RedScare
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Posts posted by RedScare
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Everyone keeps claiming that "permanent" changes will not be made without public input, but there was no public input allowed prior to the temporary vote. Why is that? And, why is a temporary change needed at all? Study the issue, allow public input, THEN vote. Construction is down during the recession. There are fewer demos now that two years ago. There is no emergency. I suspect, given the tactics of the supporters up until this point, that this is a ploy to slide the new ordinance through with a minimum of protest. It is much easier to make a temporary ordinance permanent than to change it to begin with. And, temporary changes are easier than permanent ones.
Once this ordinance passes, I intend to make sure that the Heights loses a "contributing structure" by selling my 90 year old bungalow to a builder(I'm in the non-historic section). I've maxed out my profits here anyway. I'll take my profits and put them into a neighborhood that doesn't think they can tell me what to do with my property.
An ironic twist to this power grab is that I have changed my contributing structure far less than most of the ordinance supporters, especially many of the ones on this forum. While most supporters believe that keeping the front of the house intact while adding hideous and non-conforming additions to the rear is in keeping with the architectural and historical character of the neighborhood, I have actually kept my original footprint intact.
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It is important to note that these restrictions apply ONLY to those sections of the Heights that already have the Historic District designation. Those of us who live in the non-historic sections of the Heights may well see land values increase due to the sudden elimination of huge portions of the Heights for new construction. While the northern portions of the Heights area will stagnate, the middle to southern area may well see a surge in demolitions and house moves to make way for new construction that cannot occur anywhere else.
The Heights is continually bitten by the law of unintended circumstances. We may see it happen again.
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It isn't that the NASCAR driver doesn't have to do as much, driving at an average speed over 200mph door to door is just as challenging as driving at an average speed around 125mph on some guys gearbox around all sorts of corners, circles just aren't as fun to watch.
Except that they don't. Last weekend's race averaged less than 76 mph. The fastest race this season was only 135 mph. Daytona was only 132 mph. The fastest track averages in the 180s. Even qualifying doesn't hit 200 mph, since the advent of restrictor plates in the late 80s.
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From the Houston Heights Association website....
http://www.houstonheights.org/historicdistrictmaps.htm
The ordinance is educational, not coercive. When a property owner wants to make a significant change to his or her property, he or she discusses the changes with the historic preservation officer to assure compliance with the ordinance, and applies to the HAHC for a Certificate of Appropriateness:1. The change should be compatible with the historical character of the building.
2. A new home should be compatible with the historical character of the neighborhood.
3. Demolition of historical buildings is allowed only under extreme circumstances.
4. If the owner disagrees with the decision of HAHC, he or she can wait 90 days from the time the application was filed, then perform his or her project.
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From the "explanation"....
Opponents of “no means no” argue that the districts made an agreement with their propertyowners that there would be only a “90 day” ordinance and the districts should have to repetition
and get 51% of the property owners in each district to sign applications to change
the ordinance to “no means no.”
Some responses we make are:
(1) Almost all those who signed on to the application to create a historic district wanted to
stop demolitions of historic buildings and the construction of incompatible new buildings.
Nobody signed on to stop demolitions for 90 days, then let historic buildings be demolished;
that is nonsensical. It is just that the 90 day ordinance was all the ordinance we had. We
have, in effect, already agreed to “no means no.”
(2) No agreement was made. Property owners in the historic districts simply signed
applications for their districts to be created by City ordinance as City of Houston historic
districts, knowing that the HPO could be changed, and it has been amended many times
without historic districts having to repetition.
Let me respond to their response. You have NO data whatsoever to support your contention that "almost all" who signed wanted to stop demolitions. Further, your claim that "NOBODY" signed to allow 90 day waiting periods is an outright fabrication. In fact, many of your petition gatherers TOUTED the 90 day rule as proof that the historic district was not too onerous. They pushed the belief that the designation was what they wanted, and not to tell people what to do with their homes. How do I know this? I was approached by at least 3 different petitioners before signing the petition...a signature that I am now pulling from the petition.
No agreement was made? The agreement is implicit! You present the historic district ordinance...including the 90 day provision...and ask people to sign the petition to the City to create the district PER THE CITY ORDINANCE, and then claim that this isn't what you meant? That is known as BAIT AND SWITCH! It is a fraud perpetrated on those who signed the petition.
