Angostura

It is possible to both support free speech AND think someone who goes out of their way to prevent people from putting additions on their houses is kind of a jerk, or at least a busybody.

At some point, the Planning Commission is going to get tired of spending 2 hours every other week talking about whether dormers are Queen Anne or Craftsman. Unfortunately, not much is likely to change until City Council gets tired of it, too, so I hope the Zucker's appeal to City Council.

Small "n", so the 58% year-on-year increase isn't terribly reliable. That said, not surprising. There's a lot of money chasing not a lot of property in the best neighborhoods. Also, this is a little like "prison populations are up, despite crime being down". It gets the causation wrong. Crime goes down when the criminals are in jail. The article basically says that the area remains valuable despite a high rise going up. But a high rise wouldn't be going up if the price per square foot of the dirt wasn't really high.

Yes. I'm certain the delay is due to the very complicated exhaust system, and not to the fact that 80% of the units remain unsold.

The trailer on the large tract DOES have an Ashland Square sign on it (visible from 25th, but not 26th), which lead me to believe the two sites are related. Could be wrong.

The townhouse development on the NW corner of Ashland and 26th is actually called Villas-something. Looks like Ashland Square is actually the single-home development on the lot bordered by 26th, 27th, Ashland and Nicholson. Website here. This land WAS originally part of the NFF site. Lot numbers of this page correspond to the lot numbers of those lots on HCAD maps. Looks lot a total of 23 houses are planned for this phase. Houses look to be 2-story, single-family on pier-and-beam with detached alley-facing garages on 25-ft frontage. No square footages listed on the site, but they floor plans are 3/2.5 and 4/4 (4th BR down), probably from a little above 2000 s.f. to a little under 3000. Nothing on HAR yet, but the signage indicates pricing from the mid $500's The trailer on the larger piece of land also now has an Ashland Square decal on it (facing south, not facing 26th St.) so presumably the development will include that site as well after some re-platting. At the same frontage per house, they could get something like 106 of these houses on the larger block. Assuming they average $550 per house, that makes this a $70MM development. Note that these are virtually identical in size (structure and lot) to the houses on 17th that Rohe and Wright are asking 50% more for. Granted 17th is better than 26th, but maybe not $300k better.

This is the large double-block bounded by Nicholson, Rutland, 25th and 26th, as well as the block bounded by Ashland, Rutland, 24th and 25th. In the last week or so, a trailer has been deposited on this land, on the 26th St side, right across from Ashland St, and the big for sale sign has come down. Any news on what might be happening here? There's currently a LOT of residential construction going on within 3-4 blocks of this site.

List of applications is here. Heights East: - 2 new builds (approved) - 1 Relocation/modification (approved) - 1 Alteration (approved) - 1 2-story addition (approved) Heights South - 1 new build (approved) - 2 2-story additions (approved) - 1 2-story addition (denied) - 1 alteration (approved) Heights West - 1 Relocation/modification (withdrawn) - 3 new builds (approved), incl. one @ 5000 s.f. - 1 2-story addition (denied) So, in the Heights HDs, 40% of additions were denied, without very clear criteria as to why. Not sure I'd want to roll those dice if my life savings were on the line.

Two more appeals of CoA denials on the Planning Commission agenda for Thursday: - 446 Arlington - 1537 Ashland Both are 2-story additions to 1-story bungalows that will roughly double the square footage of each. The HAHC has clearly decided that you won't be able to turn your 1300-s.f. bungalow into a 2700-s.f. camel-back without a fight. From an aesthetic perspective, they're right (both of these additions come across as oddly proportioned), but this will sharply limit the universe of people willing to purchase and remodel smaller houses in the HD's.

The ordinance pretty much requires them to do this. The ordinance requires that new-builds have setbacks, proportions (width and roofline), and eave height consistent with those of existing contributing structures. So far, the HAHC has largely ignored this. Last month, HAHC approved (unanimously) two new-builds on Ashland near 13th that are nearly 4000 s.f., much larger than anything else on that block. Any reasonable reading of the ordinance would indicate that new-builds in this district would be limited to about 2500 s.f. at the most, and probably single story. The developer has two more lots to get CoA's for, so they'd be wise to hurry up.

[Emphasis added above] Building a "2nd house with the original house used as an entryway" is exactly what the ordinance encourages people to do given the requirement that any addition be removable so as to allow the original to be restored in the future. (I'd be curious to see if there was EVER an example of someone actually doing this: buying a 3200 s.f. camelback and restoring it to a 1300 s.f. bungalow.) I recall a number of people at the time the ordinance was being debated criticizing this language exactly because it encourages the kind of ugly additions that have become the norm. In much the same way that our setback and parking requirements encourage development of ugly strip malls along major thoroughfares, this ordinance encourages ugly additions inside HDs. Law of Unintended (but entirely predictable) Consequences.

Shepherd is "wet" south of 16th and north of 26th. There is a helpful map of the dry area here.

