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TheNiche

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Everything posted by TheNiche

  1. If the City had known what was good for them, they'd have approved it in mid-2009. Too late!
  2. The bike trail is not useful to my delightfully demented 90-year-old grandmother, whose random trips and falls are legendary. We should probably tear it up because she can't safely use it. It was obviously a waste of money. [facepalm] When I was a kid of that age, I played and biked in the road with the trucks and the rattlesnakes, I splashed in the garden mud pits amongst the grub worms, and wandered down into the creek alone or with the neighbor kid with all kinds of flora and fauna and also the occasional flash flood. Not even kidding. That's what little kids should do. With some luck and some wit, I survived. Your kids might not. Its impossible to tell. Life happens; it shouldn't come to a standstill over a little risk.
  3. I can't speak for any other young invincible males with sporty vehicles, but the rise in the road at Nicholson is the kind of thing that I accelerate for. It's fun. White Oak itself isn't as fun; only the bars on White Oak are at all fun.
  4. Okay, so we both agree that the bike trails depicted on Google Maps are not representative of anything in particular. And here's a thought. Lets do bike lanes on uncongested streets. Not Waugh.
  5. Good points, but I've also noticed that bike paths aren't engineered to the same exacting standards and often have washover during moderate rainfall that results in the path being muddy. French drains and culverts could solve many of those problems, but don't. It's one reason that I tend to stay away from the Buffalo Bayou trails, in particular. So there is definitely a maintenance requirement, and it is often underfunded. Looking at the Google Maps bike trails for Minneapolis as compared to Houston, I notice some things. One is that Minneapolis proper isn't especially impressive. Some of Minneapolis' suburban municipalities are very impressive, others are not at all. (Makes you wonder whether some are simply more tech-savvy than others.) In the City of Houston, it seems that the officially designated bike paths are indicated, as are many of those in the well-known public parks, and that the larger master planned communities do a good job. However, the paths in certain municipalities, parks, and master planned communities are completely unaccounted for. So, whereas every single sidewalk in Discovery Green is indicated as a dedicated bike path, there is nary a path to be found at F.M. Law Park...even though there are paths. And whereas every sidewalk at UH and also its gravel running track along Spur 5 are indicated as dedicated bike paths...which is ridiculous, poor neglected TSU doesn't even have the old Wheeler Street ROW indicated as one...even though its certainly appropriate as one and is very pleasant.) The take-away is that Google Maps bike trails aren't perfect. Also, it's probably a valid criticism about Houstonians that we're less technically savvy and less self-important than most populations. We aren't show ponies, we're only work horses.
  6. I drive through it, though. Makes me feel entitled.
  7. Yeah, sure. But its another option. J00b wants options. While we're at it, J00b really ought to set up a petition to compel the FAA and TXDoT to accommodate ultralight aircraft like the Mosquito ultralight helicopter as a commute solution. And why not!? It's another option, and very practical compared to METRO.
  8. Why not designate White Oak Bayou itself as a transportation corridor? People could kayak it if they wanted to. It'd be an additional option. And I know how much cyclists like to tout options, no matter how impractical.
  9. Great, so the State of Texas administered federal funding to improve an interstate highway and you're comparing to unrelated neighborhood-level health & safety projects funded by the City of Houston. Articulate a cogent point or get back on topic.
  10. No. Those expenditures are unrelated to public health or safety. And wasn't it TXDoT that funded the feeder roads?
  11. When it comes to public health and safety, I absolutely disagree that expenditure should be proportionate with the tax base of a neighborhood. It should be proportionate with the geographic distribution of the city's population...REGARDLESS OF AFFLUENCE! That anonymous little brown kid that can barely speak English in the 2nd Ward is at least as deserving of safe parks and recreation as any kid of yours, but I don't hear you advocating for any capital expenditure toward their interests. Heights residents want special attention? Go advocate for a management district so that you can be taxed for it directly. The City's capital improvement budget is extremely limited and should be shared. This isn't about roadway spending versus other spending. I agree that the Woodlands Waterway was a horrible expenditure; one mistake does not justify another. Lets stay on topic.
  12. Those parts of The Woodlands that already send most of their kids to private school have staying power. But that is all! The older parts have only been demographically buoyed by new construction, the careful attention and marketing of the Woodlands Development Corporation (which was still hugely invested in selling inconveniently-located residential lots), and shorter commute times to I-45. But with most of The Woodlands built out, what remains are mostly just commercial parcels. If it were already its own municipality, it would probably institute a de facto ban on apartments through zoning. But in this final stage of involvement by TWDC, they're,focused on selling off the parcels and pulling out. Here's an interesting statistic: there have been 4,744 apartment units built in 77380, 77381, and 77382 since 2000. Here's another interesting statistic: 1,672 apartment units are Section 8 or Tax Credit subsidized housing. These are most of your older complexes, up through the 90's. Most of them weren't built that way, but converted in the last decade. That trend is more likely to accelerate than not, IMO. Master planning urbanism was a wonderful scheme by TWDC to tell a story, enhance commercial land values, and create a distracting illusion that multifamily housing could be innocuous, but as with any dense development outside of an urban core, the improvements will age, depreciate, and drag surrounding neighborhoods into death spiral. It is inevitable. The western portions, although newer, will decline especially fast once the marketing engine has been turned off. The commute is just too extreme...and many of those newer lots were actually fairly small to begin with. In comparison, Greenspoint actually has some important things going for it that The Woodlands does not. It is the airport office submarket, it is closer-in, and it is at the confluence of two major highways. There is structural demand for that location. The desirability of The Woodlands as a commercial submarket is contingent on its prestige. When it is no longer propped up by TWDC and the death spiral begins, don't say you weren't warned.
