WAZ

Nancy Sarnoff had two articles yesterday about the Sharpstown Mall. RAIT Financial Trust wants to renovate the mall; and the J.C. Penney Building at the Sharpstown Mall has been sold. I’ve already given my thoughts on the Sharpstown Mall. A gut-renovation would be a great thing, and workable (if it’s done right). But refurbishing the Mall is just one step towards improving the area.

Here’s something else we could do: The City of Houston could buy the Gilman property in Sharpstown, and relocate the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation to that site. The City could then sell the Center’s current campus, on Allen Parkway in River Oaks.

The City estimates the land on Allen Parkway is worth $26 million - compared with HCAD’s assessment of $7.4 million for the Gillman property. They currently collect taxes on the Gillman property, but only get a $1 a year lease for the Allen Parkway site. If the City traded the two, they’d make $18.6 million from the sale and then increase their tax revenue forever.

The Carnival Night Club tried to build on the Gillman property in 2005, but the effort was derailed by neighborhood concerns. They still own the land, but they can’t do anything with it. If the City bought the property, the night club would be a dead issue. And surely what was good for River Oaks, will be good enough for Sharpstown.

Bill White tried to kick the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation off Allen Parkway in 2007. He cited the City charter to terminate their lease. Bill White’s scheme didn’t give them an alternative location, and it would have meant the end of the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation. In this scheme, The Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation could get a brand new campus – paid for by the City. It could be a huge improvement for them: a state of the art facility to replace their old buildings on Allen Parkway.

It would be great to renovate the Sharpstown Mall. But let’s not forget the big, vacant piece of land just down the road. Moving the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation to Sharpstown could free up an ideally located piece of land in River Oaks, and could make the City a ton of money - not to mention improving Sharpstown.

<br clear="all"> http://www.offthekuf...ves/009125.html

Will there actually be a bus stop at the corner? Or is it just there to make the rendering look good?

According to the Houston Chronicle, Galveston is up in arms over the reconstruction of 569 units of public housing. Of course Galveston should build back 569 low-cost housing units. But many of the issues surrounding low-cost housing are lost in the debate. In fact, some major issues are missing from the Redevelopment Plan published by the Housing Authority of Galveston.

Education. “More than 75 percent of the homes [on the Island] sustained damage. After the hurricane, 1,900 students were displaced and did not re-enroll at the Galveston Independent Schools.” (page 10). Surely Galveston’s schools were also damaged by Hurricane Ike, and it is imperative that Galveston rebuild its schools. Education is especially important to low-income Islanders. It is key to ending the cycle of poverty. But the Housing Authority’s Plan offers little beyond GED preparation courses.

Transit. According to the Plan, about a third of the tenants of new public housing in Galveston will have incomes less than $19,150. (figure, page 54). Tenants in that income bracket may not have automobiles. They will rely on Island Transit to get around. But there are few provisions for transit in the Plan.

Crime. This is a huge concern in low-cost housing. It could have a whole chapter in the Plan. But the word “crime” appears only five times in 109 pages. The Plan calls for Community Policing, and various programs to mitigate crime. It appears to call for CPTED (crime prevention through environmental design,) but does not include security officers or police patrols.

To be fair, none of these things are directly under the control of the Housing Authority of Galveston. Police patrols are the domain of the Galveston Police Department. The Galveston Independent School District is in charge of rebuilding schools. Island Transit handles transit in Galveston. But partnerships should be included to address crime, education, and transit in Galveston’s low-cost housing.

Galveston should build back 569 units of safe, quality, low-cost housing. It should be a model for low-cost housing nationwide; not the old-fashioned, crime ridden public housing projects that we all know and fear. It looks like this is the goal of the Housing Authority of Galveston’s Redevelopment Plan. But they’re glossing over some key elements.

houston has debated zoning since the 20's if not before. the 90's was the 4th attempt to get it passed.

the problem with the attempt in the 90's was that the ordinance tried to do more than maintain the character of neighborhoods, it gave developers an advantage. the planning dept hired donna kristaponis to lead the effort who was from denver and wasn't interested in maintaining the character of neighborhoods. her requirements for buffer zones, etc were just not realistic and placed burdens on property owners.

Thanks for the clarification, and I apologize for my error. This article (http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/houston-says-no-to-zoning/) says the 1993 attempt was the third. The first was 1948, and then 1962. Any specifics on the 1920s debate?

History repeats itself.

New York City passed its first zoning ordinance in 1916, after a 20 year debate. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the Equitable Building in lower Manhattan. A 38 story hulk of a building, with 1.2 million square feet on less than an acre of land – the Equitable Building was a lightning rod for criticism. It was a symbol of greedy development: towering over its neighbors; blocking views; casting shadows; turning streets into dark mazes; lowering property values.

If all of this sounds familiar, it should. Houston has debated zoning since the early 1990s. Our debate began almost exactly a century after the start of New York’s. The Ashby High Rise is garnering much of the same criticism as the Equitable Building. If we aren’t careful, it just might tip the scales to bring zoning to Houston.

Since 1916, New York City’s zoning ordinance has grown into a beast. At 3,000 pages, it’s larger than the International Building Code.[ii] It’s hard to see any benefits in an ordinance that big. You can’t really argue that zoning by itself made New York great. Much of New York was developed before zoning started in 1916; and the City is surrounded by water and old growth suburbs. And New York’s zoning ordinance doesn’t always prevent fights over development. October 19 saw another lawsuit over the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards Development.

We have the opportunity in Houston to write innovative laws that help maintain the character of neighborhoods, without being a burden to architects and developers. The Ashby High Rise is Houston’s Equitable Building, but that doesn’t mean we should have the same response.

