fwki

Wow, we are making progress with sm...he finally realizes it's the ordinance that is the problem...I am going to get through the inertia of apathy using historically accurate political theatre. Get the pitchforks, Elliot's got to go.

So we have a little intrigue at the palace and it's all about power. The HAHC are pieces on the board. This Gafrick has been around too long and I suspect her of pulling most of the strings. This woman has lied right to CoA applicants faces and then turned tables on them. (Heck, she lied to all of us and tried to pull a fast one on the windows thing until we shot her down at the PC.) I have advocated on behalf of various applicants (never pass an opportunity to hone communication skills) and I've heard the stories from contractors representing the little folk up there. It's like a snake pit...Gafrick has finally run off all the seasoned Planning bureaucrats and has full control over staff, but she has to play the HAHC. The rat on the Commission is Douglas Elliot....remember the dweeb that shot down Kelman's CoA told her to "go the demo route"? If you watch the videos month to month you can see a pattern with this guy and his strings go right back to Gafrick. After all that mess, he felt the pressure (Bucek went to the PC meeting on Elliot's behalf and was roasted for lying) and word was Elliot was stepping down at the end of his term. So they fill all the term-limited positions first and CM Cohen "understands" from Gafrick that Elliot's position though not term-limited will open up. Then the snake-charmer finds out who CM Cohen is nominating, and all of a sudden the dweeb is staying put. I say fine, let's have fun kicking him for another year, making him the YouTube fool. I wrote in this space almost a year ago that if we wanted to take back our neighborhood we would have to go after these carpet baggers personally. Well it's time. Either he goes now under pressure from our email barrage to Council or he goes later, tar, feathers and on a rail.

Let your voice be heard, this is not the Obama administration so don't worry about reprisals. So many times I watched one or two misguided fools on the HAHC hold sway over that group. All it would take is one or two normal people on the HAHC willing to explain in simple terms the consequences of some of these idiotic votes, and we can take back our neighborhood. I need some help.

The sole source of property appreciation in da heights!

Both of these statements are foolish. Attributing all of the value and interest in the Heights to 19th Street is asinine. 19th Street was here and a lot nicer long before you and all the other value chasers ever arrived.

I'm so confused...not sure who wants what anymore. My retail world is online except for impulse shopping when I travel and want something souvenirish along the tourist strip. The days of Mayberry shopping are gone, Kaplan's was the last gasp. Antique stores / art galleries are an exception but they seem to need critical mass for long-term success, like Magazine Street in New Orleans which lost all the Mayberry long ago to be replaced by........restaurants and bars. Locals who like that sort of thing will go there for antiques and have a nice lunch while there. But more and more Magazine Street is becoming an eat/drink destination first as the population gets younger. So I think a successful business model for 19th would follow those lines.

The "White Oak to become Washington Avenue" fears died out long ago.....no night clubs for db's. Fitz's is decidedly not a night club and predates God when it started as a Polish (Czech?) dance hall. Years ago I met one of the original musicians who played there and he was older than George Burns. It's definitely more of a restaurant strip and is set to become more so. At midnight, even on weekends, White Oak empties like downtown at 5pm. I think it fits perfectly in the neighborhood except for relatively minor parking issues.

I get seasick looking through it, now give me my damn CoA. This is the crux of the issue, some people like seasick windows, some people don't, so don't make me puke in my living room just so you can walk by and think it's October 29, 1929 unless you pay me for it big time, like no taxes. That'll get you some grass-roots historians. Right now it's just weirdos (take a look at that Thursday circus called the HAHC), nostalgia hobbyists and people with no jobs advocating for the HAHC. Go down there to speak on an issue and see for yourselves. Ten-to-one impassioned citizens against forcing people to part with hard-earned treasure to satisfy those with enough cash to play the game...a few weaklings from the other side show up occasionally and murmur a few useless things. But regular working people won't stick their necks out for preservation, but they will when they see wrongs being foisted on others. It takes a real strange bird to stick out his neck in support of those doing the foisting. Change where the money goes because of this ordinance and the whole debate changes.

Did you read the article? They are saving parts of the church. Of course they won't have a cash register in the tabernacle. They will save certain elements for appropriate use in the remaining worship area. JJ was pointing out that your original post was alarmist and incorrect.

My next move (aftertheroof) is windows. I'm not in the district, but after the Planning Commission ruling on April 25th (based on past HAHC rulings and Gafrick's words during her 2010 sales pitch) , those in the district should have a much easier time with window CoA. I have 29 including French doors etc. The six vinyl windows in the 1990 add-on are absolute crap and will be replaced. I would say 12 are from the1920's original house and the rest from undated additions. The twelve are inoperable and you really can't see through those with melted glass. Glass drips after so many years and must be replaced if you care to see through it. I would love to have working windows with screens, but for that kind of money, I'm going with new, high tech....double pane with alarm-armed screens. I gave all my original screen frames away to someone with handy skills years ago knowing full well they were in better hands. Lots to think about.

