Urbannomad
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Posts posted by Urbannomad
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The article in my opinion didn't say too much. Maybe I just can't read between the lines, but it didn't sound like this was a "strong possibility"... maybe more like just a possibility. It would make sense given the planned 290/hempstead highway expansion, but from what I've read commuter rail along hempstead is still just a big maybe as well. Does anyone have any "inside" info or at least more info about the seriousness of this? Because right now this all seems like speculation. Personally, I'd like to see it happen, but I'm just curious as to probability.
The loud music/free for all parking/drunks are what would keep me from buying a house in that area more than anything else. If you like about the area CRT should just add to the "urban" appeal.
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Call me crazy but I'm just not too worried about this destroying the neighborhood. The relatively few immediate neighbors may suffer, but the benefits to the entire houston area far out way the negative impact on just a few... I hate to say that but it's true just like with freeway widening... etc. My brother lives by the purple line commuter rail in Boston and it's just simply not that bad. I have to wonder if most people in Houston have ever even been near a commuter rail to know what it's really like. It can be somewhat loud in the mornings and evenings during the week, but other than those times you would never know it's there. And I'd hardly say it's full blown rail, while CRT is quite a bit louder than LRT it's nothing compared to "real" rail and the trains are MUCH shorter and carry lighter loads than freight trains so the noise is shorter and less as well.
I do feel bad for those directly on the line, but to be fair they knew, or should have known, that buying a house near a railroad ROW could mean future rail development, like like those who buy right next to the freeway and people just like myself who bought a home in the 100 yr floodplain. I sure hope a giant flood never comes, but if it does I knew that potential existed ahead of time. Not that that would make me feel any better about it.
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I don't want to offend anyone, but I REALLY hope this happens. It's great for everyone, except those who live next to the line... sorry, but for what it's worth I'd be pissed if it were my house too. I completely agree that I would rather see rail (which is relatively small) over ever-widening and new freeways. Just look at the katy freeway and others, they destroy the look of and "separates" the city... pretty soon the city inside the loop will be just freeways at this rate. I would hate to see them put a highway through the heights which I'm sure they will eventually try when the Hempstead expansion is no longer enough. At least a commuter train can be run only at times it's needed... whereas a 10 lane highway is going to be an eyesore day and night.
Interesting article:
http://www.apta.com/research/info/briefings/briefing_1.cfm
Obviously, there is the chance for bias here as in all reports... so I can only speak for Salt Lake City and Washington DC, two places I've lived with rail, where this was true. Salt Lake actually uses the rail to revitalize older, run down areas that now are seeing new TOD developments and a renewed interest in the homes in those areas, which is of course causing a rapid increase in property values. The exception being if the rail is in your back yard and there isn't a stop for 2+ miles, obviously that is useless. But so long as you are within a reasonable distance to a stop, that can definitely increase the desirability of your property from my experience. Worst, or best case, depending on how you see it; if you are near a stop and don't like it, odds are given enough time a developer will buy your property for a pretty penny to build a high dollar TOD... that is if the NIMBY's don't complain too much.
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Just stay East of Bevis and you'll be ok, at least as far as the flood way is concerned.
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Then maybe you can explain to me how a house sitting for 30 years in an "X" plain, all of the sudden becomes an "AE" ? I'm in Bear Creek my house is literally next to the Addicks reservoir, and sits on high. I am not worried about flooding, but I do think this will definately take some buyers out the market for me in 20 years.
Thanks in advance.
In a nutshell LiDAR and improved GIS/modeling capabilities. If you aren't sure what LiDAR is check out http://www.tsarp.org/tsarp_over/lidar.html or just google it. It allows for far more accurate contours to be created and therefore they can create much more precise models. Whether or not they have is open for debate (mostly among those now affected). Hence the reason the flood plains have changed. I worked for a remote sensing company for a time flying LiDAR surveys, it's a pretty cool I must say.
Waterfall also makes a good point about upstream development and increased runoff throughout the system.
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I got the $25 one from lowes and it works fine for me. It's on my gate so the two sides don't meet up all that close but it works fine. I did have to use some better double sided tape though, bc the adhesive it came with failed after about the second rain. Another neat toy I saw was a motion activated flood light that also sounds a wireless chime in your house and can turn on a lamp if you want it to. I don't remember the price but seems like a cool idea, so long as your light isn't in a heavy traffic area. Perfect for a backyard or something, but I just went with the old school, simple one.
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Even rain proof? Incredible.
Seems to be. I've had it up all summer and even with all the rain we've had it hasn't had a problem.
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Interesting. Can you tell me about the chime? Wired or wireless? I'd like to do something like that.