<br clear="all"> Willis, Carol, Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago, Princeton Architectural Press, 1995. Pp. 67-69

[ii] New York City Zoning Ordinance – Zoning Text: http://www.nyc.gov/h.../zonetext.shtml

I find it hard to believe that the poor are not forced out of gentrifying neighborhoods. I've seen more than one neighborhood activist decrying the loss of a poorer neighborhood's demographic character as redevelopment and wealthier residents move in. And in economic terms, rents are only going to go up as the neighborhood gentrifies. The poorer members of a neighborhood are only going to be able to remain if rents remain fairly low and/or they own the property the live in before prices start to rise. If the studies show the opposite, I think you'd need to delve into them further to see what assumptions and constraints are implicit in the research.

According to Lance Freedman and Jacob Vigdor, people already leave non-gentrified neighborhoods. People DO leave gentrified neighborhoods, (some maybe were priced out). But not more than would leave if the neighborhood weren't gentrified.

Of course you can't point to one neighborhood and say 'that's where all the poor people went'. Unless there are only two neighborhoods in the city, residents are going to move to various other locations depending on all kinds of personal reasons.

This is why I made the post. My observation is that Houston's poorest neighborhoods languish in part because people wrongly think "if you fix up THAT neighborhood, ALL THOSE people are going to come HERE." It's really frustrating to me, as an architect and a Houstonian.

Gentrification benefits the neighborhood and homeowners, but not pre-existing renters, who are more likely to be poor and minority.

The benefits of gentrification are for everyone. Renters and homeowners are able to walk the streets safely. Students benefit from better funded schools - whether their parents own or rent. City services improve for everyone. The list goes on.

Jobs also arrive with gentrification. Renters can increase their incomes by taking those jobs - and thereby afford higher rents. This was part of Freedman and Vigdor's research.

The word “Gentrification” conjures up all sorts of negative images. Historic houses demolished for Mcmansions. Mom and pop stores replaced by Starbucks. Poor people forced out by rising rents. There’s also the misconception that if neighborhood ‘a’ is gentrified, all the poor people will move to neighborhood ‘b’ – in turn ruining it.

The last complaints have been proven wrong by urban planning professor Lance Freeman and economist Jacob Vigdor. Their research shows that few residents are actually forced from neighborhoods as a result of gentrification. People move away, but not in greater numbers than move from non-gentrifying neighborhoods.

In fact, their research suggested that gentrification can actually make it more likely that people will stay. That’s because gentrification has benefits. Businesses move in – and with them jobs. The tax base increases. Crime decreases. The schools improve. The same forces that attract the rich to a gentrified neighborhood, also encourage the poor to stay.

This should come as no surprise. Look at a neighborhood that has gentrified. You can’t point to another neighborhood and say “that’s where all the poor people went.” But people want to leave bad neighborhoods – and when they can, they do.

Cities are dynamic things. Gentrifying one neighborhood doesn’t mean ruining another. Quite the contrary. Gentrification benefits people in their own neighborhoods. We shouldn’t be afraid of it.

<br clear="all"> “Gentrification a boost for everyone” – USA Today, 2005

An article in the New York Times made my blood boil. The headline reads “Housing Battle Reveals Post-Katrina Tensions ,”and the article is little more than a two-page accusation of racism against thepeople of St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans.

Neighbors are oftenaccused of racism when they fight unwanted development. It happened a few months ago here in Houston,when neighbors fought the Harris County Hospital District’s effort to buy MemorialHermann Southwest. (Never mind thatthese neighbors have chosen to livein one of the most diverse, ethnic partsof the City).

The accusations are often raised by advocates who didn’t get theirway. (In the case of St. Bernard Parishit was David Jarrell, a lawyer for one of the projects’ supporters.) They are a convenient way to ignore the realissues. Low-cost housing has a long andstoried history – including such notable failures as the Cabrini Green andRobert Taylor Homes in Chicago. Byaccusing St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans of racism, Mr. Jarrell doesn’t haveto answer to that history.

It was the same with Memorial Hermann Southwest. Neighbors were at first open-minded to thesale. They hoped for improvements in thehospital. But the Harris County HospitalDistrict never promised improvements, and when the doctors threatened to leave,neighbors feared they would lose the hospital. These concerns were brushed aside with accusations of racism.

The residents of Southwest Houston won their battle against a horribleidea. Time will tell in St. BernardParish. But please remember two things. First, we all want the same thing – safe, vibrantneighborhoods in which to live and work. It’s wrong to call that racist. Second, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

<br clear="all"> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/us/04housing.html?hpw

Anyone know if there's a state statutory limit on the fines a city like Houston can impose for an ordinance violation?

Excellent point. It appears there is a state imposed limit on fines for dangerous buildings, and it is $2,000.

http://www.courts.state.tx.us/pubs/AR97/muni/mncascat.htm

That being the case, Houston ought to approach the state and see about changing it. I'll bet we'd have other big Texas cities on our side. They have many of the same problems we do with dangerous buildings.

The Savoy Hotel is being demolished this weekend, after tenyears of neglect. That building washigh-profile, but there are many dangerous buildings in Houston. Not all of them are demolished before someonegets hurt. Two children died lastsummer, crushed by a collapsing staircase at the Westwood Fountains ApartmentComplex.

Dangerous buildings are addressed in Chapter 10 of Houston’sCode of Ordinances . Chapter 10 isenforced by the Neighborhood Protection Corps. They bring their cases before the Building and StandardsCommission. Unfortunately, $2,000 is themaximum fine for a violation under Chapter 10, and that’s too low to get theattention of big owners.