Whoa, I dreamed we had this thread going yesterday.

Doesn't even look like the same tract of land...probably just some photo-shopped stock pic their publicist found.

HAHC on the run, Planning Commission getting fed up with having to clean up after them. HAHC gets house-broken or they get relegated to the dog house....nice legacy Phoebe, hate to see ya go just when it was getting fun.

There's a hidden agenda at play to twist the original intent of the ordinance that was sold to the citizens and to City Council into a form resembling severe back door-zoning. Watch the video of the first appeal to Planning wherein they deferred the decision and then read the agenda for Thursday's re-hearing. The Director of Lies was forced to admit to the PC that they sold this PoS ordinance based on window replacement, for one, because Sue Lovell was there as a witness ready to rat her out. It went downhill from there for the Director. She even propped some "citizens" of the Heights to speak of their love for old, crappy windows. One guy was Deed Restrictions enforcer for the fake Norhill up north. The other was, get this, a professional urban planning consultant who lives in a 1996 construction near the home at risk and will absolutely kill himself if those dear windows are even washed. Yeah, no conflict of interest there Marlene, future client. So it's clear the PC is very concerned about what was sold to the Council and what is now in play. They talked about the original intent of the ordinance when it was voted and that the HAHC was setting a new precedent. Then look at the new game plan for the Director of Lies: she goes right at the precedent-setting theme and says if they allow these windows, the whole ordinance is toast....it won't be long before we are taking our weather vanes and putting new houses underneath. She has raised the stakes with a big gamble, because if she wins, we become a radically zoned neighborhood with her calling the shots. Is she loses she will have lost because of her lies, stuck with the flexibility she promised years ago but obviously loathes now.

Half truths are whole lies. - Yiddish Proverb Gafrick emphasizes visual compatibility from the street is the metric, not condition of the existing element. She says it's ok to use different materials but does not say doing so is automatically an alteration and needs COA wherein they will tell you you need to repair it unless it's been stolen. Her statements then were intentionally misleading and that is a lie.

Oliver Stone's JFK won the Oscar for Best Film Editing, we have to hook him in for that one.

Here's the one I promised back in post #1046, The Design Guidelines Lie.

In this video you can see Gafrick's & her staff's dishonest Modus Operundi with regards to window replacement. She lies on a regular basis to saps in the Districts; now that I figured out simple editing, more videos to follow demonstrating The Big Lie as it unfolds. I'm going to the Planning Hearing and tell her to her face.

I just got the latest DVD from the kangaroo court's March meeting. Houston Planning Director Marlene Gafrick opened the meeting by formally repudiating the published Heights Design Guidelines formerly used by her staff to assess Heights CoA's. Heightstonians are now officially flying blind on property investments with the worse yet to come. I'll post a YouTube tonight.

I'm changing my nick to SlumAlum.

All this bashing of drunks, nightowls, metal heads and bikers is upsetting me. And where we congregate shouldn't be an issue as long as it's closer to your house than my house and I have a back route home. But seriously, this is squeezing a balloon, with development somebody gets hosed to benefit the rest. Just buy location wisely and hope the City doesn't change the important rules midstream.

Ever since I bought a black car, been at that car wash several times per week...4-8 work trucks are parked there daily, electricians to glazers...car wash dude making a killing selling space to GC.

Welcome to HAIF Brie! And not long from now I hope to also welcome you to 1207 Harvard St in your beautifully restored home, just as you designed it. I drove by the other day and there are many beautiful homes right on the street that yours will complement nicely. Also great job with the faux historical commission. Your composure and class contrasted the spineless leadership and arbitrary actions of that political body, owned and appointed by our mayor. Your coup de grace was after your $/sf arithmetic baffled Commissioner Elliot, self-proclaimed preserver of smallness, and he recommended you go the demolition route.....astonished Brie responds "But I don't want to demolish it, I want to keep it." That says it all about the failure of the Ordinance and this Committee to serve the best interests of the citizens who bear all of its costs and must live among the far-too-numerous architectural mistakes of its misguided script.

It sounds like the Kelmans are appealing the HAHC denial of CoA to the City Council. From their petition on Change.org: "...We appeal to the City of Houston Feb 14, so the more signatures we get, the merrier. Please send the petition along if you care about historic preservation and restoration for growing families." Or if you more generally care about the history, culture and Charter of Houston, Texas write an email to your Councilman, especially if you are represented by Ellen Cohen in the HD. This is a chance to expose the ordinance for the toilet tissue it was predicted and now is shown to be.....a poorly crafted zoning ordinance that simply transfers power and money from citizens to government and accomplishes nothing of lasting value for our City.

Flame away dude....the HAHC video says it all and you have no rational defense for the words and actions of your friends in their echo chamber.