Jump to content

fwki

Full Member
  • Posts

    462
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    3

Posts posted by fwki

  1. So does anyone know what the official opening date for the walmart is? /relevance

    I searched Wal-mart's site and they are still saying 2012 opening. They had 24Sep photo updates, it looks like it is 1-2 months away, so that narrows it down. I just saw these from the leasing agent .... http://ucrrealty.com..._IH-10&Yale.pdf ... nice aerials, maps. Bass St. will be an entrance from I-10 feeder to the dismay of all Bridge of Death fans and it looks like they added a RR crossing over Bonner Street for trucks.

    EDIT: Here's a slightly different aerial with a better depiction of Bonner St. http://ucrrealty.com/photos/properties/flyers/201209241438060.Washington%20Heights%20Mktg%20Flyer%20(Heights%20Blvd).pdf

  2. ...Now, many are wondering whether the bridge is being kept open longer than it should to give Walmart a few years to establish itself....

    Now that's a hoot, I didn't think you had a sense of humor.

    But seriously, refering to your verbal traffic map, you didn't mention Shepherd/Durham exit.....take it south to Washington, and then east to say Bonner where one could add a rail crossing right into Wal-Mart. Do not presume successful corporations do not employ adult thinkers. Get out into the real world and you will meet many smart people who are way ahead of you on this issue, contrary to your condescending posts.

  3. Yeah, and no action photos either.

    The chicken little cries of bridge collapse armageddon are way overblown. Everyone knows that plastic crap from China doesn't weigh much. That's why it is so cheap. Those Walmart semis are not exceeding the weight limit because Chinese crap doesn't weigh enough. School buses with elementary school children on the other hand...

    bus-off-cliff-259x300.jpg

  4. I am damn proud of our community activists finally getting something constructive done by somebody else. Those cute chicken littles work awful hard and it must be tough on them psychologically to have nada to show for all their angst except 15 minutes of fame. But one or two more political inspections and I will have my fishing pier. We can spruce it up with caliper inches and have marches across and back....just when we are coming into the nice weather.

  5. Open Letter to Mayor Parker

    Dear Mr. Mayor,

    I am writing to you about the imminent collapse Yale Street Bridge over White Oak Bayou. As concerned citizens of the Hip and Historical Houston Heights and the free peoples of the Norhill Addition, we ask that you use the power of your office to prevent the pending catastrophe by immediately closing the bridge to all vehicular traffic. Concurrent with such action, please commence the six-year project of preserving the spans with period-appropriate materials in strict accordance with the our HISTORIC PRESERVATION ORDINANCE AS AMENDED 10/13/2010 BY MACHIAVELLIAN ELECTORAL GAMBIT thereby guaranteeing permanent use as a pedestrian walkway and fishing pier. While you’re at it, please move the Wal-Mart to the San Jacinto Stone site to shorten the walking distance for RUDH members.

    Sincerely,

    fwki

  6. I wish the City would just close the bridge now and make it a pedestrian fishing bridge. We already have a new one like 100' downstream. That would at least make up for losing my secret fishing spot by my secret old growth forest on the banks secretly beautiful White Oak Bayou at Frasier St. Then the bike path to nowhere could become a rallying place for a Haters' Million Seventeen Man March to throw rocks at the trucks rolling in 24/7 to the country's most successful Wal-Mart.

  7. Does the Wal-goose come with catheters? That might be useful considering the amount of PBR that will be consumed there.

    Yes, the leaky Chinese ones. However, Premium Draught will not have any chairs and service will be strictly Soup Nazi style to comply with CoH parking requirements with beer dispensed into Wal-Mart growlers, essentially Oak Farms gallon jugs which, incidentally, is what they use for their catheter reservoirs. I predict mass confusion in the parking lot as our hipsters fruitlessly attempt to distinguish between the fresh and used PBR vessels.

  8. Yes, it is all funny when you completely ignore the consequences of exceeding the load on the bridge................ one of the largest and most prosperous cities in the US and have no excuse for such an oversight.

    Personally I think it is because its just a bunch of guys planning and pulling off this whole deal. Women would never think of all the action photos we hope to capture as truck after truck full of Chinese crap plunges into White Oak, hopefully after a line of T-busters gets that sucker really rolling. This is gonna be great.