It is abundantly clear that those pushing this change have no interest in integrity or honesty. They are only concerned with their own agenda, even if it is not the wishes of the majority. If "almost all" petition signers wanted the changes, and "noone" wants the 90 day rule, why the need to bait and switch? Why not have a ratification of the new ordinance? If the historic district was all that is claimed, wouldn't your neighbors rush to ratify the changes? I think we all know why this is not being proposed.
Good luck pushing "no means no" onto your unsuspecting neighbors. I pledge to educate my neighbors on the meaning of "bait and switch".
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A good friend is a medical examiner. The stories of dead and dying from people running gensets indoors were truly tragic. Definitely put it outdoors. Chain it to something if you are concerned about theft.
That website I linked is very good in explaining how he rated the gensets. Though he bought a somewhat large one, his theory on running it at 50% load is good. I've seen plenty of gensets run at full power that come and go on the power side. My current favorite is a TroyBilt 6200 watt unit.
This will run my full size fridge, a room AC, TV, lights and computer, with room to spare. I have a gas stove and an outdoor grill for coffee and cooking, so this would set me up. Of course, most of these portables run through 12 gallons of gas per day, so that sucks storing so much gas. Diesels use less fuel, but unless you have a diesel auto, you'll be stuck with the diesel. At least I can pour the unused gas in my truck later if it is not used.
Here's my favorite diesel...
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I am thinking about getting a small generator before the upcoming storm season. I have no knowledge about them at all. I know they run on gasoline and run small appliances... I guess you put it in your garage and run a long extension cord into the house?
Questions:
1. What size would I need to run a mini-fridge, plus maybe a window unit?
2. Can you run it non-stop?
3. How noisy are they?
4. Any recommendations on brand/size/etc.?
Thanks!
NO! NO! NO!
Do not put ANY combustion engine indoors! They produce carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide kills! I believe more people died from generators during Hurricane Ike than from the actual storm...at least in Harris County.
You can get a myriad of gensets, from little ones to whole house. If you are going to get a portable, consider whether you will also use it for camping or other uses. If so, buy one to fit that purpose. Whatever you buy will run a mini-fridge and a window unit. In fact, it would run a full-size fridge and a window unit. Here's a list of common electrical requirements of appliances.
http://www.reviewportablegenerators.com/watt-calculator/'>http://www.reviewportablegenerators.com/watt-calculator/
It is best to look at the label on the back of the appliance to be sure. A 3,000 to 5,000 watt unit will run your fridge, window unit, a fan, light and TV, and probably your computer, as well. Noise is about 70 to 75 decibels, less than a lawn mower, but still loud. Who cares. All your neighbors will be using theirs too. It can run non-stop, but will cut off when it runs out of gas, and also oil, Refill and crank it up again.
Honda makes great units, but are very pricey. Do not buy DeWalt. You are buying a name only. I've had good luck with TroyBilt and Husky products, but have not owned a generator (though I was looking at them today). Generac is decent. Kohler, great, but pricey. Here, look it up yourself...
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Oh, depending on my mood, I've been accused of pretty much everything, including arrogant elitist back when I owned my Porsche.
I completely agree on ALMS, but even Indy cars are cool when they do more than turn left. And I really love the street courses. And, let's face it, NASCAR fans are easy to make fun of. They are devoted to a 'sport' whose rapid rise in popularity occurred when the personalities began 'trading paint' and fighting each other in the pits. The marketing geniuses at NASCAR may have struck gold when they created WWE on wheels, but I will still smirk when I see the slanted numbers on your pickup and the $400 orange leather Home Depot jacket on your back.
BTW, we haven't even brought up my all-time favorite racing yet....
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Eh... six in one hand, half dozen in the other. They're both just cars going fast - hopefully with a wreck or two. If NASCAR was associated with Europeans instead of hillbillies, and Formula-1 was the race originating in the West Virginia mountains, you'd probably feel differently.
I wouldn't feel differently even if Formula I originated in Wilkes County, North Carolina, the Moonshine Capital and birthplace of NASCAR. My derision of NASCAR stems from the use of caricatures of stock cars (including stick on headlights) and the mind-numbingly boring use of oval tracks. To underscore the point, I won't be watching the Indy 500 on Sunday either.
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2 years is a short time to complete a track though, and I hope that most of the paperwork to get this done is already taken care of, or on a fast track to completion.
Not really. They are usually built with steel seating stands which go up quickly. Texas Motor Speedway, which seats nearly 200,000, was built in under one year.