There were certainly countless fines levied on the SavoyHotel, adding up to perhaps tens of thousands of dollars. But the owners didn’t react until they saw$1/2 million in demolition fees. Untilthat endgame, it was cheaper for them to pay the fines than to make theirbuilding safe. The owners of theWestwood Fountains Apartments had been fined for several code violations beforethe staircase collapse. They paid thefines, but never fixed the stairs. It’sthe same story all over Houston.

Dangerous buildings should have no place in our City. The Savoy Hotel was demolished before anyonecould get hurt. Two children died at theWestwood Fountains Apartment Complex. Let’s increase the maximum fines on dangerous buildings. Make owners take note. Make it cheaper to fix things than to pay thefines.

They should make it a point to define SW Houston as everything West of Hillcroft.....

'SW Houston' is such a huge area, you can't just reduce it to 'the area southof Westheimer, west of Hillcroft, and north of South Main'. Even in that area there are many, varied, diverse neighborhoods.

They really need to stop using 'SW Houston' altogether, and start defining neighborhoods. If something happens in Alief, call it Alief. If it's in Gulfton, call it Gulfton.

Have a look at this article from the Boston Globe.

http://www.boston.co...ical_condition/

They define specific neighborhoods. Dorchester is Dorchester; not 'SW Boston.' If only Houston's news outlets did the same.

The Boston Globe also has a homicide map, http://www.boston.co...ders_in_boston/ - There have been grass-roots efforts at a Houston homicide map, but none of the major news outlets in town seem interested.

The Chronicle ran the headline today, “Recent shootings in southwest Houston terrify residents .”

I live in SouthwestHouston. I’m not terrified. Of course I live nowhere near the shootings,but you wouldn’t know it to read the Chronicle’s reporting.

Perhaps I should be happy that the Chronicle spelled out “Southwest”in their headline. Often they shorten itto ‘SW.’ Nobody really knows where ‘SW’Houston starts and stops. At times ithas included Uptown and even Montrose . Southwest Houston covers a huge area. A low estimate is that there are nearly 250,000 people living on 53square miles here.

The geographic size of Southwest Houston exaggerates thecrime that does occur here. Thetemptation is to view Southwest Houston as a single, condensed, crimeriddenneighborhood. That misconception couldhave a terrible effect on this part of the City. If government follows the reporting, then itsresources will be spread too thin. Developersdon’t want to build in places with bad reputations, so they’ll neglect the area. This is to say nothing of the frustrationfaced by civic leaders, whose efforts are flushed down the toilet with every ‘SW’Houston headline.

If only reporters could identify neighborhoods in SouthwestHouston. There are maps to use. It shouldn’t be very difficult, and thebenefits will be tremendous.

<br clear="all">LudemDocument, Population Study: For populationand area figures, Southwest Houston is considered the combination of studyareas 8 and 9. http://www.houstontx...ocument_all.pdf

As an architecture intern/arch student, my school experience is quite the opposite.I've spent many a semesters doing community oriented projects, adherence to vernacular customs & creating historical continuity, etc. Shoot, I even did a day labor center to organize residents in the Gulfton area.

The thing about "feeling threatened" for a homeowner is that, currently, preemptive actions would violate the rights of the new land owners freedom to build as needed/desired. There should never be a hierarchy of rights distribution. To forfeit the experiment of Houston IMO would be a great loss to humanity akin to the burning of the library of Alexandria. Is it heartless to say that people should move if they don't like how their neighborhoood is changing?

And then the issue is vast in terms of threshold, i.e. what makes a project big enough to qualify for preview. What typologies are subject to, and then what about mixed typologies, special rules? It gets so complicated immediately.

By human nature, if hearings are instituted, developers would learn how to game the system of expectations by bartering down the public by proposing the absurd and whittling it down to what they really wanted to begin with. I foresee market distortion at best and insulated corruption at worst.

I don’t think “heartless” is the right word for it. “Encouraging of sprawl” is a better way todescribe the “don’t like it – move” argument. Population growth has been the primary factor for Houston’s sprawl, butit doesn’t help that people are constantly being told to move. If we want to curb sprawl, one thing weshould do is make it easier for people to stay in their old neighborhoods.

Architects like us help to put buildings in neighborhoodswhere we don’t live. Can we claim tohave as much to lose as the people who live there? Shouldn’t their interests be given at leastas much weight as ours and those of outside developers? Or should we and our developer clients keeptelling them to move out to the suburbs?

I am proposing hearings for high-rises and buildingscontaining hazardous occupancies. Bothare defined in the International Building Code and City of HoustonAmendments. A building either falls intothose categories, or it doesn’t. I amalso proposing hearings for developments with more than 200 residential unitson a single piece of land. That’s asimple count.

The goal with the hearings is that neighborhood concernscould be taken into account during the value engineering process. The impact on buildings might be noticeable,but the impact on the design process should be minimal. There shouldn’t be any more insulatedcorruption or market distortion than there already is. In fact, there could be less, sincedevelopers would have to be more up-front about their proposals.

I believe the status quo needs to be defended in this particular matter. It one of the few things that truly makes Houston unique compared to any other major city. Please work within this system, it is probably the most important ongoing urban experiment in America and only the unfettered lives of residents can execute this phenomena. Having walked plenty of permits over the years, I can say the process could be improved but not so much the paradigm.