  9. ...This increased value encouraged the City to rehabilitate streets, sidewalks, water and drainage in an effort to further increase values...and taxes. Frankly, that is why the historic d-bags forced the historic ordinance through...in an effort to limit increases in property taxes. But, you wouldn't know that, since you only moved here a few years ago, long after the historic pukes went silent on the limiting property values angle. It didn't play well. So, they...and you...just flipped the argument, thinking no one would notice. We did.

    Holy crap, that's it. I really, truly couldn't understand the fervor these people have for such a baseless, inconsistent argument. People who are driven by greed for base gains will envy those whose wealth comes from personal accomplishment. Their rhetoric is telling, and unfortunately also quite boring.

  10. Level playing field is all that is needed. You cannot have a level playing field when one developer gets to start off with a $6 mil slush fund just because they are doing something big and all the little guys in the Heights get no assistance for drainage, sidewalks, driveways, ROW acquisition, etc.

    As for permitting, the City has always been biased to new stripmalls and big boxes while coming down hard on people who try to redevelop old smaller spaces. The city knows that they can push around the little guys but do not dare touch the politically connected big guys. Thus, things like the traffic impact analysis become so flexible that the engineers just go through the motions, but any such flexibility for small businesses is no existent. The City either needs to enforce the rules against the big projects as stringently as against the small guys or give the small guys the same flexibility the big guys get. It is not as much a question of too much or too little regulation. The issue is whether everyone gets the same treatment.

    Nice try with the historic districts. Complete red herring. Everyone in the HDs is subject to the same rules and is treated the same. The vast majority of the applications sail through HAHC with unanimous approval. The scant few that do not are usually due to minor issues on whether existing windows/siding can be saved or whether ornaments/columns are consistent. These issues are usually self-inflicted and nothing compared to what is happening with small businesses. Not apples and oranges. Apples and orangatans.

    Of course, you have said nothing to dispute my point. You have only tried to change the subject, which is a weak dodge.

    I can only wish I had your connections and bravado to get my plans "rubber stamped" and then threaten my enemies with regulatory hell. But I guess such privileges only come with the omniscience you demonstrate in your posts with your typical "the City has always been biased", "The city knows...but dare not touch", and your divining the personal problems of "the scant few" whose "issues are usually self-inflicted". And now you are a regular Alan Greenspan knowing all about big city development and small business success. I am just humbled that I posted a question you couldn't answer, although Red has been doing it for quite some time. You should write a book, fiction of course.

  11. ....The critique about small business is that Walmart and national strip mall chains should not be getting preferential tax treatment (380 agreements) and City of Houston permitting rubber stamping when the small businesses in the Heights who compete with them directly and indirectly get no financial help from the City and frequently are subjected to huge delays from the City as a result of trying to redevelop old spaces in the Heights that do not fit into the City's permitting preference for strip malls and lots of parking spaces. Thus, Hub Cab, Sale Sucre, Zelko, Ruggles Green and others have had major delays (and major expenses) in getting their spaces ready due to City permitting issues.

    s3mh, is it your point that the City is wrong in its over-regulation and onerous permitting of small business or in its permit "rubber stamping" for national chains? Would it be better for the City to lower the permitting burden on small business in the Heights or keep the burden on small business as-is and stop all this "rubber stamping" you cited? And what about "major delays (and major expenses)" Heights homeowners face "in getting their spaces ready due to City permitting issues"? Be careful with your answer (or don't answer) because your duplicity is showing.

  12. fwki - let's hear your tree plan.

    Well, it's in the acorn stage and not quite ready for help from the forum, which will be essential for success. And actually I got the idea from you Leonard. We have had the privilege of caring for a tree that outdates all of us in the Heights. The tree is a Cherrybark Oak now approximately 120 years old and one of the biggest in Harris County when it was assessed by an urban forester for recognition as a Notable Tree in the Park People's Harris County Tree Registry in 1995. What was interesting was that five of the nine top Cherrybark oaks in Harris County were right in this neighborhood. So I always believed that these cool trees needed local propagation to keep the strain as part of the neighborhood fabric so to speak, but I never got off the sofa. I watched one of the others fall on a rain soaked night ten years ago, and I still didn't get off the sofa. Then I spouted off about planting trees on this thread, and your reply pointed out the obvious, that I didnt know crap about tree planting and I was still on the sofa.

