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Strange. The argument against Rasmus's attempts was "going against Walkable Places ordinance". But 25ft minimum setback is always talked about on these boards as detrimental to the pedestrian experience. Based on reactions I've seen on this thread, and elsewhere (i.e. Twitter), I assume it's just the NIMBY getting "creative"? Although ... I still don't know if there is a 25ft minimum setback in that swath of Midtown to begin with (as mentioned in previous post, I thought it was already defined as "CBD" with no building line requirements")?

Wait, I thought that the whole area of Midtown along/north of McGowen St was always part of the city's traditional CBD (i.e. present even before the 2019 expansions into much of Midtown, and EaDo). Traditional or expanded, CBD standard for Houston does not call for any minimum building line requirements to begin with. Therefore, I am confused about this recent news, regarding why a variance request/fight for such was needed to begin with? The map below shows what I mean: red = traditional CBD blue = 2019 expansions into EaDo green = 2019 expansion into Midtown

The thing has TIRZ funding, sidewalks widened, drainage being improved... numerous wins. Even regarding "anti-car activism", no lanes are being removed. What is wrong with this mayor?

It shouldn't be. But this mayor sure seems to want it to be the case, given his recent actions.

Every time I hear about Nextdoor, it always is about NIMBYs or something related to exclusionary practices. Why is that?

What is ironic with NIMBYs is that many of the concerns that they refer to are simply about the detrimental effect of the car-centric infrastructure (and associated by-gone mid-20th century policies). Just axe the minimums for parking, setbacks, lot sizes, open space, etc, and that creates more incentives for "gentle density" that provides lively environment ... while also "fitting neighborhood character" more easily. It is much easier for developers to build small-scale multifamilies (like 8unit plexes and such) compared to gigantic apartments + parking garages. Most of the concerns that NIMBYs have are rendered moot with reforms on car-centric policies. However, I am surprised at how many complaints occur with respect to shade cast. Especially considering the summer heat that people often use as an argument against walkability in Houston.

Huh?

I know the perfect way reframe TMC3: "Bringing new volumes to the life sciences" 😉

Forgot to mention that even the Houston townhome structures are not detrimental for walkable urbanity: a form of mixed-use can easily take off in converting those front-loading garages into shop space. I've seen similar examples presented regarding Tokyo. Will have to kill mandates like parking minimums, though (especially needed for the rest of the city outside Downtown, EaDo, and much of Midtown).

The Detroit proposal is exactly LVT as I was referring to. We actually tried a form of it in the past, but it was struck down as unconstitutional (which I alluded to prior): https://x.com/larsiusprime/status/1427107150053183505

There's good amounts of usage, but you can't exactly see that human-scale detail when you are whizzing by in your car: Nobody Bikes (@nobody.bikes) • Instagram photos and videos

I feel like street-design is a big culprit. Not sure why many areas of Midtown are "one-way traffic", that effectively makes them multi-lane stroads: granted, having a single point of traffic to worry about is not as difficult for a pedestrian compared to a Westheimer-type outside Beltway 8 situation ... but still. And Midtown is actually an extension of the original core grid: the car-design must have been a retro-fit.

And there's nothing stopping that (policy-wise, at least). Even in terms of ancillary mandates pertaining to parking requirements, setbacks, etc portions of Midtown (north of McGowens) were always CBD standard (hence, free from mandates), and the 2019 expansion ensures that (much of) the rest of the neighborhood is now free. If the area was not desired, then there wouldn't be all this talk about how "expensive" the neighborhood is. Any hurdles regarding land-use regulations, taxation structures, etc need to be cleared. And it doesn't even need to be additional industry either. Even excluding any potentials regarding ION, there's nothing that says Midtown (and Museum Park) can't function is neighborhoods housing those that work in, say, Downtown or Medical Center. As another comment alluded to, company buildings are precisely what create pedestrian dead-zones/lack of vibrancy once of work hours are over (especially if said buildings are single-use). Mix-use structures w/ ground floor retail + residential higher floors are much better: Midtown (and Museum Park) can "right the wrongs" of Uptown/Galleria, so to speak. As far as industries going to Austin or Dallas, none of it matters UNLESS it is towards their respective central core areas (and not just developments in suburbia like Round Rock or Plano, respectively).

I mentioned taxation because I saw it mentioned in previous posts here that a proportion of empty lots in the city exist due to land-speculation: wherein land is held until "flipped", while development is disincentivized given the property tax structure. Like Downtown, some lots are said to be held by some energy firm in Taiwan. A change to LVT would resolve that issue ... although Texas constitution opposes it.