The real foul taste in my mouth is that the political clout of one neighborhood can influence the political dialog and the politicians, who have turned a blind eye to their obligations to all of their constituents. Do not oil squeaky wheels, fix your drive train; meaning, stick to the status quo or have a referendum to enact zoning. Anything in between is a compromise that only complicates the process, is reactionarily ad hoc, and in turn drives up costs, real or perceived. Neighborhoods already have consensual contracts in the form of deed restrictions that effectively govern land use and form. Also the gov't naturally zones by way of infrastructure allocation. We are not land locked. Negative consequences from buildings/land use are acceptable in that the horizontal spread of Houston has granted the metro a plethora of equivalent land. We demo unacceptable buildings daily. Do not concede to the NIMBY's an inch, they will take a mile. The case studies of this type of human behavior are virtually endless and all have the similar result of an increasing amount of control by society and a decrease of control by the property owner. Houston has had it's societal balance for some time now and to great effect. A compromise as described by the OP is the foothold necessary for grassroots or astroturf campaigns to effectively enact development calcification. The only issues neighbors need to concern themselves with or should be allowed to voice are the impacts to their land use; ie pollution, accessability, crime etc. Granted that eminent domain for infrastructural purposes is a very painful process (another debate), but in the case of neighbor to neighbor issues, these should be handled by the appropriate court system after rights infringements have occurred.

You can not own a view in 3-d space, you can own the land below and the air space above however. The messy vitality of Houston is something people should not be so shallow towards and it simply highlights the weakness of average folks who are stuck in the visceral vacuum of post modern life.

As an architect, I was taught all about those evil NIMBYs. It wasn’t until I got involved in Civic Clubsand Super Neighborhoods that I saw the other side to it. We all want the same thing – safe, vibrantneighborhoods in which to live and work; stable property values. All too often, people in Houston feel that those things are threatened.

The problem is that when neighbors feel threatened, they putpressure on elected officials. If electedofficials are under enough pressure, they attack the development. The Ashby High Rise got the most press, butit was the same story with the Magnolia Glen Homeless Shelter, and the SCCConcrete Crushing Plant in Sunnyside. Unfortunately,by the time the City attacks the development, it’s often too late fordevelopers to call it off. And unless developers meet with neighborhoods attheir own volition, it’s impossible for them to know whether the City willattack their development .

Hearings would allow developers to gage neighborhoodconcerns about their projects – and still have time to alter or back out of theprojects. They won’t have so muchinvested in A/E fees and they won’t have signed contracts. Developers would know ahead of time whetheror not the City might attack their project. They could go into projects much more confident than they are.

Regarding “calcification” of development if there are hearings. It’s been raised before, and I don’t think it’s something to be worried about. Developers still use TDHCA grantsto build housing, even with the hearings. I'm not suggesting hearings for every little house and fastfood joint that goes up in Houston – just three kinds of development that have a big impact on the City.

I must close by saying, I do like how you described Houston: "messy vitality." Very nice. :-)

The Smart Code has been proposed in response to the AshbyHigh Rise as a way to solve Houston’s development problems. Planners like it because it is based in SmartGrowth. Developers like it because theyassume it would make the City much more predictable in which projects itfights. But while the SmartCode would have helped in the Ashby High Rise case,it would not address the greater problem of development in Houston.

The SmartCode is a form-based code. It differs from traditional zoning because itdoes not concentrate on land use. Formwas the fundamental problem with theAshby High Rise, so it’s easy to see how the idea came up. But not all development is unwanted becauseof its form. The Magnolia Glen Homelessshelter would have been acceptable to the SmartCode – despite seriousneighborhood concerns. In that case,neighborhood concerns were not about the form of the building, but its use.

Traditional zoning would be more effective than theSmartCode in situations like the Magnolia Glen, because it governs land use aswell as form. But a zoning ordinance isa non-starter in Houston. The absence ofzoning has helped make this an affordable place to live and do business, not tomention property rights lobbyists and political opposition to zoning.

Fortunately there is a simple alternative. We could require public hearings for certaintypes of projects, like high rises, hazardous occupancy buildings, and largeresidential developments. Non-bindinghearings would allow neighbors to speak and be heard, and developers to gagepublic sentiment on their projects. TheCity should not decide to issue or deny permits based solely on these hearings,but developers could use them to help decide to go through with projects. If the hearings were held early enough,neighborhood concerns could be taken into consideration during the designprocess, and developers would face only minimal losses if they backed out.

There is precedent for this kind of hearing. The Texas Department of Housing and CommunityAffairs (TDHCA) holds hearings to help decide who gets tax grants for low costhousing. The benefits are numerous. Neighbors feel satisfied that their concernsare heard. Developers are not blindsidedby eleventh hour opposition. If we broughthearings like these to more types of development, fights like the Ashby HighRise and Magnolia Glen could be athing of the past.

The New York Times carried an Op-Ed piece last week aboutthe “Hero architects”: The New York Five - Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk andRichard Meier. The article came on theheels of the death of Charles Gwathmey, and was a testament to the death of NewYork as a center of avant-garde architecture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/arts/design/24five.html?_r=2&ref=nyregion

There are lots of reasons for New York’s loss ofarchitectural prominence. Too manybureaucratic controls on building. Toohigh a cost of living for young architects. A hostile climate of criticism and historic preservation. Los Angeles was a much freer place to workand live, and so it had the next generation of prominent architects - FrankGehry, Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, Robert Mangurian, Craig Hodgetts - went there instead.

But that next generation is starting to get old. Frank Gehry, like Michael Graves, keepscranking out the same work. Thom Mayneand all the rest are still writing and their work is still evolving– butthey’re no longer the edgy young architects who grace the cover ofmagazines.

We can start to ask “who next?” We can also start to ask “where next?

Why not Houston? Thisis perhaps the most affordable of the large, American cities. In the late 1990s, students at Rice were ableto buy a warehouse and start a metal fabrication shop. Metalab has since morphed into anarchitectural studio, for better or worse. One has to ask: could studentsafford their own metal shop in New York, or even Los Angeles? Houston’s real estate prices allow for suchthings.