    Every 2 or 3 years these trees will make a good acorn crop, and it has been a while for this one with Ike and subsequent pruning and drought. But this year is the best I remember, so about a month ago I started collecting and properly storing the acorns. It's not as simple as one would think, and I am attempting to get them to break dormancy at the right time to hit my goal of growing about 100 saplings for planting next season. I haven't thought much else past that, but my plan is to use this forum to find adoptive parents to take 2 or 3 for planting and care through the early years. That's it. Except I was going to use the old Registry to find other caretakers in the neighborhood to help out propagating other trees besides the Cherrybark Oak, which is one badass tree by the way. So wish me luck and stay tuned.

    • Like 1
  13. ...Ainbinder is not nearly as short sighted as you...they see the big picture and that picture is fully of dollar signs!

    I'm giddy as school girl over all this new stuff in the hood. I just walked Summer Street from Taylor to Stude and, wow, they are setting up for development back there to compete with the Wal-mart hub. Sure, sometimes I miss how it "used to be", but I get over it real quick when I recognize that Houston is the greatest city in the country for bootstrapping oneself into a few million dollars the old-fashioned way: hard work and smart risks. I love the people in this city who make lemonade out of jogging trails to nowhere, who take on challenges like WLN, who can raise millions in dumb money to transform White Oak or put God's Little Waiting Room on Stude & 14th. I may not agree with every project but I respect the people who pull it off. And I respect the people who get up off their butts to protest or change plans to something that appeals to them. But at the end of the day, it's about confrontation to get to negotiation not confrontation for it's own sake, that's how it's done around here. And if you are still holding on to your anger now, well, you're just being an old fart. At some point you gotta give it up for the people who make this city great.

    • Like 1
  14. ....Of course, it is way easier to ride out some lean leasing interest when you get 6 mil from tax payers to build a development that everyone hates....

    Will you stop speaking for the rest of us please? Alright already, we know you hate Wal-Mart, you don't even dispute Red's statement about your anger. You are on an island, face it and deal with it, alone.

  15. If it is such a great success, why does the government have to hand over incredibly scarce tax dollars to the richest retailer in the world?

    The tax dollars would not be scarce if municipalities had not entered into corrupt agreements with greedy unions. And the guv doesn't HAVE to hand those dollars over, they choose to, and if you don't like it you'd better move to Alaska or start voting Libertarian instead of whining.

    ...Walmart does not need a penny of government support to build their stores. Anyone who believes that they do is denying the blatant economic reality of Walmart's largess. Walmart can, and should, pay its own way if they want to put a store where the community has declared loudly that they are not welcome.

    I believe you mean "a vocal minority of the community whined loudly that they are not welcome among the elite and self-important."

    The City needs to stop playing real estate developer with taxpayer dollars. Houston grew into one of the largest cities in the US without 380 agreements. There is no need for them, other than to reward politically connected developers and leasing agents for their patronage.

    As opposed to rewarding politically connected Public Service Employee Unions? At least Wal-mart and developers play it straight rather than using scare tactics like "it's for the kids" or "your houses will burn" and "crime will crawl into your underpants" if you don't pay us a king's ransom in retirement...and by the way if you don't pay us we will hold your city hostage.

  16. I view government spending the way I view charity spending, and so I view taxes like I view donations. The closer to home those dollars are given and spent, the more efficient they are along with higher chances of having the desired impact. Also the source of the funds has more control over the use of the funds (as it should be) when closer to home. The reason for this is every time the money changes hands, some gets skimmed and intent gets redirected. For that reason I believe the federal government and federal programs are the least efficient at anything, and so barracuda's comparisons bear that out. The real issue to me is whether or not government should be in the job-creation business at all. Most politicians and certainly most bureaucrats know little about business and economy. Government does have a strong ability to destroy jobs and the economy as proven by the current jobs situation in the U.S. and everything in Europe.

    Coming back to our Wal-mart, at least the city didn't scare them off, and I really hope that the new employees find themselves better off than they are now, because that's what counts, people and quality of life. And looking at the surrounding neighborhoods before and after and having many under-employed friends, I feel this whole project is a big success.....except for those damn trees, but I have plan for that....

  17. The Astros better turn the corner before Marvy turns the Golden Shovel. My kids would only go to Friday games this year, and the Fire Chief might have a hard time signing a fireworks permit right next to a residential development. But seriously, look at what the city gave up for the downtown stadiums primarily to enable this type of development, and I am glad we haven't lost focus. And with that Reliant monstrosity sitting next to the Harris County Hemorrhoid to remind us why we gave all those incentives, I predict more on the way.

×
×
  • Create New...