Wireless. It's a pretty simple device I got at Lowe's for around $25 and it took about 5 minutes to install. The sensor is two pieces one goes on the fence and the other goes on the gate. When they are separated a chime goes off inside the house. I just used double sided type to put it up and even with all the rain it has worked without a problem. We really like having it out there, now we always know when someone comes in the front yard. Of course if we aren't home it doesn't help much, but it's a trade off since we did not want to have to lock the front gate and one of us is usually always home because we work opposite shifts.
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so how do they break in twice? were you able to lock back up after the first breakin?
The first time I assumed they waited until I left the garage and stop it from closing at the last minute because it was open about 2 feet, either that or they used the keypad outside the garage to get in. So I took the keypad down and made sure everything was shut before leaving. Then I went upstairs to email my neighbors to be aware of it, when I heard the garage opening again! This time I ran down there and they took off. So I'm guessing what they were doing was jumping the fencing into our back yard and getting into the garage that way. Pretty brave since it's only a few feet between our house and garage and the first time was before 9:30pm. Regardless now we have started locking the garage door and leaving the back lights on as well. We had some stuff taken off the front porch a couple of months ago so I put a chime on the gate and installed a camera out there, and now I guess I'll have to do the same in the back.
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I'm over in shady acres, but close enough. Sunday night my garage was broken into twice, after the second time my wife called HPD's non-emergency line and they were there in about 10 minutes. She told the dispatcher it wasn't and emergency or anything though, so the response time was very good given that fact. The cops themselves were very nice and looked around even though I know this wasn't a big deal to them.
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I really don't understand how this could "hurt" the heights if it's along hempstead hwy. That whole area is industrial anyway, with the exception of some homes cottage grove... maybe I'm missing something? I'm more concerned that 290 and Hempstead "toll way" will become the next Katy freeway. I'd much rather see rail than see hempstead turn into a major highway inside the loop.
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I drive. It's 6 miles and takes about 15 minutes on 290 opposite all the traffic. I just looked up how long my commute would be to take Metro and the trip planner told me only.... 80 minutes. What a joke! I hate having to drive, but I don't hate it that much.
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I like the area. Will the Cypress Commuter Line have a stop there?
I'm not sure. Since I've moved back here I find that it's very hard to find any info on Houston's rail plans. I can find a little here and there but nothing good. From a jpg I found (http://www.westhouston.org/06-2005-Phase-2-Map.gif) I'm assuming it will be further down at eureka rail yard in cottage grove and then will head out of the city via Hempstead hwy.
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I love a good, cheap, unpretentious local bar,
Now that's an understatement! Shady Tavern is a great place, but I've only been able to make it there once so far. I better work on that.
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This is exactly what needs to be built in the Near East End specifically along Lawndale Avenue/Wayside areas minus the bars of course.
When can we start?
I don't know what land prices are like over there, but we're "starting" to catch up with the Heights, so it may be pretty soon.
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all those pics and not ONE of the shady tavern?
That's funny you mention it, I was trying to take a pic of shady tavern right as the batteries in my camera died.
I think some of the places with garages have a room behind the garage but it's usually still raised above the garage level. They are framing houses next door and that's how they are doing them. Alternatively, I believe they can raise the ground up and build on a normal slab as well. None of this info would hold up in court of course.
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By city building code all new homes either have to be pier and beam or the first level is garage only. You can't have liveable space that is in the base flood elevation. And if you are in the flood way, the city won't even issue you a permit. So far at our location flooding has been no existent. I know when we had that one good rain a month or two ago the upper streets (ie 22nd,23rd) got flooded a little but nothing down on my end. We're only in the 100 yr.
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Below is PART of a post I did over at SSP. I thought you guys might enjoy it too. Here is a link to the original post if you are interested in seeing the whole thing:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread...648#post3004648
For some reason this board is telling me that I have "exceeded the max number of attached images?" Since they are just links to images that are hosted somewhere else that doesn't make sense but whatever, let me know if anyone out there knows how to fix this and I'll add the rest.
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Despite saying that we never would, my wife and I recently moved back to Houston. However we knew to make it work we would have to live in the Heights area of the city. We settled on a house in Shady Acres. Shady acres is part of the "Greater Heights" but is its own separate neighborhood from the Heights. However, most people that live here won't correct you if you just say the Heights because no one really knows where Shady Acres is and the Heights is a well-known, nice neighborhood. The main difference in the two is that Shady Acres is still very much in transition so there are a lot of different architectural styles and building uses, but the trade-off is it's cheaper than the Heights proper. The boundaries of the neighborhood are I-610 to the north, 14th St to the south, Shepard to the east, TC Jester to the west. We have lots of new faux Victorian/Cottages, old bungalows (some renovated some dilapidated), shotgun houses, industrial and abandoned retail. Also we are not afraid to use color which is another cool thing about the neighborhood. Enough talk here are some photos.