Houston’s schools of architecture compare favorably to thosein New York and Los Angeles. The RiceSchool of Architecture stands as a premier school of architecture theory. The Gerald D. Hines College of Architectureat the University of Houston offers a first rate education in architecturaldesign. The Texas A&M College ofArchitecture is at the forefront of construction sciences. The Rice Design Alliance and the Houston Mod, among others, are valuable resources for art and architecture.

Granted, there are hurdles facing Houston if it wants to behome to the next generation of “Hero architects.” We are a very free city for building. There is no zoning ordinance here. But architects don’t seem to take advantageof that the way developers do. Too oftenarchitects blindly do what the client wants - no matter how boring. Houstondoesn’t have the same zeitgeist as Seattle. People don’t think ‘Houston’ when they think avant-garde architecture.

But the possibility is still there. Houston is well placed to be a mecca of avantgarde architecture. We can take advantage of the freedoms that come with not having a zoning ordinance. We have top ranked architecture schools, and anaffordable, healthy market that should attract the best architects. Maybe the next generation of “Hero Architects”will be ours.

I might be the only one on this forum to say it - but I feel for the neighborhoods around the Ashby High Rise. The building would be better suited to the Upper Kirby District. It is WAY out of scale for Southampton and Boulevard Oaks. It fronts on minor streets and will create gridlock. Some homes will lose sunlight at certain times. And now that the permit has been granted, there's nothing they can really do.

.

The Ashby High Rise is a perfect example of how Houston needs to listen more to neighbors. Call these neighbors NIMBYs if you want, but in a city without zoning, we need a better mechanism for neighborhoods to voice their concerns over projects that impact them.

I used to work in Midtown. One day, I saw this homeless guy plunk himself down on the sidewalk, take out a needle, and shoot up right there - in plain view of a busy intersection.

Not surprised by the stories of people chasing cars around there.

I concur that not all apartments are low-cost. However, the vast majority of them cost less on a per square foot basis than single-family housing of comparable location and age. Clearly there are exceptions, however those most frequently occur in areas such as that are beyond the scope of this conversation to begin with (like Downtown or Midtown).

True. But that really doesn't have anything to do with what I'm saying.

There is a correlation between physical and sociological problems because physically deficient apartments cannot command high rental rates, attracting a tenant base that reflects persons willing to live in crappy apartments such as is disproportionately likely to tear the place up and commit crime. But not for subsidized housing, I would venture to say that indeed low-cost housing must in fact reflect that that housing is in some way inferior to higher-cost housing, whether that is because of a physical deficiency, a sociological deficiency, or just because it happens to be poorly-located. Furthermore, to the extent that problems are related to poor management, then that is a maladaptive strategy within the context of capitalism, and by one means or another those problems are likely to be resolved.

Throwing subsidized housing into the mix, as is the case in real life, your statement is accurate. The truth of that statement fails to justify the existence of subsidized housing programs, however, IMO. And it certainly fails to consider that the subsidy is exhausted each and every fiscal year, incapable of even coming close to satiating the demand for it on the part of landlords.

My point is that there's low-cost housing - what you might call 'crappy apartments' - and then there are SLUMS. If you got out of your developers' office and went around to look at some of Houston's worst apartments - you'd see what I mean. These aren't places that are just poorly located, or lack a pool, or have bad parking. These are places with mold problems, structural problems, raw sewage flowing above ground.... These are places where a police officer can get shot and nobody helps because they are afraid of getting shot themselves.

See the above point about the nature of capitalism. Owners that can't compete effectively cease being owners. The nature of competition, however, is such that there is an equilibrium level of maintenance that ought to be performed...maybe it isn't necessary to power wash the sidewalks every six months or to attempt to scrape every piece of chewing gum off the pavement. Maybe the surrounding three apartment complexes, which all look the same as the subject property, are willing to lease units month to month without running background checks...and maybe the subject property is in an area with basically no hope for gentrification...is it preferable to endure high vacancy rates perpetually to achieve a goal whose impact is undermined because the complexes next door leased to the prospects that you rejected, and those former prospects are continuing to ruin the neighborhood with or without your expressed written consent to live in it? And seeing as how you weren't even aware of a Tax Credit program for the renovation of existing properties, how do you know that any given landlord hasn't applied for it and been rejected, seeing as how there's only so much money to go around in any given fiscal year? More likely, the landlord is aware of it but doesn't bother with the (expensive) paperwork because they know that the odds of getting a subsidy are too low.

Often slums sit next door to low-cost apartments that are perfectly fine. As is the case in my neighborhood. By your logic this should never happen. If one apartment is a slum, the neighbor must automatically be a slum. Right?

Why is it that good landlords can only possibly be identified by the owners of single-family homes nearby? And what make you all the arbiters of all that is good and just in the world?

We have to live here, like tenants. And we own, like landlords. That's what makes neighboring homeowners concerned.

We spend a longer period of time here than the tenants or the landlords. We can witness the changes that happen, over time, after an apartment complex is bought or sold. What's more - we can't be evicted us for speaking up, the way they can evict tenants who speak up about problems.

Being a residential landlord is the most thankless job I've ever witnessed. Thankfully I've never had to have been on the property management side of the business.

Being a GOOD residential landlord is the most thankless job. But not all residential landlords give a damn. The ones who care, generally have decent properties. It's the ones that don't care that we have to worry about.

Oh, of course! If only things reeked less of desperation, then people would be less desperate and commit less crime. It has nothing at all to do with upbringing, ethnicity, education, job opportunities, individuals' intelligence levels, or mental health. It's because the management company forgot to rotate out the perrenials going into the Fall season.

