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sidewalks in an area that is built to promote pedestrianism should not be built to minimum widths. go at least 5'. They could easily achieve 5' and still have trees. now they've got 3' sidewalks, which are fine if it's one person walking one direction. two people going two directions. someone has to step off the sidewalk. and there's dog poo there. even if there isn't dog poo, people treat sidewalks as walkways through lava, where the grass is the lava.

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4 hours ago, samagon said:

sidewalks in an area that is built to promote pedestrianism should not be built to minimum widths. go at least 5'. They could easily achieve 5' and still have trees. now they've got 3' sidewalks, which are fine if it's one person walking one direction. two people going two directions. someone has to step off the sidewalk. and there's dog poo there. even if there isn't dog poo, people treat sidewalks as walkways through lava, where the grass is the lava.

 

Good news:  The subject sidewalks are 6 feet wide.

Edited by Houston19514
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10 minutes ago, Nucleareaction said:

 

I'd imagine BeerNut means that sidewalks are for walking, and it's illegal for bikes to be on them within 300 feet of a business.

Without the biking part in my comment, I just meant the sidewalks don't seem small at all. They seem adequate for two people to walk past each other without a problem.

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I wasn't aware of the 300ft clearance in front of business.  I enjoyed the cemented walking/biking paths from my Colorado friend's suburban home to the small downtown area.  Just thought  something like that would cool for this development but these are typical sidewalks.  They even have what I'm talking about on Newcastle Dr in Bellaire for reference. 

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1 hour ago, Nucleareaction said:

 

I'd imagine BeerNut means that sidewalks are for walking, and it's illegal for bikes to be on them within 300 feet of a business.

 

Interesting, but not quite accurate.  Turns out it is only illegal to ride bicycles on sidewalks "in a business district."   "Business district" means the territory contiguous to and including a roadway when, within any 600 feet along such roadway, there are buildings in use for business or industrial purposes which occupy 300 feet of frontage on one side or 300 feet collectively on both sides of the roadway.

 

FWIW, in non-business districts, the city traffic engineers can designate sidewalks on which it is illegal to ride bicycles.

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Interesting indeed. As someone who bikes downtown quite frequently, I thought I could bike the sidewalks under a certain speed. If it's illegal to bike downtown on the sidewalks, the police certainly don't enforce it and I've certainly seen police officers riding bikes on the sidewalks too. Edit: Not that it makes it right. Really thought it was legal.

 

I honestly just think the images made the sidewalks look smaller than they actually are.

Edited by Triton
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2 hours ago, Triton said:

Interesting indeed. As someone who bikes downtown quite frequently, I thought I could bike the sidewalks under a certain speed. If it's illegal to bike downtown on the sidewalks, the police certainly don't enforce it and I've certainly seen police officers riding bikes on the sidewalks too. Edit: Not that it makes it right. Really thought it was legal.

 

 

I got "pulled over" on my bike riding on the sidewalk downtown once - was sternly told it was illegal !!  I was going up Main St in the section where there aren't any car lanes, just the light rail - guess I was supposed to go around the block !!

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13 hours ago, HoustonMidtown said:

 

I got "pulled over" on my bike riding on the sidewalk downtown once - was sternly told it was illegal !!  I was going up Main St in the section where there aren't any car lanes, just the light rail - guess I was supposed to go around the block !!

 

Is it really a sidewalk if there is no street? I mean, a sidewalk (where defined by the city) is:

Quote

Sidewalk shall mean that portion of the public street which is between the curblines, or the lateral lines of a roadway, and the adjacent property lines and which is improved and designed for or is ordinarily used for pedestrian travel.

 

I found that in section 40-10.1 (sidewalk cafe), but they define sidewalk there. There is no definition of sidewalk in section 45-302 (the section regarding riding on a sidewalk in a business district).

 

Non-legal versions of the definition of a sidewalk include a street as well.

 

Anyway, skinniest 6' sidewalks I've ever seen.

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http://houston.novusagenda.com/agendapublic/CoverSheet.aspx?ItemID=9795&MeetingID=201

 

The Housing and Community Development Department (HCDD) recommends Council approve an amendment to the loan agreement executed December 23, 2014, between the City of Houston and HY FS LLC for the construction of Residences at Hardy Yards, a mixed-income affordable housing development located at North Main and Burnett Streets in the Near Northside neighborhood.  The original loan agreement is a zero percent performance-based loan that is forgivable at the end of the ten-year affordability period if no default exists.  The amendment will allow for a $4,700,000 increase to the original $14,500,000 commitment in order to fund additional costs related to the development.   



 

The development has a total of 350 units, including 179 (51%) affordable and 171 market-rate one- and two-bedroom units, and is part of a comprehensive, mixed-use redevelopment of the Hardy Rail Yard site.  The development is scheduled to be completed during spring of 2018 and is located near the University of Houston Downtown campus and another Disaster Recovery Round 2 affordable housing development, Avenue Station. 

 

The additional monies will fund a gap that has been created primarily due to a rise in construction costs.  Prior to construction, the developer conducted vast research and spent a considerable amount of time studying construction pricing in the market in order to create the development budget.  Based on this data, construction costs were estimated to be approximately $130/SF for the project.  However, as of 3rd quarter 2016, construction costs have increased to approximately $145 to $150/SF. HCDD recommends Council approve the additional funds as this development will provide for needed quality affordable housing in the Near Northside community.  The overage will be funded through unallocated CDBG - Disaster Recovery 2 funds.

 

AHG Properties LLC, an affiliated company of the Zieben Group (Lee Zieben), which has previously done business with the City, has formed a partnership with Houston Housing Finance Corporation to undertake this transit-oriented development. 