First, here is a map from Google to help you understand the location of the neighborhood, but the rest of the images are my own.
Lets get started on my block:
The neighbors:
Shady Acres commercial development
Common new patio home development
More patio homes, these face a creek, very nice:
The closest you'll get to row houses in Houston, after this it's town homes:
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I understand the "crack brownie" name, but no clue what pizza insurance is?
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I just tried it tonight, and I thought their pizza was excellent. We got the 12" Luigi. Personally, I think this place is much better than Star Pizza, but it's too bad they're delivery/takeout only. Maybe they'll get a bigger place if business takes off. Nice to have another option for good pizza in the area.
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Well, I am mostly talking about the ones that bought a house around 45k and now its inflated over 750k. While that's great and fab and they are wealthy on paper, the strain of paying taxes on that are hard on most fixed incomes. They really only get a reprieve from school taxes.
I think that would be a pretty rare if not unheard of exaggeration in the Houston real estate market. If someone bought an old house for 45K and hasn't rebuilt a new mansion or something that's a stretch. Unless maybe their old house sits on a 5 acre tract in downtown. Once someone hits 65 they pay very little taxes bottom line. Additionally the school tax ceiling goes into effect with the over 65 exemption so that never goes up... check your tax bill, your school district is BY FAR where the largest percentage of taxes go.
http://www.hcad.org/Resources/Exemptions/Homeowners.asp
The value of your house sucks... until you are ready to sell and then I bet we would all complain if we got a cheap appraisal. They "could" I suppose, but I doubt there would be an efficient way to do it, create some form of floating tax rate that changes as values increase/decrease. But the market is like any other and always in flux so that would turn into a nightmare. Plus when home values fall again we would all then be mad that our taxes didn't drop as well. It's taking peoples money, justified or not, we're never going to be happy about it.
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I would be interested in finding similar such schools in the Houston area, if they exist.
They definitely do exist in Houston. Here are two that immediately come to mind and I'm sure there are more I don't know about.
A highly rated, very competitive private school:
As I mentioned earlier, one of the HISD magnet schools in the heights. The program continues beyond elementary school at different magnet schools throughout the city:
http://www.helmsduallanguage.org/
I think a lot of older generations in America are having a very hard time dealing with the reality of globalization. They like the fact it brings cheap goods and allows us to make a profit exporting our own goods, but they hate the fact it is creating a "merging" of cultures and languages. I don't think a second language should be mandatory just yet, but I think if you want to prepare your children to really excel in the new 21st century, than you must realize that accepting and learning new languages and cultures is going to be a major part of being successful in our future. For better or for worse, that's just how things are, and no matter how hard some people fight it, this is one train that isn't stopping. How does the saying go... change is the only constant? The key is embracing change and being better at it then everyone else so that you can maintain dominance... successful American corporations learned this a LONG time ago and now it's time for everyone else to also.
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some people aren't aware that a bilingual school is not necessarily one catering to non-english speaking students. i observed a "bilingual" school in tulsa, ok several years ago. the english speaking children were taught all of their courses in spanish. when tested, their scores for english vocabulary and writing skills were years ahead of english only counterparts. and of course, the kids were completely bilingual by the first year.
Bachanon is right. Learning Spanish is a great, marketable skill and teaches kids many valuable cross-over skills. Just because some older people can't learn it and are intimated by that fact doesn't make it worthless to learn a second language. Unfortunately, I can't speak Spanish, my wife got one of her degrees in it but is rusty, and we'd love to for our kid(unborn) to learn it from a young age. We live by one such dual language school, but I'm sure there are equivalents in the suburbs too.
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Thanks again for all your input. Believe it or not, it was very helpful in a housing search that lasted over 4 months. I am delighted (but, as indicated, a little embarassed) to say we found a SMALL bungalow in West U. It is a great location with regards to parks and amenities, and the schools definitely weighed in on the final decision too.
Congratulations and welcome to Houston!
Here Comes METRO
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It's not that there is so much opposition... it's that people only speak out when they are against something. Therefore, the media covers that angle since that is where the story is, happy people don't make good news. It's not very often you will see people rallying for something they are in support of. If there is a new school or hospital being built for a community, there usually isn't daily demonstrations of people yelling and hold signs, "Yes, build that school!"
That's why it's important for all of those who support rail and other urban issues (any issue for that matter) to voice their support to elected officials, media outlets, etc so that the true sentiment of the people will be reflected in both the media and the mind of politicians worried about getting re-elected. Usually "opposition" boils down to the same, predictable handful of people very vocally complaining and claiming to reflect the majority though they usually in fact do not.
Guess I'm feeling extra civic tonight...