You're painting with a very broad brush. Even in the worst apartment complexes, you'll find the majority of people really care about themselves and their properties. It's a handfull of tenants, who are there because the landlord let them in - who sit outside drinking all day long and intimidating passersby. Most tenants do their best to keep apartments clean. Often it's the common areas - that SHOULD be taken care of by the landlord and management, that have gone to hell. I know because unlike you, I live next door to one of these places.

Say that the owner of a large apartment complex on Chimney Rock decided to demolish and redevelop their apartment complex as single-family lots. Never mind for the moment that lots aren't selling anymore. You want to own a brand new $700,000 home. Why would you want to be surrounded by Little El Salvador when there are so many better options? Is Gulfton even zoned to Bellaire schools?

I know you hate the thought, but there ARE bad landlords out there. And bad landlords own slum properties. They NEED to be dealt with. We NEED to fix up those slums. And it doesn't have to be $700,000 homes. It could be new, low-cost apartments built by you and your friends. It could be a new elementary school and park. It could be retail. Anything is better than a slum apartment complex.

There's probably someone on HAIF (you know who you are) who would be a better expert opinion on why slummy apartments in this submarket aren't being targeted by developers for teardown. In addition to the reasons that I'm about to explain, there's usually a back story regarding the seller's way of thinking that I'm not privy to (since I'm usually coming from the buyer's side). I'm willing to bet that sellers were thinking something along the lines of that "cap rates on Class C and D properties got very low, so they tried to cash out, but got greedy expecting for there to be a redevelopment trend and most couldn't get a fish that would bite at such high prices for such a crappy area; others were probably too late to the party."

Here's the redeveloper's/buyer's perspective on why the Gulfton submarket sucks cellulite-ridden stretch-marked ass:

Once you're west of the Bellaire city limits, there are so many crappy apartment complexes so close together that there's not a single place where a developer could knock down and re-build and in so doing change the character of the area enough to entice young professionals to live there at rents such as would be suitable to justify the construction. This differs from inner loop neighborhoods because they were built out mostly as subdivisions with apartment complexes scattered throughout. If there's a crappy apartment complex that has been a blight upon a neighborhood for a long time, you can knock it down and without even building anything immediately have raised the profile of the neighborhood and increased everyone's land values. Don't get me wrong, this is not by itself a viable business model; whatever land value increase is achievable through demolition of a slum cannot entirely make up for the loss of the value of the improvements on the property or the cost of demolition. But it does illustrate how there are synergies from the act of demolishing crap in a a neighborhood and making that neighborhood appealing to yuppies in the near future; this could not be achieved if more crappy apartments were just right next door.

Also, whereas the inner loop apartment complexes that have gotten knocked down are typically not especially dense, the complexes in the Gulfton submarket have many more units per acre. Because they're so much more compact and intensively developed, there's a higher opportunity cost to knocking it all down. To replace something so dense as these apartments with something so much less dense as townhomes wouldn't have been possible.

But all these comments apply best to the area just on the western fringe of Bellaire. Once you get up along Renwick, you're so far into the jungle that it's just absurd to think that development on vacant land, much less already built-out land would be viable. Nobody with the means to live in new-construction residences wants to be surrounded by little El Salvador.

At the same time, if you ignore the apartments for a minute, and look at the single family houses, you'll see a lot of activity just past Bellaire. Meyerland, to the south, is almost as rich as Bellaire, and the money's spreading west to my own neighborhood and south to Westbury. The movement has lessened somewhat with the bad economy, but it will start again when things pick up. People with money -WANT- to live close to downtown and uptown - and they're looking for places that are still affordable where they can do that.

Most of those places also came out of the same broad set of conditions and happenstances that gave us Gulfton, so I think that Red's point still has merit.

So what do you propose be done, who do you propose pays for it, and where do you propose that the existing undesirable population live (if not in the existing crappy apartments)?

I've written at length about what I think the City government should do to fix slummy apartment complexes. I won't go into that here. I just want to point out a few things I've observed about low-cost housing, apartments, and slums.

First, not all apartments are low-cost. Not all low-cost housing is slums. My observations are that true slums account for only a small portion of Houston's low-cost housing stock. (Niche, please correct me if your numbers contradict).

Second, you have to differentiate between slums and good low-cost housing. This should go without saying but in the apartment debate it doesn't. Good low-cost housing might need a coat of paint, but there are no broken windows or fences, the roof is in good repair, the power is reliable, the plumbing works, and the buildings are structurally sound and up to code. Crime rates are no higher than the community at large, and neighbors can feel safe walking in and by the property. Slums by contrast often have broken windows, broken fences, leaky roofs, intermittent power, structural and code problems. Not every slum has all of these problems, but usually they have two or more, and often the crime rates at slums are astronomical.

Third, a lot of it has to do with the owners. Ownership makes a huge difference in apartments. Upstanding landlords keep up maintenance, use tax credits, screen out bad tenants, and look to make steady, long-term returns on their investments. Good landlords are professionals who are easy to find and attentive to neighbors' concerns. Slum lords take as much money as they can out of their properties, defer maintenance, keep units occupied by renting to anyone who'll pay, sometimes skip out on taxes, and look for big, short term financial gains no matter what the outcome. Slum lords are fly-by-night operators who are often hard to find, because they don't want to be found.

As I've said before, there are a lot of things I wish the City would do about slum apartments. When I say that I'm talking about real slums, and real slum lords - as I hope I defined here. We can't knock down all the apartments in Houston, and there will always be low-cost housing in Houston. But we can and we should demand that all of our city's slums be fixed or demolished.