That press release is a joke. They claim that Austin is the only city capable of pulling this off, then use the hotels, airports and populations of Houston, DFW and San Antonio to make their case. However, as bad as F1 has gotten, I'd still go to an F1 race long before I'd be caught dead at NASCAR.
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I like the sound of the horns at night and in the morning. I am going to miss them, but the one a bit north of 610 will still do it for us. I write this from a hotel room that's about 200 yards from a runway at Heathrow, which doesn't bother me at all. I guess I just view noise differently than most.
I already miss the trains. Two sounds I enjoy at night are the train horns and the racing motorcycles on I-10 or Memorial. All that is left are the bikes. All the quiet zone has done is remove one more quirk of living inside the loop. Along with the bulldozing of the old buildings on Washington in favor of new strip centers, I find the quiet zone another step in the remaking of Washington into a bland and boring area. The QZ supporters get no congratulations from me. They'll probably run off the bars next.
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If this is an older Heights house, you might consider checking out the supply of used/vintage brick at Historic Houston Salvage Warehouse on W Clay.
New brick might be a bit jarring.
Or, you could just drop by The Detering Company Brick Division.
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If it makes any difference to you, I don't believe you have a soul either.
Having been drinking with TJ, I can confirm this.
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He is licensed, but I misspelled his last name. It is Bil Mansel.
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That one detective does look suspiciously like Lt. Dangle. At least the DA is hot. The one on Walker, Texas Ranger looked like a wet blanket.
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Southern by day, French by night?
WHAAA? That doesn't even make sense. And would YOU eat food cooked in a building that used to house Marty's?
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Actually, the water and sewer lines connected to the water and sewer lines from my house, so I fail to see why:
Which in turn connects to the water and sewer lines from the City. If your garage is in the back of your yard, the sewer line for the garage likely connects to the line running to the alley, where the sewer main is. The water definitely would connect to the house.
Admittedly, my water was disconnected prior to pulling the permit. The inspector merely made sure there was not still a live pipe. Because the water system contains drinking water for millions, the City is understandably pretty protective of the system. There are all sorts of ways that contaminants can get in. The fact that you are intelligent and industrious enough to cap off the water correctly, is small comfort to a city with many morons living within the city limits. The city codes are not there because of you and I, but rather the idiot who would leave the sewer line uncapped underground, allowing dirt to clog the system.
You should also realize that a homeowner may do his own plumbing. No master needed if you cap off the pipes correctly.
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Not sure if you qualify for USAA, but after the sticker shock of a 13% increase after Ike, I received a pleasant surprise last month, when the policy DROPPED 15%. In addition, they expanded coverage for some items, most notably my detached garage, at no extra charge. Because of that, I did not need to add a rider for my much bigger and newer garage. Very happy about that.
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I fail to see why it is the City's fault that you failed to budget the job correctly. Further, the garage is the most dangerous room in a house, with motor vehicles, gas cans, paint, and other chemicals just waiting for a spark to go all Ford Explorer on you. Lastly, if you are paying $100 per hour, you did not bid the job correctly, and are getting ripped off. Again, not the City's fault. Most electricians bid by the drop at $75 to $100.
Source of my vast electrical knowledge? I'm currently having a garage wired. Not a single electrician bid by the hour.
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While I generally follow the rules, I have found that the City of Houston goes out of their way to make a person want to cheat. For example, I used to have an old dilapidated garage-like building on my lot which was on the verge of falling down. I finally decided to demolish it and I went to the city permit office to find out about getting a demolition permit. They directed me from one area to the next until finally a lady asked me, "Are there any utilities running to it?" and I said, "Well, it looks like there used to be a washer and dryer in there, so there is a water pipe and a drain".
She replied, "Well, then you'll have to go upstairs and get a utility disconnect permit before we can issue a demolition permit."
I walked right out the front door and lo-and-behold the damn garage blew down during (or was that right after??) the next heavy storm.
I thought the Demolition Guidelines posted on the City of Houston permit site were pretty easy to follow. I was in and out in less than 20 minutes.
Given that the water and sewer lines in the building to be demolished connect to the City's infrastructure, it is not an unreasonable demand that the lines be disconnected prior to demolition. I certainly would not wish to drink your demolished shed with my water. And, of all the permits required by the City, the electrical permit seems the most logical. While we may be impressed with our own electrical work, the inspections give some assurance to the person who purchases your home when you move out that it may not burn down due to poor electrical work.
By the way, I posted a master electrician to the other thread started by the OP.
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Bill Mansell replaced the last of my knob and tube wiring, as well as replacing my old breaker box with a new one. Number is 832.212.2363.
