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Angostura

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Everything posted by Angostura

  1. Angostura
    Stuyvesant Town is towers-in-a-park, single-use residential, whereas this site plan has more street-level mixed-use urbanism.
  2. Angostura
    "Can't you use prisms and mirrors to get more light in?" 🙄
  3. Angostura
    This is true, to an extent. Most urban neighborhoods in which most people live their day-to-day lives without driving only have GFR on a small fraction of total street frontage (prob <20%), and mostly concentrated on specific retail corridors. The most desirable buildings in these neighborhoods tend to be on side streets a block or two off of these corridors: close to, but not right on top of, retail activity.
  4. Angostura
    IIRC, parking in the structure is free for two hours, even without validation. But now that the surface spots in front of the stores are metered from the first minute, those spots are much more likely to be available. (Funny how that works)
  5. Angostura
    The amount of retail space that results in a 200-space parking requirement is over 30,000 sf. That's a pretty big development. Ideally, we'd be able to have structured parking (instead of surface parking) AND smaller, more fine-grained retail development. The only way to get there is to decouple parking provision from retail development and price on-street parking appropriately (or otherwise limit its supply by, say, limiting it to one side of the street). Eliminating parking minimums wouldn't result in spec garages being built overnight. Houston currently has 30 parking spaces for every car. There's plenty of parking, it's just poorly allocated. The likely first step would be for current business owners with off-street lots to allow non-customers to park in their lots (for a fee), since they could do this without risking losing their occupancy permit. That would establish a market for parking so that the price is closer to the cost of providing it. Eventually you would arrive at a level of commercial density that would justify standalone parking structures, but at that point the number of spaces needed per 1000 sf of retail space would probably be lower than current requirements, since having a non-zero price for parking tends to result in less of it being consumed.
  6. Angostura
    Sorry to jump into this a week late, but.. yes? Obviously eliminating parking minimums doesn't eliminate parking. One of the benefits of eliminating parking minimums is that you decoupling parking provision from commercial development. For small numbers of spaces, structured parking is very expensive (per-space), so even in places with high land values, parking tends to be in surface lots. But while it's very difficult for individual small-scale developments to provide structured parking, lots of small retail developments can provide enough scale to justify it, so someone can make money by providing it. This allows for more dense development than would be possible otherwise, even if the total number of spaces is no different than would be required currently. And since density is upstream of mode-shift, having lots of (structured) parking is probably a necessary step on the path to needing less parking in the future.
  7. Angostura
    I think cities should preserve a certain (small) number of these kinds of buildings so we don't forget just how ugly they are, lest someone someday decide it's a good idea to build in this style again.
  8. Angostura
    Something like 3300 parking spaces. Seems like a lot. Looks like they're not leveraging the mix of uses in the parking calculation.
  9. Angostura
    I think the reason the setback requirements haven't been revised/eliminated is so that the Planning Department can use the variance process to extract improvements to the pedestrian realm. A very high percentage of setback variances get approved, almost always accompanied by wider sidewalks, landscape buffers, etc. not otherwise required. There are two kinds of people: those who think it's a question of WHETHER homes will be built, and those with understand it's a question of WHERE. In places where building activity is well-controlled, density prevention results in sprawl. In places where building isn't well-controlled, it results in favelas and shantytowns. (BTW, aside from a lack of adequate wastewater infrastructure, favelas are an urbanists wet dream: low-rise, high-density, mixed use development; zero setbacks, narrow streets, and entirely pedestrian oriented.)
  10. Angostura
    The most predictable majority in American local politics is incumbent residents opposing any new development with a density higher than their current home.
  11. Angostura
    This will look great until the back lights start burning out. It doesn't appear to be designed for easy maintenance.
  12. Angostura
    It all comes down to (a) land costs and (b) what market segment these are aimed at. This project probably has a floor area ratio (total square footage divided by total land area) of 2-3x a typical TH project. That makes a lot less difference at a land cost $30/sf than it does at $100/sf. In this neighborhood, at an FAR of, say, 4.0, even with higher construction costs (steel or concrete vs wood frame, elevators, etc.), it should be possible to hit a price point similar to that of townhouse at FAR of 1.5. In cities with very high land values, townhouses are prohibitively expensive for all but the highest end of the market. Again, depends on the target market. A building without that many amenities and limited common areas can be pretty competitive. Recall that the condo fee is paying for lights, climate control and maintenance of the exterior and common areas (including elevators), usually water and sewer, and a significant chunk of your homeowner's insurance costs. And your utility bills will generally be lower on a per-sf basis, since these buildings tend to be more thermally efficient than standalone houses. If you actually compare apples to apples, it's not that different. That said, I'd expect these to be marketed at a much higher price than the current Houston TH market.
  13. Angostura
    A lot of what was built in the 70s and 80s was built where and how it was built due to the sewer moratorium in force at the time. From 1974, the by-right limit on density for restricted areas (essentially all of the inner loop) was 15,000 sf/acre commercial, 7 DU/acre residential. Anything larger needed administrative review and assembly of sewer rights. As a result, a lot of development got pushed west, and a lot of what was built inside the loop was built at a much lower density than would otherwise make sense. As those properties are getting to an age where they must be either re-habbed or demo'd, we are just now starting to unwind a lot of that mal-investment. This article from 1982 makes for an interesting read on the subject.
