That same section also defines a “Residence” as being a “permanent building or structure containing habitable rooms for nontransient occupancy”. The transient nature of short-term rentals makes The Sharpton’s true purpose incompatible with a single-family residential restriction. However Mr. Sharpton cannot honestly ask the City to permit hotels on his Montrose properties because they all directly adjoin residential properties. Section 28-202(a)(3) of the City’s Code specifically states that the “property line of the tract on which a hotel... is situated may not abut at any point any other tract that is in whole or in part residential in character”. With regard to his Dunlavy lots in particular, they are situated in a block which is entirely residential and together they adjoin 11 single-family residential homes. Those 11 homeowners have formed a coalition to oppose Mr. Sharpton’s duplicitous plan to seek residential replatting and permits for de facto hotels. We hereby call on like-minded citizens to join our opposition by registering to speak at the City’s next Planning Commission meeting, to be held on Thursday, March 30th at 2:30 p.m., where Mr. Sharpton’s replat will be considered. Attendance instructions are available at houstontx.gov/planning/Commissions/commiss_plan.html. Speakers must register prior to 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 29th. This is an opportunity for all residents to push back against the short-term rentals that have blighted so many neighborhoods. Please stand with us, demand that the City enforce its own laws, and ensure that Mr. Sharpton doesn’t tackle your neighborhood next for his hotel brand.

FYI, the District is one of the sponsors of the Montrose Crawl. The Crawl generated about $63K in additional revenue for Montrose businesses, plus a nearly $5K donation for the Houston Area Women's Center. And a whole bunch of people got sh!tfaced and it was way awesome. Can your management district manage that?

I went for lunch yesterday and thought it was great. Got the chicken enchiladas and a margarita. The 'rita was strong, but pretty standard in terms of taste - Hugo's has spoiled me for all other margaritas. Service was very good. The high point for me, though, was the salsa - I thought it was perfect. We can argue about how spicy salsa should be (this one was not very spicy at all), but the flavor and consistency was excellent. Nice atmosphere too - The Magnificent Seven was playing on the wall. The lunch prices are very affordable, so I see no reason why everyone shouldn't at least give it a try.

We've been told by the powers-that-be that we really need to get the Montrose neighborhood associations and businesses on-board before moving any further - specifically those associations and businesses that would be near the proposed event area (Westheimer between Montrose and Taft). So we informally reached out to a few key people to get their thoughts, but that triggered a wave of rumors and fear-mongering about what kind of event we're trying to create. We've envisioned a WestFest with a good mix of art and music, with security and trash pick-up both on Westheimer and in the surrounding neighborhoods, with a chunk of the proceeds being funneled back into the neighborhood, and with several other positive features. But we hadn't formally presented that vision to the community, so a lot of residents just filled in that information gap with their bad memories of the final WestFests, which were basically drunken frat parties that didn't represent or help Montrose at all. People fear the unknown, and we heard that fear loud and clear. As a result, we pulled back for a few months to refine our message and create a informational website for the public plus a new petition specifically for the Montrose community. We anticipate launching that website sometime next week, and I'll post the link here when it happens. After that, it really will be up to the Montrose community to vote yea or nay.

Turning it into a hotel makes way too much sense. How cool would it be to have a hotel with the ultimate atrium? You could actually extend the MetroRail into it, so people could just ride to downtown, the medical center, the Galleria, wherever.

The Greek Festival is held by the church for the church. I'm sure they're nice people for church people, but they're probably not overly concerned about how their event affects everyone else around them. The new WestFest would be organized by a non-profit governed by Montrose residents and business people. We would make sure that it would be conducted in a way that would be sensitive to the community because we are the community. Plans are already being formulated for street cleaning, increased HPD patrols, and other safety and sanitary measures.

I will not be wearing assless pants. Regardless, there is no place else in Houston like Montrose.

Wow. Okay. Well, they tried moving the festival to Allen Parkway and it quickly died thereafter. But if you want to simply discount Montrose's cultural history (which you call "nostalgia"), then I guess I don't have much to say.

That is exactly what is being planned.

We shut down major streets for Pride Parade, MLK, Veterans' Day, the marathon, etc. I've found myself stuck behind trail riders a few times near the rodeo. The idea that shutting down a few blocks of Westheimer on a Saturday would cause traffic jams is false.

I've never understood the fear of hipsters. They don't hurt anyone and they're funny to look at. Anyway, nobody who is planning this could be confused with a hipster. I, for one, mostly shop at Academy for my clothes. But hipsters will be welcome, as will everyone else.

I was just using "WestFest" as shorthand. It would still be the "Westheimer Street Festival". Lower Westheimer has seen better days. Part of it is the economy, but part of it has been Montrose's weirdness slipping away a bit. But nothing's been lost that can't be brought back.

You're referring to the Westheimer Block Party, which was a very scaled down version of WestFest. The Block Party is done because it has no room to grow. This effort, including the petition, is about scaling the Block Party back up to WestFest proper, including street closure. The Block Party organizers are part of this effort. You can't just ask the City to shut down Westheimer without having some political will backing you up. The petition is part of a multi-prong effort to demonstrate that political will.