Some of the design guidelines actually encourage renovators to increase the total size of the house. By requiring that additions start close to the back of the existing structure, and original materials be preserved to the extent possible, there is very little flexibility to how to lay out the house. Here are two examples of more modest-sized homes that in my opinion look great: http://www.har.com/homevalue/337-W-22nd-St-Houston-77008-M43760434.htm http://www.har.com/homevalue/344-W-22nd-St-Houston-77008-M97582416.htm Both sold in the high 600's if I'm not mistaken, despite being less than 3000 s.f. However, neither would pass muster in the HD's, since both projects retained only a fraction of the original structures (about the front 1/3 or so). I suspect a high proportion of HD residents would be happy to live next door to these, as they retain the character of the original if not that much of the material.

Clearly, once a particular item is available somewhere within the city limits, any additional availability is redundant and doesn't actually result in incremental sales taxes. We should probably just have one store that the entire city of Houston shops in then, right?

Odd that "successfully appeal[ing] HAHC denied designs to the Planning Commission" is a reason AGAINST nominating someone.

Brick oven, please.

In fairness, without the eminent domain issues, it'd only cost $40M on this site. There'd still be a Walmart, so I imagine there would still be more than a few unsatisfied folks. Turns out, if DC puts in place their $12 min wage for large retailers, Walmart will likely pull out of this deal.

Apparently Walmart WILL do mixed use, it just costs $70M in taxpayer money: http://feedly.com/k/12CVxFf I appreciate the desire by some people to want a say in how development in the city happens. However, one should always work under the assumption that those doing the regulating are as likely to be in the pocket of developers as they are to listen to the opinions of the residents of affected areas. All too often those that want zoning assume that land use regulation will be carried out by enlightened planners to create an urban utopia, but more often than not, it's carried out by political hacks to benefit their cronies.

One Green Street has apparently just gone out of business.

There is very little risk to the owner in buying a new-build non-contributing house in the HD. The bigger risk is buying a 1200 s.f. 2/1 and rolling the dice on being allowed to convert it into the 2600 s.f. 3/2.5 you really want. Many people don't realize this yet, but there have now been multiple cases of individual homeowners (not developers) having their renovation plans rejected by the HAHC without clear guidelines; simply concern over "scale". This kind of regulatory uncertainty does have an effect on some buyers. Not all, but some. At some point, all economics is micro-economics, and enough individual decisions can add up to affect an overall market. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an appeal. The more likely outcome is that the HAHC issues some clear design guidelines and removes some of the capriciousness from the permitting process, thus giving potential buyers reasonable expectation that, after they buy a property, they'll be able to renovate .

Heights residents will not want for yuppie tacos. This makes 4 in the Heights proper (along w/ Berryhill, Torchy's & Tacos a go-go).

This is exactly what I said. The multi-use plans I saw had a much larger potential acquisition of ROW, and therefore a related 380 could have been higher value.

I don't believe this is supported by the facts. That said, the question wasn't Walmart vs. HEB, it was "strip-mall retail" vs mixed use. An HEB development would have looked substantially similar to what we ended up with. The Bunker Hill HEB, for example, is 128,000 s.f.; the Walmart is 152,000. A difference of degree, not kind. Surely a large mixed-use development could have gotten an even larger 380. The plans I saw had two public ROW's cutting through, which at the $60/s.f. the Ainbinder 380 got for the ROW they gave to the city to extend Koehler, adds up to a lot of $$.

...principally to the developer. If a City Centre/Regent Square (remember Regent Square?) type development was the highest/best use for this piece of land, I'm curious why no one was able to outbid Walmart. Certainly we're not accusing Ainbinder of willingly leaving millions of dollars on the table. Mixed use only got mentioned for this site AFTER Walmart was announced. The timeline was something like this: - Rumors of HEB looking at the Ainbinder site; general elation and hopeful anticipation. - Walmart announced as anchor tenant; wailing and rending of garments in despair. - "We must have mixed use!" I, along with many people, would have preferred a City Centre style development in place of Walmart, but no one was stepping up to do it, and there's certainly nothing in our city's development ordinances that can allow the City to require it (and much that actually gets in the way).

Actually, this is not quite correct. While the "condo loophole" existed until several years ago, the current ordinance requires that any lot or tract that was either in use for single family residential purposes or vacant be permitted only for single family residential use. (42-193k) According to the current list of MLS approvals, the eastern face of this block of Morrison St. is covered, with a minimum lot size of 7085 s.f. The tax records from 2012 show that the lot was then used for single-family residential. It appears to me that there are reasonable grounds to block the permitting of this project based on the MLS restriction. I'm confused, as I don't see the 600 block of Allston (or any part of Allston south of 11th St) on the MLS list. As to the comment that MLS only works if you get enough people to sign up, that's exactly the point. If enough neighbors want to preserve the character of their block face, the restrictions are applied. If not, it's impossible for a vocal minority to impose restrictions on other people's property.