But real-talk: despite the growing amount of Houstonians in favor of pedestrian-friendly/multi-modal options, it's always portrayed as if it's all invisible (or, at best, an insignificant minority). "Car-drivers" are not necessarily a monolithic group either: there are parts of the city that any one person is not necessarily going to day-in/day-out, and where's the energy on "tax dollars being spent" on infrastructure? And there's more than enough times in the city's history regarding the serving of "a minority" at the expense of a majority (see: Richmond rail, deed-restrictions in certain cases, etc). If people are really serious about change ... and if the mayor truly sticks to being "malignant" ... then there will have to be a little ... "something" happening on that 8th month of his term 😈

No, no, no, all of this is just silly anti-car activist stuff. The real common-sense solution is to complain on Nextdoor about the neighbor's grass growing too tall.

The tweet below pretty much gives a good summary. Houston's LRT + expansions (either additional rail or BRT), while not the most extensive, is doing good in hitting key employment/dense areas (Red Line, future University Line), along with reaching more underserved populations that don't have access to personal vehicles (Green, Purple, and northernmost Red Line). Hence, in spite of rhetoric that was oft-said in the past (and currently channeled by personalities like Bill King), this is not "a train to nowhere." If the "University Line" had been built successfully, the perceptions would be total night-day from how the transit system is talked about now: Culberson and ilk were a huge thorn, but they merely delayed the inevitable. A true grade-separated rapid transit will be a useful future addition. Most likely EL-form, in case subways draw too much concerns with flooding. As far as rail across the metro, it would have to be some sort of "regional rail" if there is going to be consistent (all day) service: extend from Conroe down to Galveston area. In contrast, I am not the biggest fan of commuter rail, since that form is too tied with the "9-5" lifestyle in mind.

There are no principled justifications for parking minimums anywhere, they need to be removed STAT. It honestly does not matter regardless of the presence/absence of transit options. That is, if people feel parking is required, then they can just provide it: it would not need to be required for everyone in arbitrary amounts. Where are the problems with parking in all that ETJ, which doesn't have parking minimums (i.e. not even under any municipal government whatsoever)? Same goes for minimum setbacks, minimum lot sizes, and other such useless rules: they need to go STAT. With regards to the public transit, the success of the METRORail Red Line (especially the portion from Med Center through Downtown) relies on the great connection between two centers, servicing people for all day affairs to ensure continuous ridership (i.e. not just commuters for work, but also people going for events downtown, people taking trips to Hermann Park, the zoo, museums, etc). Meanwhile, the relative "slowness" of the Green and Purple lines ties back to the problems of the minimum mandates that I mentioned prior. Until the reformed TOD guidelines came in 2020, the stations on those areas weren't doing the best of job since the old TOD was opt-in, and not necessarily evenly applied: and all those areas that haven't gotten under Walkable Place and/or TOD exemptions suffer under the onerous parking and setback codes.

I mentioned this is a previous comment, but all of it is connected: those bike lanes, along with more PT, and along with the land use changes that I discussed, all go hand-in-hand in ensuring a more multi-modal environment for all Houstonians. But lately, the pressure is ramping up because of actions from (what has been shown so far to be) a hostile mayoral administration. With how quick the mayor took out the Houston Avenue project, combined with his rhetoric of "anti-car activists", he does not deserve any benefit of the doubt regarding any potential threats to 11th Street.

It has nothing to do with "scolding" anyone. More just pointing out that all these problems (in addition to merely being from policy choices that can easily be reversed at no cost) do also have a component that stems from personal choices ("self-inflictions"): for instance, complaining about Houston's mass transit ... while living out in Fulshear (hence, sprawled away from the action to begin with). Now, I do feel that much of the sprawl in Houston stems from the policies of higher governments (federal and especially state-level policies). But, what was mentioned regarding parking, setback, lotsize, etc reforms would assist the city a lot: and all it takes is a city council vote. As for the 11th St. project, the discussion is relevant because those bike lanes represent more of the city's recent steps towards greater multimodality ... steps that are in jeopardy of being regressed given the current mayor's rhetoric (hasty actions on Houston Avenue, unironic mentions of "anti-car activists", etc).

