SilverJK

If they could do the same at Sunnyside apartments on the corner of Pecore and Beauchamp, I'd be soo happy. 

http://blog.chron.com/primeproperty/2013/05/aging-apartment-complex-near-downtown-to-be-replaced-with-luxury-building/

Bout dang time.

As someone considering a major renovation (within the next 24 months), I sure am glad I'm not in the district.   I guess it is different for those of us with teeth in the game...

And you fail to see that the main argument against the ordinance has been decimated by the fact that the real estate boom is just as strong in the historic districts as everywhere else. 

I haven't seen anything to indicate it is as strong in the HD as outside, infact from what I've seen, the borderlands outisde of the HDs but still in Heights proper are the ones selling for OVER the listing price. 

Keep on trollin'. 

I'm not joking.  I find old warehouse architecturally interesting not to mention they are true sign of what the neighborhood was.  I absolutely love the brick faced old warehouses that are found East of Downtown.  What is truly tiring is that you think you get to decide on what is architecturally important and what isn't, meanwhile supporting new out of scale contstruction while telling people they can't replace their old rotten windows with similarly styled but energy effecient ones.   The ordinance is a freaking joke, your support for it is a joke.  What the ordinance really does is piss people off.  The massive boom in the real estate market isn't limited to the heights (and especially not limited to the HD).  You fail to see that this is happeneing in SPITE of the ordinance, not because of it. 

Typical S3mh being S3mh.

Warehouses are achitecturally important to this area.  They should be forced to keep the look of the warehouses, but can add a giant bump in the back for living space.

save the historic warehouses!

This reminds me, I wanted to post about that poor abused tree behind Dacapo’s on Studewood.

 

After Ike, the old fella was pretty mangled; there were perhaps a few living sprigs, but he wouldn’t be long for this world.

 

Then some intrepid troubadour artist painted red “pants” on the remaining two limbs, and affixed garbage bags atop each one to serve as “boots” for a whimsical, upside-down buried giant.  I don’t know if children were involved, but it certainly evoked the workmanship of 8 or 9 year olds.  Then over the ensuing months, the paint peeled and garbage bags rotted away, and each time I went by I contemplated buying a cordless reciprocating saw to end the misery on some dark night.

 

Then suddenly trees turned blue down on Memorial and Waugh.  “Natural blue pigment” they said, which would fade and disappear within months.  An interesting and arresting blue color I noted as I drove by.  Turns out that by making those crepe myrtles stand out, the artist is trying to draw attention to areas around the world where trees are disappearing.

 

A few weeks later, the old tree behind Dacapo’s was suddenly blue.  Was the tree bemoaning its own loss, or “blue” with jealousy over how good those spry young crepe myrtles look?

 

Close examination revealed that only the half facing the roadway was irregularly spray painted, with some paint sprayed on the grass around the trunk.  Since most artists have access to drop cloths, painted grass must be a statement of some kind.  I guess if trees are disappearing, the grass has now joined in.  Although, I think fewer trees would mean more grass?  Maybe the blue color is meant to evoke some sort of blue image to the world but dead behind the blue façade.

 

Anyway, I plea for mercy.

That tree was long dead.  The whimsical art that was installed on it was silly... Heaven forbid it block your view of the dumpster.

It is a respected local artist that did the work to the tree to be funny, and painted it blue once the paint started peeling/fading.  Feel free to cut the tree down.

You have never seen what the Sash Guy and others can do with the old windows.  Once repaired and properly fitting, they add insulation at all the points where you usually see energy leaking.  The new windows are superior in energy efficiency, but they are also very expensive compared to refurbishing and adding insulation to the old windows.  On a cost basis, there is very little advantage to replacing v. refurbishing/insulating the existing windows because the new windows are so expensive by comparison. 

Actually I have seen what they do... and while nice, you can't change the insulation value of the glass...  a house like mine with a crap ton (technical term) of glass will never be able to get close to what it would if I used modern windows.  Let's not even get in to the whole single pane "sweating" issue and problems that can arise from them.  On a "cost basis" it would be very advantagous if people didn't have to jump through stupid hoops to change out their freaking windows. 

Red I have a question...  let's say I changed out some windows in the back of my house... a nosy neighbor calls it in but the work is all done on Saturday... how can the city get through my fences to see the work?  Would they actually get a warrant to get on to my property or do they have some other mechanism to penalize you for denial of access?  I've always been baffled by this...

which is why my window may or may not miraculously change over the weekend...  got it.