The fact presented in your first sentence is false, and your thesis statement is a broad-brushed generalization.

1. We already do. Contact HPD's public relations folks for further details. There are also multiple Chronicle articles on the subject.

2. OK, so apparently your name is not Hubert Vo. The City is already becoming increasingly strict and was never blind to the problems presented by substandard housing. Condemnation is a last resort, usually unnecessary, however it is a tool in the box. And the City is not afraid to use it.

3. The fines discussed in the City of Houston's Code of Ordinances are set up to be recurring and cumulative.

4. That's reasonable enough.

5. Whatever your standard is that substandard housing isn't up to snuff, the crappiest housing is going to be the most affordable. If we get rid of the crappy cheap-as-dirt housing, where do indigent populations live? Crappy apartments don't cause criminal behavior or abject poverty, people do...wait, wasn't that part of your thesis?

6. TDHCA is not a developer. They don't "do" renovations, and must rely upon developers wanting to do renovations to submit a request for Tax Credits. TDHCA can modify the point system such that renovation plans are favored over new construction, however it is not lawful for them to cherry-pick the type of projects that they consider to be worthy over those that they consider to be less worthy.

On another note, that you haven't seen that any renovations have been done in Houston does not mean that they don't happen. My database (which is mostly complete, but certainly not all-encompassing) counts 90 Tax Credit (excluding seniors housing) apartment complexes in the Houston region encompassing 16,575 units which were built prior to 1990, which is to say that they had most definitely been renovated.

Many elected officials would no doubt be very interested in focusing efforts on renovation over new construction. NIMBYs comprise a significant constituency.

7. You left out #7.

8. That's innocuous enough. Who pays, though?

9. I'm not a fan of how METRO does many aspects of its business, but I question how or why you believe the City of Houston would be any better at it. Also bear in mind that METRO is a regional authority, and the City of Houston is only one of its member cities.

10. I like the program, but let's not make it like LEED program. Excessive fees would discourage use.

1: This is not what my contacts at the City have said. Currently, substandard housing is addressed on a 'squeaky wheel gets the grease' basis. They want to start periodic inspections of apartments, but special interests made it so that they'd have to inspect every apartment in the City on a three year cycle. They won't be allowed to concentrate on older apartments, or properties with histories of problems. They can't afford to do it.

2: Again, this is not what my contacts at the City have said. I'll add, we should not be afraid to break up apartment complexes and condemn PORTIONS of them. In some cases it makes sense to knock down a handful of buildings in a complex for a park, or school, and refurbish the rest.

3: The fines are recurring and cumulative - and still too low. I've seen the hearings where they're imposed. Too many slum lords leave those hearings with a smirk on their face.

5: I'm not saying that lousy apartments turn people into thugs or cause poverty. Lousy apartments attract poverty because people who can afford better apartments won't rent there. To prop up occupancy, slum lords rent to anyone who can pay (including criminals and gang members). Then of course there's the visual urban blight - which depresses land values and makes propagates the cycle of poverty and crime.

It's NEVER a good idea to just warehouse the poor in slums and forget them. A better approach is to eliminate these lousy apartments, and give the poor a hand up so they can get back on their feet, and as a byproduct get better apartments. Chicago learned this first hand, and it's what they did to fix the failed Cabrini Green and Robert Taylor Homes housing projects.

6: Correct me if I'm wrong, but from my understanding, Local authorities have the opportunity to endorse or not endorse housing projects chosen for subsidies by TDHCA. All I'm suggesting is that the City have a rule whereby ONLY renovation projects are endorsed by City authorities.

To the second part of your response, I've based this on what City officials have told me (that TDHCA favors new construction) and on the fact that the hearings I've been to and seen have all been for new construction on new land. I'd love to see your database suggesting otherwise.

To the third part of your response. In many of the TDHCA hearings I've been to, neighbors have begged the developers to instead buy existing apartments and renovate them. It's simple logic. Build new subsidized housing on open land, and all you've done is make good homes for 150 working families. Buy a slum and turn it around, and you've made good homes for 150 working families, AND you've helped mitigate crime, AND you've fixed urban blight, AND you've raised the tax base. Instead of one win, you've got four.

8: If the City can fund the Super Neighborhood program, they can certainly fund a department about that size that just brokers services for apartments. The actual programs themselves would be funded by the non-profits that run them.

9: I can't figure out who METRO listens to. Houston is the biggest city served by METRO. It stands to reason that the Houston City Government should have some sway with METRO. But it doesn't seem to be that way. This is what I was driving at.

10: The value of LEED is that being "LEED Platinum" means something, and can make an owner a lot of money. If only a building could be "Blue Star Platinum," and it had as much cache. I don't think it works that way now, and it should.

I'm frustrated by those who make broad policy recommendations based from a position of ignorance, and especially by those unwilling to listen to sound advice from those trying to consider all of the different perspectives involved.

I confess it's a mistake we both make, but if you had cites that I could independently verify, I'd be much more inclined to trust the numbers you put out.

Holding back on numbers seems to be a common thing in the apartment industry. I was at a TDHCA hearing, and asked a developer if he could give me a copy of the market study for his apartment project. He was caught off guard. He asked around to his henchmen, "do we have a market study?" They said 'yes' but couldn't provide it. Were they incompetent, or did they have something to hide? Nobody knows, but I can say that their whole argument was "you should support this project because the apartments will be nicer than the apartments next door."

That's quite a dream, architect. Sadly, the structural engineer cannot stamp your drawings in good conscience.

You obviously have no idea what architects do or how they work. Engineers don't stamp architects drawings. They'd get in huge trouble if they did. So would the architects.