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Whether using the recession dampened 40 million figure or the pre-recession 43.3 million figure, is of no consequence, unless one wishes to ignore the point of my post, which is that the current layout will not allow a single checkpoint without severe inconvenience to passengers, regardless whether it is 40 million passengers or 44. Getting around that problem by suggesting that IAH could demolish the entire multi-billion dollar complex and start over is simply changing the question, as well as reality.
I'll pose the same question to you as houston19514. What would YOU do with the current setup to achieve a single checkpoint, and how would passengers reach Terminals A through E more efficiently, bearing in mind that the parking garages are interspersed throughout the complex?
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44 million passengers per year equates to 120,548 per day...fewer enplanements than there are workers in downtown Houston over an entire 24-hour period. Exclude enplanements that are merely layovers and I have no idea what that works out to, but it's a whole lot less.
Although I would concur with someone citing a legacy issue and the cost of a "properly designed" airport as a reason to stick with the current system, it is exceedingly difficult for me to say with confidence that a "properly designed, equipped and staffed" security checkpoint poses any reasonable chance of creating a bottleneck.
I think that to disagree with me, you'd have to admit that mass transit doesn't work for airports (which would imply that it wouldn't work for much more complicated and spread-out central business districts). And I don't think that you're going to make that claim. Are you?
Wow, Niche, I expect completely nonsensical analogies from other posters, but not you. Let's compare the two, shall we? You are incorrect that more people work downtown than fly into or out of IAH. If you figure 175,000 workers in downtown (probably guessing high) Monday through Friday, that equals 45 million trips to downtown annually, about the same as IAH, which is also busiest on Monday through Friday. Now, let's look at the two layouts. Downtown is approximately 325 square blocks of buildings served by 3 freeways, 2 parkways and a street grid. Those freeways have 7 exit ramps that allow entry into downtown on dozens of streets. Given that Downtown is at least 16 blocks wide and 20 blocks long, there are upwards of 90 or more additional entry points on the various streets.
IAH is served by 2 parkways and no freeways or street grid. Additionally, those 2 parkways merge at the airport onto one loop. Think all of downtown traffic merging onto Travis and looping back up Fannin.
Additionally, Downtown makes MY point, not yours. To make this a proper 'apples to apples' comparison, let's assume that we needed airport style security in downtown. To achieve the centralized security checkpoint that you and Houston 19514 envision as efficient, all downtown workers would be required to enter downtown through a central location...say City Hall...and then continue on to their destination, presumably on foot or an underground tram. Even those executives with parking next to their building would have to walk to City Hall, go through security, and walk back to their office. Even if there was no wait at the security checkpoints, I fail to see how that could be considered efficient. IAH is a mile long, about as wide as downtown. Even the rail line has 4 stations within downtown proper.
While I can certainly envision the increased level of security by having all travelers and workers entering a 'secure zone' through one checkpoint, and the tram could be upgraded and expanded to get all of those people to their respective terminals eventually, to suggest that this could be made anywhere near as efficient as checkpoints at each terminal, especially considering the alternating terminal and parking garage layout, is simply ignoring reality.
BTW, starting from scratch, I too, could design a reasonably efficient one-entry system, but that is neither what the plan is, nor what houston19514 suggested.
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If properly designed, equipped and staffed, there will be no bottleneck.
How about a few suggestions? How do you design a central entry point that is close to both Terminal A and Terminals D and E? How do you design drop off points so that arriving vehicles and buses from the rental car lots do not end up in gridlock? Where do you place the short term parking areas for arriving passengers to unload their luggage? How many would you need for 44 million passengers annually? How do the passengers who parked in the various parking garages get through security and back to their terminal in an efficient manner? Remember, you said a central location would work better than one per terminal if properly designed and equipped, so be sure to explain how it would work better than one at each terminal.
While you are explaining this properly designed system, please estimate the walking distance from the security area to each trminal, and from the parking garages to the security area.
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Neighborhoods Prepare for H20 Linkup with Houston
in The Great Northwest
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I'm surprised you haven't been paying attention. This issue was covered in great detail when area legislators voted for the legislation, when the North Harris County Regional Water Authority was formed, when they debated whether to negotiate with the City or spend an outrageous sum to fund their own surface water source, the price the City would charge for their water, and the debate over location and funding of the massive water main that connects the various utility district water systems.
Oh, and you should pay more attention to who you are voting for, since you apparently elected the board.
http://www.nhcrwa.com/