HouTXRanger

Are there rules for how a TIRZ must be set up, and if so, who sets those rules? City, county, state?
Is the board appointed, or are they elected? And if so, by whom?
Is there a difference between the Montrose TIRZ and the Montrose Management District?

Are they the ones who commissioned a study on the walkability of Montrose + an action plan to fix the parts in disrepair?

No mention of ground floor retail, although that render makes it look like it'd be perfect for a little cafe or something.

Is he . . . even allowed to disclose this? I feel like his boss would be pissed if he knew he was just giving out info about clients . . .

Either way, I agree with some of the guys in the reddit thread. The B-Cycles are alright, a dockless ride share program sounds terrible.

4 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

Does anyone have any idea what the first phase will be? I'm assuming Waugh, but what else?

I've gone ahead and grabbed the relevant section on projects from the study for everyone's convenience, and fun speculation 😁
 

These are pages 97 and 102-111, including Projects by Others and Short-Term Projects, excluding Long-Term Projects.

On page 109, item 7, the Waugh and Commonwealth bikeways are listed as "Currently in Design," the only project to be listed as such. Especially considering Geoff Carlton's company's just done a bunch of bikeways, I think it's safe to assume that's the imminent project.

I'd assume the Westheimer project would be right behind it due to how important it's rated, but as we all know the funding just got pulled so . . .

56 minutes ago, X.R. said:

One of the lead engineers tweeted this: 

 

If Rodney Ellis is involved with the project, based on what him and his team and COH have been able to accomplish in 3rd Ward/Downtown/Midtown/East End/the Bayous, I would bet a lot of money that parts of this project will not only have legs, but a decent timetable for certain walking and biking components. You can now get from one side of downtown to the other, both north and south and east and west on protected lanes, which was a pipe-dream not too long ago. Adding on street bike lanes to Waugh and Hawthorne and expanded sidewalks around those areas? Seems easier by comparison, especially with community buy in. 

 

That is good news! Those guys also did the Austin bikeway I believe.

1 hour ago, gene said:

I definitely want better sidewalks in montrose so i can ride my bike without dying  OR a bike lane would be awesome but i know that would be wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy down the line! i'm happy with all the progress coming this area's way! 

Well, j_cuevas has a point. It's a great plan and study, but I won't hold my breath until the ground breaks. With covid as it is, there's no telling when any of these changes will actually take place. At this rate I think Richmond might get improvements before anyone else for the BRT.

On 8/10/2020 at 10:16 AM, brijonmang said:

 

That is SO pretty! I barely recognize Houston in some of these skyline photos everyone's doing. I've got a new profile background . . . .

3 hours ago, j_cuevas713 said:

So it took this massive study to realize we need new sidewalks and better transit? Sometimes I seriously want to move. 

The study doesn't spend 200 pages to find out that the neighborhood isn't walkable. They started with that assumption. 

The study identifies, to the individual lot level, what the condition of sidewalks and crossings are in the neighborhood. Then, they worked with a transportation agency and neighborhood meetings to identify where major multimodal arterials can or should be built, using a variety of standards for walkable, bikeable, or neighborhood streets. 

THEN, the study organizes the most important improvements to be made, divided between short and long term projects. It also identifies likely sources of funding so the TIRZ knows what they can afford and what they need to seek grants for. 

If you take the time to at least read the abstract, you'd find the study was a pretty good use of time and money. It's incredibly granular, had good outreach, and attacks Montrose's walkability head-on instead of trying to dress up a turd . . . which would have been easy for Montrose to do, it's already the "most walkable neighborhood in Houston," if they wanted to sweep this under the rug they probably could have. Makes me want to move to Montrose personally.

16 minutes ago, houstontexasjack said:

Secondary TOD corridors have a 50% reduction for commercial construction. Primary corridors have no parking requirement and are full market-based.  I’ve linked to a handy executive summary below:

 

https://houstontx.gov/planning/docs_pdfs/TOD_Ordinance_Summary_Report.pdf

Hmm, I always thought market based parking was just a different, reduced set of parking requirements. Turns out it's just a renaming for getting rid of parking minimums at all. Nice!

Although I really, really, really loathe the fact that this building is over 50% parking by square footage . . . they did a really good job of covering it. It's the best parking garage disguise I've ever seen honestly, I'd even say its beautiful with the hedge balconies and all. Hopefully this tower has enough parking for the next phase?

27 minutes ago, Texasota said:

Taking inspiration from Luminare, I decided to map where the new walkable places form-based code will go into affect by parcel, rather than just which streets are impacted. I think that shows the real extent, even just of these first three walkable places + the existing transit corridors, a lot better.

 

Warning: this is *very* rough. I prioritized speed over precision, because these shapes get real complicated and determining current parcel boundaries is time consuming. 

 

Very much a work in progress: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1Bqs-VU-wmzU1J2JeTbp9MsLBNM2LGSWv&usp=sharing

Very nice! I hope the Montrose TIRZ applies for Walkable Places designation soon, it'll really improve all the development they're trying to do on Westheimer (like the place that just bought the old Half Price Books stripcenter)

13 minutes ago, Texasota said:

 

I don't think that's right. Walkable places don't automatically lower parking requirements. 

 

In transit corridors, primary streets are now exempt from parking requirements and secondary streets get a 50% reduction.

I'm not sure if that's 100% right either, but I sure as hell like the idea of ZERO required parking on a TOD main street. That's fantastic!