This is rediculous.  I think the new slogan should be   "HAHC wants to kill Polar Bears"

(my gross exaggeration is almost as rediculous as the HAHC)

s3mh,   you can make them better for sure (as I have done on several of my current house's and my brother's old bungalow), but compared to new windows... not even close.  It is laughable that you even think it is comparable.  I have 20 windows in my 1300 sq. ft house... one of them being ~ 8' tall by 10' wide.  This one was added at some point (probably in the 50-60s judging by its style).  If I was in the district, would I need to get a COA to replace that one?  I also have several triple windows  (three windows in one set with the middle being slightly bigger) that are orginal.  These are the kinds of windows that would greatly benefit from upgrading.  Yes you can (and I do) use thermal curtains and have blinds and etc., but now in a roundabout way i'm being told how to decorate...

the hiding it behind the pile of dirt makes this hillarious. 

I think the pricing is good, as long as they are finished nicely.  Hopefully this will be a catalyst to get rid of those crappy buildings on the other side of the Church Condo's Parking Gymnasium as well as the crappy apartments on the corner of beauchamp and pecore. 

And thanks for ignoring my primary point and continuing on with your bull-headed desire to prove that your house is only worth $155k.  Again, an off-market, short sale is simply not a good comp, no matter how badly you might want to lower your taxes.  If you want to waste your time on such a mission, have at it.  ;-)

 

I would suggest using O'Connor or one of the other companies that does tax appraisal protests.  They usually charge you 50% of the savings for the year of the reduction they achieve for you.  You might be able to get them to reduce the rate.  http://www.poconnor.com/

 

 

Another thought:  Be careful what you wish for.  While you are right that the land on the even numbered side of Pecore is consistently valued higher than the land on the odd-numbered side.  The improvements on the odd numbered side appear to be consistently valued higher than those on the even numbered side.  It's possible that HCAD will notice that in the process of your protest and end up raising your improvements value. . .

I'm just trying to get to the low 300s...  cool story.

compared to most construction of similar buildings, I'd thought almost the opposite... 

Exactly... but fringe streets shouldn't go up as much as the interior of Woodland Heights especially when it makes the neighborhood they border have land value half of the Woodland Heights value.  My arguement is my land is not worth as much as that in interior Woodland Heights, yet it has been raised to that same value.  If that was factual, I would have bought in the interior of the neighborhood when I bought my house.

227 is just the land...  the tax appraisal for the property with improvements a good bit over 300. 

No,  I said sold for like $155k because I'm able to see a range of 150-160 but I don't know the final details on the price.  As Mark showed, maybe you don't have to be a realtor to get that information but a realtor would know where to get it. 

Thanks for focusing on one small segment of what has been said that is somewhat off-topic and providing no meaningful contribution to the thread.

anyways... I filed an online protest, so lets see how the city responds. 

Would there be a way for a several of us impacted by this tax hike to work together to increases our chances to get the city to listen?

It sold by owner.. I just didn't have access to see the sales information (i'm sure realtors would, and HCAD did have it and pretended to take it into consideration)

Your "comp" 3 houses down is not a good comp.  It does make sense to use a more-distant market sale rather than a closer non-market sale.

so the house in great shape on the most desired street in the entire neighborhood is a good comp.  good call. 

Yeah... i gave an example of a house 3 houses down from me that sold for like $155k.  (it was a short sale and never listed on HAR, if i'd have known about it I would have gobbled it up at that price for sure) that was the same size lot, house, and grade as mine.  They pulled a comp on Bayland that sold for a premium...  yeah that makes sense.

Yeah... my wife and I were joking that they should have taken design advice from McDonalds as their rock work looks much better. 

It is not just the round rocks Inappropriateness though, I'm pretty sure that fence would look terrible anywhere.

when I looked at homes in that area 6 years ago,  I was told the city was going to have that issue fixed in the next year.   

I drove by again today... my goodness that fence is hideous.  The whole scale is off..  the larger rocks they used to face the columns just look weird with the column height/size and the plain metal fencing.  My wife thinks it is the grout they used (because of the size of the rocks there is a lot of grout) that makes them so ugly.  Seriously it is terrible.

You would think there has to be some leeway for when land on the south side of a street is worth 100% more than land on the north side.  A potential buyer would not give two craps about which side of the street the house is on.