  14. Angostura
    People will and do walk if the built environment is conducive to it, even in Houston. Distance from origin to destination isn't the only factor. Places that are pleasant to walk in tend to have a few things in common: - Enclosure: the place is visually defined by vertical elements (trees, buildings, etc.) - Transparency: there's stuff to see beyond the enclosure (i.e. windows in street facing facades) - Scale: there are details that are visible/interesting to a person on foot moving at a walking pace - Isolation from (fast) vehicle traffic: either a landscape buffer or significant traffic calming By building wide roads with building set far back from the right of way, most streets in Houston lack pretty much all of these elements.
  15. Angostura
    So, no retail. The other Highline projects have all requested parking variances to come in a few spaces below CoH minimums and keep parking to one level. Assume this will do the same.
  16. Angostura
    Will probably depend on whether or not they can do so safely, which will depend on more protected lanes/bikeways. E-scooters and bikes are a non-option on our sidewalks, and would be scary on a lot of our streets. Saw it here:
  17. Angostura
    It looks... not terrible? At least the eastern half. Looks like the freeway frontage is just parking, not residential. A pseudo street grid with relatively narrow RoWs, structured parking. The surface parking dominating the western half isn't great, and it looks like there'll be zero integration with the MKT trail (in fact, it may be actively isolated from the trail), but it's better than the previous plans.
  18. Angostura
    VMT (vehicle miles traveled) in Houston has basically been flat over the last 10 years (falling on a per capita basis), and we have almost certainly seen the peak amount of lane-miles of surface streets inside the loop. Absent non-market constraints (e.g. parking minimums) It's natural to start shifting land use away from surface parking and toward more productive uses.
  19. Angostura
    Given what I assume is HRH's target demo, the site's main draw must be its proximity to the Men's Club.
  20. Angostura
    AFAIK, this site is still subject to parking minimums, since city council hasn't approved the expansion of the exempt area yet (unless I missed it). That said, within a 2-block radius of this site, there are about 9 full blocks that are either vacant or already dedicated to surface parking. If there's a demand for parking, I'm sure it will be provided (at some price greater than zero).
  21. Angostura
    No, it just gets replicated. Driving west on I-10 from the city is like watching a tape loop. Every 7-8 miles or so the same set of big box stores repeats.
  22. Angostura
    If the numbers are based on traffic counts, then it includes all the cars on the road. Some possible explanations for the continued existence of large surface parking lots in the CBD include: (a) land speculation (parking revenue exceeds carrying costs, so the owner waits until the windfall from selling increases) (b) corporate inertia (parking revenue exceeds carrying costs, so the owner focuses on other priorities) (c) surface parking is the highest and best use of the land Of these, (c) is almost certainly not true (since the current opportunity cost per space is about 2-3X the cost of structured parking), which leaves us with (a) and (b). So, while raising the carrying costs won't create demand for built space, the current highest-and-best use of those blocks is probably somewhere between 10 single-family houses and 70-story office building. By making surface parking a cash-negative situation for the corporate owner, they would have an incentive to do something more productive with the land.
  23. Angostura
    Here's the argument for taxing surface parking: structured parking only makes economic sense when the opportunity cost of the land used for surface parking is higher than construction cost of providing structured parking. Round numbers, let's say this happens at around $5M/acre (might be a little less). However, if you artificially limit density by REQUIRING a bunch of parking when land values are BELOW this number, then you create conditions where it's very difficult for land values to appreciate to a level where structured parking makes more economic sense than surface parking. By taxing surface parking, you increase its cost relative to denser alternatives. Eventually, the land value appreciates and the need for the tax to discourage surface parking dissipates. With respect to the other points, no one's saying suburbans have to move and granny has to ride an e-scooter to reduce VMT. First, there's evidence VMT per capita is already falling, and total VMT is about flat over the last 12 years despite a large increase in population. Most of these VMT reductions are a result of increased density (having a grocery store a mile away instead of 3 miles, for example). Second, measures like congestion charges are nudges designed to shift incentives away from single-occupancy vehicles and towards other means of travel. Want a 50% discount on congestion charge (and a 2X increase in fuel efficiency)? Put a second person in the car! And you don't have to give up your 1/4 acre for density, but as land prices go up, some of your neighbors might decide it's a good idea.
  24. Angostura
    I like the narrowness of the internal streets, and the fact that they're not dead straight, so the sightlines are more interesting.
  25. Angostura
    I think I'm kinda w/ s3mh on this one. I'm pretty much OK with the massing. The 20th St frontage is essentially 6 stories (a reasonable height fronting a street that width). The 12-story facade on Nicholson would seem overly high fronting a street as narrow as Nicholson, except the RoW on Nicholson is actually 50% wider than 20th (90 vs 60 ft). And the afternoon shade on that stretch of the bike trail would be welcome. But the architecture is... not great? With the exception of the balconies on the north façade, it looks more like an office building or hotel than residential. And with the exception of the (3-story) lobby on the corner, the rest of the street-facing parts of the building look to be essentially blank walls covering a parking structure. Could be better.
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