  13. I'd like to state that I am in opposition to this movement on the basis that I neither live in the Heights or work in the Heights, but careen through it on a regular basis and do not wish to be slowed down. Also, it is my belief that no one neighborhood should receive a disproportionate amount of safety implements so as that Darwinism may be allowed to take place on a fair and equitable basis.
  14. Greenspoint 2.0 But shhhhh...don't tell them about it. It's a secret.
  15. He's right, the sidewalk right there was wider. He's right, it was wider and less encumbered by obstacles. You can see for yourself on Google Streetview. The block in question is the north side of Harrisburg, immediately east of 67th Street.
  16. Right, and those people move to the Museum District, where there is also a good selection of new and old housing stock (at better price points), a walkable urban environment, cultural amenities, fewer beggars, good proximity to all the regional destinations you just mentioned, etc. My sense is that the typical person that wants to live downtown either wants to experience the hustle and bustle of urban grit...or that they just moved here and doesn't understand Houston's geography or housing market well enough to make a better decision.
  17. A more up-to-date fit and finish and an amenity deck on top of the parking garage probably would make this a best-in-class property. Certainly, developers are willing to get creative to one-up the last property that got built. That said, I'm still having difficulty with the location. I don't think that people who want to lease apartments downtown are generally looking for quiet and solitude; if that's their preference then affluent renters-by-choice have many options. Houston House (averaging $1.89/sf) is similarly constrained, even though it has some fantastic views, recently-redone amenities, and much smaller easier-to-lease units (averaging 665 sf). Granted, it is ugly to look at from the street, but I feel like their pricing is much closer to reality. I feel like $2.00 psf is a better place for pro forma rents. The only way I can figure that the developer would make it nice enough to support higher rents would be if they build it to condominiums specs with a conversion as their exit strategy...but that would be a bad idea, too, because 270 units would be too many condos in one place at one time. Fifty units might work at some point in an ill-defined future, but that doesn't seem like it would work here.
  18. Thank you for posting the link to the full article. You may be right about the historical tax credit component, however some people may still see it as controversial that the City would provide subsidy to enable State-administered federal subsidy. JJxvi nailed it as to why I don't think that this project can rely upon One Park Place as a rent comp. But in addition, I'd point out that One Park Place has better view corridors, a nice large new park that seems to flow from it, and that it is within an easier walking distance to the Houston Pavilions and the Park Shops. Its probably the best single-block site in all of Houston. I'd argue that Humble Tower and Post Rice Lofts have better locations too, one fronting Main Street and across from the Pavilions, the other nearer to Market Square Park. So yeah, I think that the pro forma rents are too aggressive.
  19. Nancy stated that a tax credit developer was backing the project. I'm not trying to imply that qualifying applicants would be "poor", but they sure aren't rich. As for $2,200/month on 1,000-square-foot units ($2.20 PSF), I'd be interested in knowing where you get that! That's very aggressive. Post Rice Lofts averages $1.51 and Humble Tower averages $1.72. The only redeveloped historic building that gets rents like you've described is 1414 Congress, which gets $2.22 PSF...but they're all 207-square-foot SRO housing units operated by a non-profit. True enough, Finger does better at One Park Place, but this is no One Park Place. Finger's market for tenants is altogether different.
  20. What is proposed is an $82 million project of which the current taxable value is $16 million, so that any yield on investment would be the difference of the two, $66 million. However, if the project is not viable without $14 million of subsidy, then its contribution toward fair market value would be only $52 million. (Remember, the only value that is taxable is a building's fee simple fair market value, meaning that value of the building alone without any financial agreements such as leases, debt financing...or direct government subsidy, especially when that subsidy is a non-recurring event.) The City's (and thereby the TIRZ's) current property tax rate is 0.63875%, so annual tax revenue would be $332,150. It would take 43 years to recoup the dollar amount of its investment. However, that does not account for the time value of money. If the City (or more accurately, the TIRZ) were willing to give up a dollar today for a riskless dollar and three cents a year from now (which given its cash-strapped budget and the undeniable fact that HCAD's appraised values are inherently risky and chronically below actual market value, seems unlikely) then a perpetuity of $332,150 would be worth approximately $11 million. But then...perpetuities can be sold for liquid cash. Direct one-time subsidies to developers in Dallas are forever! The savvy HAIFer might rebut that the sales tax would make up a portion of the difference, however the TIRZ would be funding the subsidy and the TIRZ does not collect a sales tax. A differently-minded savvy HAIFer might also point out that 1) "workforce housing" is unlikely to spur any economic windfalls in the downtown area, and that 2) to a large extent, this expensive housing for poor people in the downtown area would only undercut the market for inexpensive housing for poor people in the rest of Houston, hurting the remainder of the City's tax base, not that the TIRZ would care, and nor should support this project in the first place for reasons previously stated.
  21. http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/2012/02/proposal-to-revamp-texaco-building-includes-public-funds/#3104-3 This should prove controversial. An out-of-town developer wants a $52,000 / unit subsidy from the City to redevelop a building as federally-subsidized tax credit apartments.
  22. Congestion occurs on and off of freeways. And even in uncongested conditions, at-grade roads are still slower than freeways, requiring repeated acceleration and deceleration, which is inefficient not only in terms of time but in terms of fuel economy and emissions.
  23. I don't think that there was any secret. It's not coincidental.
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