 

In exchange for this additional financing, the affordability period will be extended from 10 years to 30 years.  Also, the owner has agreed to less stringent underwriting criteria as it pertains to sources of income for up to 18 units.    

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4 hours ago, LTAWACS said:

So that's what this is going to be? A parking garage? What happened to all the developments???

 

 Are you new to Houston, LTAWACS? :)  Nothing gets built here without the parking garage first. The rest of the building will come around it.

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Well, this is a surprise (to me). TxDOT is planning to get the downtown I-45 cluster**** started by 2020/21, which will run the freeway right between UHD and Hardy Yards. I never expected that to happen at all, tbh. That's going to bite for the value of any skyline-view residential units that will now have a massive freeway right outside their windows. Do you think this will force a change in the layout we've seen?

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18 minutes ago, Kinglyam said:

Well, this is a surprise (to me). TxDOT is planning to get the downtown I-45 cluster**** started by 2020/21, which will run the freeway right between UHD and Hardy Yards. I never expected that to happen at all, tbh. That's going to bite for the value of any skyline-view residential units that will now have a massive freeway right outside their windows. Do you think this will force a change in the layout we've seen?

Wow, that is a surprise.

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I can see it in my mind Timoric, a less than 1 mile stretch of land with freeway removed, and purchased by developers so they can make tons of money, meanwhile, the bus terminals, and homeless outreach centers aren't going to move, so it'll be just as unfriendly as current. Yet on the east side the freeway is going to go from spanning 220 feet wide to spanning 550 feet wide for ~1.5 miles, and local level access to downtown is going to be reduced by about 25%, 19 city blocks with existing businesses are going to be taken, and an entire community will be wiped out. Then on the north side the freeway, rather than being sunken into the ground as current, it will be flying through the sky at over 60 feet high right by Hardy Yards. And if you look at how things are currently on the west side of downtown at buffalo bayou, it's pretty much unchanged.

 

hope that helps.

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6 minutes ago, samagon said:

I can see it in my mind Timoric, a less than 1 mile stretch of land with freeway removed, and purchased by developers so they can make tons of money, meanwhile, the bus terminals, and homeless outreach centers aren't going to move, so it'll be just as unfriendly as current. Yet on the east side the freeway is going to go from spanning 220 feet wide to spanning 550 feet wide for ~1.5 miles, and local level access to downtown is going to be reduced by about 25%, 19 city blocks with existing businesses are going to be taken, and an entire community will be wiped out. Then on the north side the freeway, rather than being sunken into the ground as current, it will be flying through the sky at over 60 feet high right by Hardy Yards. And if you look at how things are currently on the west side of downtown at buffalo bayou, it's pretty much unchanged.

 

hope that helps.

 

Or, you could check out their website. If you look at the 4th public meeting documents, in Appendix G, page 22 has a section showing the 405-foot wide I-10. It's all raised, but with no vertical scale shown. I tried making a jpg of it, but the file didn't work, and the PDF is too big to attach.

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It just makes me wonder about the road connections when we get the next update from TXDOT this year. The new highway will be south of the rail so Hardy Yards won't be impacted but I truly do wonder if they'll ever try to connect Fulton to San Jacinto. That would be a nice connection. Northside Village seems so hard to get in and out of. So little connections to highways and honestly the rail does increase travel times in the area.

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Why does the downtown connector still have to go over the bayou?  Why can't they just stop it at Memorial Drive, and not conitnue to Allen pkwy?  It would make the west side look better.

 

The over view shot at the I45/I10 interchange west of downtown is so much freeway - cutting off 4th ward from White Oak bayou

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15 minutes ago, Triton said:

It just makes me wonder about the road connections when we get the next update from TXDOT this year. The new highway will be south of the rail so Hardy Yards won't be impacted but I truly do wonder if they'll ever try to connect Fulton to San Jacinto. That would be a nice connection. Northside Village seems so hard to get in and out of. So little connections to highways and honestly the rail does increase travel times in the area.

 

The extension of Fulton to San Jacinto is still in the City's plans.  And the I-45 plans show the extension of San Jacinto north to the new location of the freeway, so it looks like they are accommodating those plans.

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1 hour ago, Kinglyam said:

 

Or, you could check out their website. If you look at the 4th public meeting documents, in Appendix G, page 22 has a section showing the 405-foot wide I-10. It's all raised, but with no vertical scale shown. I tried making a jpg of it, but the file didn't work, and the PDF is too big to attach.

 

Or, better yet, you could check out the most-recent documents on their website.

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12 minutes ago, cspwal said:

Why does the downtown connector still have to go over the bayou?  Why can't they just stop it at Memorial Drive, and not conitnue to Allen pkwy?  It would make the west side look better.

 

 

Because a lot of traffic flows from Allen Parkway to the freeway and vice versa.  (In fact, the initial plan did not have this connection. Comments received at the early public meetings made it clear this was a necessary connection.

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Which direction is more common?  If it's I45 south, than this connector will not help that much - you'd be better off going through downtown.  If there's that much traffic flow on that side of the city, than maybe they shouldn't do this relocation in the first place

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2 minutes ago, cspwal said:

Which direction is more common?  If it's I45 south, than this connector will not help that much - you'd be better off going through downtown.  If there's that much traffic flow on that side of the city, than maybe they shouldn't do this relocation in the first place

 

The extension doesn't just serve Allen Parkway. It also picks up traffic coming from the southern end of downtown and midtown.  Go hang out in that area today at 5:00.  A LOT of northbound traffic flows through there (St. Joseph Parkway at I-45). 

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  • The title was changed to Hardy Yards Developments

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