As mentioned before, there are negative externalities in car-dependent policies like parking minimums, large setbacks and lot sizes, etc that don't exist in the other (more denser) way: whether it is environmental sustainability/flooding, or rising prices/city finances, or traffic, all of it is worse with car-centric policies compared to denser urbanity. In that respect, there is no "both sides" to it: There are no principled justifications for parking minimums in anywhere, even when factoring in transit options/lackthereof. In fact, most stuff in US zoning codes (setbacks, residential density limits, etc) have no principled justification. Most of the complaining is irrelevant: just a bunch of shooting the messenger, poisoning the well, affirming the consequent, and other fallacious, misdirected ire that misses the core causal connections (i.e. and, hence, important keys to true problem solving).

No confusions here. The nigh 100% single-family nature of the post-war suburbia, combined with the large lot homes + setbacks, roadways, and other space-consuming requirements, makes the trip to the store effectively arduous even in the context of a car (let alone those that don't have vehicles ... too young, too old/infirm, other family members out at work, etc): The rest of your post is just restating the problem: the negative externalities of car-centric buildout even in Heights, or other "Inner Loop walkable" neighborhoods. The parking minimums and other onerous codes effectively crowd out "the little guy" such that larger chains represented in "consolidated big box stores" are naturally the ones that persist (i.e. larger companies have more wealth = much easier to hire the lawyers, consultants, etc that go through the city codes, land acquisitions, etc). Relinquish the useless minimums, and watch the area flourish with neighborhood commercials that allow the frequent buys, selections, etc of all types of LOCAL stuff pertaining to clothing, jewelry, toys, food, etc Again, Heights is a STREETCAR neighborhood: it is only "suburban" in the sense that streetcar TODs were, in the past, the forms of expansion. But TODs and pedestrian-friendliness of streetcar neighborhoods are very different from the current car-centric suburbia that we know today. And cities grow and change. Increasing land-values calls for increasing density ... including higher rises, whether in Heights or other areas of Houston. After all, another famous "streetcar suburb" is none other than the Brooklyn Borough of NYC. The overall loose regulations of Houston help a lot in creating the Inner Loop densification (particularly residential): all that's left is to kill the remaining useless rules (particularly low-hanging fruit like parking minimums and setbacks), and allow truer urbanity to really flourish.

There are loads of negative externality effects regarding parking minimums. It isn't just about the pleasantness of the urban environment, it goes all the way to the issues of affordability, gentrification/"pricing out", that lots of people keep complaining about. When parking minimums are too excessive (hint: they always are) for what would otherwise be a neighborhood-level business: That is suddenly a lot of overhead that an aspiring business owner must account for (land area + pavement for parking spaces). Which means that the business must draw a larger market area in order to recoup the costs of all the infrastructure... And what happens with drawing from a larger area? More busy, hectic traffic into the neighborhood that people are turned off with (especially if vehicular). In other words, all the problems the people refer to regarding "cool stuff shutting down in Heights, Montrose, etc" or "overpriced yuppie gentrification" is 100% the work of parking minimums. Same with residential. The "ugly driveway curbcuts" of new townhouse infill would not exist if not for the paired parking minimum + setback rules. But, more crucially, there is a lot of smaller scale multifamily ("missing middle") that parking minimums and other ancillary regulations make uncommon (if not outright infeasible ... even in unzoned Houston). If the cost to develop is expensive due to required land + parking infrastructure, then I might as well go for the "towering luxury apartment" in order to recoup the cost.

City living is more about smaller purchases in more frequent store/shop visits, so the concerns that you bring up are mostly moot: The whole concept of "large bulk purchases" comes precisely because of the isolated nature of post-WWII single-family suburban buildouts: even a simple trip to the grocery store is an arduous drive, so you HAVE to buy all the bulk stuff that you can in order for the supply to last longer until the next trip. Some of the stuff you bring up (like the pounds of mulch) naturally get less use-cases in a more urbanized setting anyway (or the use of it is less individualized, meaning that no one individual has to worry about such purchases). Precisely why we need to axe parking minimums all over the city. Removing that burden will allow development in "narrow street" areas like Heights to be even more "context sensitive." The recent Livable Places did some great work in terms of "middle housing", as well as addressing driveway structures (i.e. such that there are less driveway curbcuts destroying the previous street parking) ..... but relinquishing the remaining useless rules throughout the city would assist a ton in preventing the issue of cars in "streets too narrow for them." Heights was one of the original "streetcar neighborhoods" in Houston: we're going to have to build that back.

Yes, though I still agree that Midtown (along with Downtown and EaDo) should have blown up much more. The three neighborhoods are the freest in the city in terms of not being burdened by parking requirements, setbacks, and other such ancillary codes cited as a problem. So developers should have been free to go all out. So, if land-use isn't the issue, then probably taxation structure changes are something to look into.