4 minutes ago, houstontexasjack said:

This might be possible under the new TOD ordinance on primary TOD corridors, which will go to market based parking. 

Not really, unfortunately. I'm thinking of rows of townhouses, more or less as they exist now, but instead of garages they have a tiny little retail space. Not really possible, or at least economical, if there are any off-street parking requirements at all, and TOD only reduces them, not eliminates them.

IIRC Walkable Places is the one that applies market based parking. TOD is a blanket ~50% reduction for everything.

16 minutes ago, Fortune said:

If you have ever been to that area then you would know there is never enough parking! This parking garage will be a great asset to that area!

I suppose . . . the area is going through some tough times, from an infrastructure standpoint. The funds to rebuild lower Westheimer just got bumped, we'll be lucky if construction starts by 2030. Last thing the area needs is even more car traffic, but there aren't any good multimodal transportation options until Metro does the 82 line improvements and whenever the Montrose TIRZ finishes improving their walk/bike network . . . but who knows how long all that will take? 

I'd happily dump the parking for redone sidewalks along Westheimer but that's just me 🤷‍♂️

Is there a reason that, despite Houston's lack of zoning and lot splitting, building "townhomes" with ground floor retail hasn't taken off anywhere? I feel like little pop-ups like that would work great in some of Montrose's back streets. I'd love to see some pedestrian corridors like that.

edit: Ah, just thought of it. Parking requirements. No way you could make that work without zero min parking or market based parking.

Is it just me, or is that parking garage oversized? Did they do more parking than they needed, or am I just seeing things?

Looks like we might hear more about this soon:

https://twitter.com/salliealcorn/status/1291405418577764353?s=20

14 minutes ago, HNathoo said:

This passed city council unanimously - pretty big step for Houston Urbanism.

Unanimously???? Fantastic! I'm going to buy a cake or something to celebrate!

1 hour ago, cspwal said:

What if there was some sort of fixed guide, sort of like a rail or track, that could guide the buses in? 

Great idea! We could even ditch the flimsy rubber tires for wheels that'll fit right on the rail, for a smoother ride. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before??

So, I haven't heard anything else on this, but I thought the vote was supposed to be this week. Anyone know when we'll hear if it all got approved? Still confused on how exactly the city council votes and such.

40 minutes ago, X.R. said:

It sounds like the museum park people are all reading from the same general thing. Also, whats hilarious is that the people against it are generally old, so they have been having technical difficulties apparently using a conference call system, lmao. I spoke momentarily, but I'll follow up with Shabazz, I was super disappointed with her comments. So bad. Should I include some of the other council members?

 

MPNA does some very good things for the neighborhood, but they really don't talk for all of us. 

 

They cited some things like Light and Noise and Buffering that I have no no idea what they are talking about. The neighborhood is quiet, and honestly kind of too dark at night. I deal with the noise of the Allen Harrison development but their construction manager has a number of us on an email list and has been working with us on things the immediate neighbors would like to see. Great. MPNA comes off as anti-development which is whatever, but it felt like they were are pointing to the Southmore as a buffering problem...bro the Southmore is a great development and to me anchors that part of the neighborhood along with the Asia Society Center. Property values for people people around the Southmore are far most stable than the people near 59 and the intersection of 59/Almeda (trust me, I've been looking at other neighborhood house values for multiple years). The trees and esplanade by them is the best kept one on Caroline outside of the two by the park. Also, there are maybe 15 homes near the Southmore? The Southmore even employs its own constable, which MPNA has been trying to do for the neighborhood but hasn't been able to get the cash together for. Museum District people are lucky, they've gotten some high end development that gives them density other neighborhoods don't have without the negative externalities some may believe comes with such development.  

Yeah, there was some pretty clear misniformation/misunderstanding for most of the Museum Park people. They act like this is going to cause more development around them, but it really won't, mainly just on the main transit corridor. And most of the neighborhood is exempt from regulations too. I don't get it.

It feels like they were just being obstinate because they weren't getting what they wanted out of wholly separate buffering ordinances. Which this isn't meant to touch, so why are they trying to just stop it in its tracks? Seems silly to me. As always, the anti-prop people are drastically overrepresented. I couldn't speak because I couldn't connect in the city's number, it kept dropping.

On the bright side, it seemed like the Mayor and most of the Councillors were in favor of the proposal. Does anyone know how exactly voting works on the city council? Do they need a simple majority, or super majority? Does the mayor have any powers voting for or against the proposal?

Thanks for keeping us updated with the pics OP.

What business is at that address? Are they closed while the roof is getting fixed?

When was the roof damaged, and how? I'm assuming rain.

21 minutes ago, iah77 said:

If those lots are reserved for future towers why is that bothersome? 

Are they? Do we know what the developer has planned or are we just speculating?

3 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

 

Cool  (And now we can see the primary purpose of TCR having entered into the through-ticketing arrangement with Amtrak... Genius!)

Yeah, that's super smart. Not that I thought there was a serious chance of the lower courts ruling being overturned by the Texas Supreme court, but this is a massive blow to the opposition. If i didn't know better I'd say the case is pretty much open and shut now.

Now if they could only secure the rest of the funding . . .

Those pics are awesome! I love how they're trying to recreate the native coastal prairie ecosystem, that's pretty damn unique for a "city" park, that I know of. Reminds me of the little slice of the Midtown park that attempts to recreate a bayou feeder stream.