As frequently as I pounce on affordable housing NIMBYs on this forum, I do understand where they're coming from, even when they aren't overtly ignorant of the process related to such development. They're concerned about the long term sustainability of housing prices and such things as are reflected by housing prices (i.e. schools, perceived crime, traffic, etc.). They are especially concerned that today's affordable housing will become tomorrow's slums, a valid concern, even if the affordable housing is well-managed for the life of the Tax Credit designation. Given the nature of their long-term investment, that should be on their radar, and I don't hold anything against them for being suspicious or frustrated given the circumstances...I only pounce when they demand special treatment or jump to conclusions out of ignorance.

You're frustrated by affordable housing "NIMBYs." I'm frustrated by developers of affordable housing who miscast, fail to address, ignore, and scoff at neighborhood concerns. I'm glad you at least understand why neighbors are concerned about affordable housing. Not many people involved in affordable housing seem to.

Everything I've written about apartments is based on my observation that too many of yesterday's "luxury" apartments have become today's slums. I happen to live next door to one. You don't know what it's like to spend 13 months writing letters, making phone calls, going to meetings, and skipping work to speak in front of boards - just to beg a slum lord to repair a burned out building. But I digress.

I understand the need for affordable housing. I know it has to go somewhere. My dream as an architect is that all of those slums can, somehow, be turned into assets for our communities. By assets for our communities, I mean places where the poor can live (but NOT where criminals can live) - and where neighbors like me can feel as safe as we are on our own streets. I want to turn slums into good, safe, affordable housing

Thankfully this is already happening. Across the street from my subdivision is a complex that suffered horrible problems with crime and vagrants congregating around. Neighbors said they heard shots from there - I never did. About two years ago the property was sold. The criminals were kicked out, the property was gutted, renovated, renamed - and the difference is like night and day. Almost miraculous.

I know it's a big dream. But I want this to happen everywhere.

I apologize if this rubs you and your apartment developing friends the wrong way.

Half the population of Houston lives in apartments. But apartments have earned a terrible reputation. Some apartments are hotbeds of crime; stairs collapse on children; raw sewage runs past. These problems are only at a tiny fraction of Houston's apartments, but they have given all of the market a bad name.

There are certainly many forces that affect apartments (economics, demographics, politics, the list goes on.) But a big part of it is how the City deals with multifamily properties. As a Houstonian, an architect, a neighbor to apartments, and a former tenant in apartments - I've compiled a list. These are all things I believe the City should do, or do more of. It is based on research compiled over ten years.

1 - We should assess apartment complexes based on crime rates, code violations, and anonymous tenant surveys. Efforts should be directed where they're needed.

New York City has done something similar with its Targeted Cyclical Enforcement Program (T-CEP) - and it has gotten results.

2 - The City shouldn't be afraid to go after slum lords - to force them to shape up or sell out on their properties. Nor should we be afraid to tear down the worst apartments.

Houston’s City Legal Department is very soft-footed in general (not just on apartments). A little courage could go a long way in forcing change in bad apartment complexes. At the same time, when people are dying at complexes, or living without basic services (water, electricity, working sewers) - the City should expedite condemnation.

3 - We should increase the maximum fines for building code violations.

For example, the maximum fine for vacant and open buildings is $2,000. For a big building, it could be cheaper to pay the fine than to secure the building. The same can be said for most of the other fines.

4 - We should get the State to close the condo complex loophole.

Slum lords can amass units in a condominium complex, rent them all out like apartments, and they're basically untouchable. State law requires that the City go after them separately for each unit they own. Le Promenade in Southwest Houston is a condo complex with very serious problems, where a single company owns 2/3 of the units and has let them deteriorate to third-world conditions. Nothing can happen until State law changes to allow the City to go after a slum lord once on multiple condos that they own in the same complex.

5 - There should be a concerted effort to renovate (or replace) substandard housing in Houston to turn it into safe, affordable housing for the working poor.

The City started to do this when they worked with Apartment Developer Rene Joubert to turn around the Fondren Court Apartments. We need more of this in Houston.

6 - The City should take the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs to task over their approach to low-cost housing.

The TDHCA is too interested in building new low cost housing on open land. I say this based on TDHCA hearings that I've been to, and conversations with City officials. While their website suggests they also do renovations, I've yet to see it in Houston. It would be much better for Houston if they did more renovations instead of new construction.

8 - The City should get more involved in arranging for services in apartment complexes.

Many apartment complexes offer after-school programs for kids, job placement programs, and other services. These can completely change an apartment complex. It’s certainly something that should be expanded. And if the City isn’t already helping to broker deals to put programs like these in apartments – it should.

9 - The City should work with METRO to provide better transit to and from apartments.

The Chronicle ran a story in 2008 about a guy who commuted two hours, one way, by bus - to get from his home near Hobby Airport to his job in Southwest Houston. Many people find themselves with long commutes on METRO buses. The City should work with METRO to carefully review service city wide. It's especially important in areas with high density, and large agglomerations of apartments.

10 - HPD's Blue Star Multifamily Program should be expanded into something like a CPTED version of LEED.

The Blue Star Program trains apartment managers and owners on how to keep crime out of their properties. It shows them how to implement Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) fundamentals. It could expand to include developers, architects, and contractors in addition to owners and managers. It could also extend to other types of development. (Retail, subdivisions, offices). Houston could market the program to other cities.

I'm under no illusions that these will be easy to do. There are too many people who make a lot of money by keeping the status-quo in Houston apartments. The Houston Apartment Association has a very powerful lobby to represent them. Some Elected officials have a hand in slum apartments (State Rep Hubert Vo; Fort Bend JP Jim Richard). But if the City were to do even half of these things it could make a huge difference.