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Inner loop apartments are not all the same. 1.3 calculation includes many old inexpensive garden style apartments and is not exclusive to high end complexes. Simple arrhythmic shows that two people can afford more apartment than one. If you have data for high end complexes, then let's see it. Otherwise, your reference to 1.3 is just pulling stuff out of your arse because it is not indicative of high end developments.

I have someone in my family who has restored 57 thunderbirds for over 30 years. I could care less about those cars, but have heard endless stories about the cars and the 57 thunderbird community for years and years and years. I am not an expert, but my relative is. He makes a good living at it and has piles of awards from his work. 57 thunderbirds are one of the most collectable vehicles on the road. The vast majority of the 57s on the market are restored to as close to original condition as possible. If you swap out an engine, you would be cutting the value in half (a new stereo or AC is about all you can get away with in terms of aftermarket upgrades). Some redneck might do that, but the VAST MAJORITY do not. I wish I didn't know this stuff as I end up getting several hours of talk about 57s from my family at every family event. But I do and I am right. You are just making up stuff about 57s. Just look at the listings for 57s on the internet. Original engines are a must and details about how the vehicles were rebuilt are hugely important.

Reading comprehension is not your strong suit. I said: "The view from Ridge is mostly the wall of the condo complex across the street." Most people understand that Ridge is a street, and not the third or fourth floor of a house. The view from street level matters for most people as they want to see nice houses across the street from them when the go out for a walk or sit outside. A city view is nice, but it is at the expense of looking in on a very dull and a bit shabby condo complex. The view from Ridge, the street, is exactly what I said it is. I never said there was no city view. But, it is never what I actually say that is the subject of your posts. It is what you need for me to say but did not say.

Schools don't matter when you are in the 1 mil+ range. If you are buying a house for that much and need public schools for the kids, you shouldn't be spending that much on a house. The view from Ridge is mostly the wall of the condo complex across the street. The skyline view is offset by the constant din of I-10 traffic. Closer to downtown, but further from the heart of the Heights and all the shops and restaurants. Next door neighbor is an old multifamily complex that could end up being a midrise Morrison Heights-esque development. And who knows if some big money developer would endeavor to buy up the townhomes across the street someday. By contrast, the neighborhood around the Harvard house is solidly single family. I think Ridge will sell for a bit more just because the design puts more of a priority on function and isn't so far out of the current fashion for moderns as Harvard. But it will be fun to watch and see what happens.

They are doing two buildings. The first is between 6th and the bike path on Yale. The second will be on the Fixtures Int'l property between 5th, 6th and partly across Allston. It will certainly be larger than the first because the property is larger. My guess would be 400-450 units if they are able to buy part of Allston from the City.

Given the demand and prices inside the loop, using average occupancy per unit would be too low. At a minimum of $1500 for a one bed (probably more), you are going to get more couples than in lower priced units. I applaud government regulation for making the neighborhood a better place. An entrepreneur is not a superior being whose rights are above those of the community.

There are way more people out their with @500k to spend than with over 1 mil. That is primarily the reason the converted grocery store sold so fast (I have heard that it went on the market with an offer already pending). Also, if you can spend 1.3 mil on a house, you can afford to build your own one of a kind modern thingy. It will be interesting to compare the Harvard house with this one in Woodland Heights: http://search.har.com/engine/515-Ridge-St-Houston-TX-77009_HAR31762194.htm. The latter is more conforming to the current trend of modern design, while the former is truly unique.

http://search.har.com/engine/2200-Harvard-St-Houston-TX-77008_HAR21567263.htm Another price drop. It is now pretty much in line with the market for a 3000+ sq ft home on an oversized lot in the Heights. One of a kind architecture thrown in for free.

The building on 6th will have 361 units. The building between 5th and 6th is planned to extend across Allston and will probably be bigger than the 6th building. 1000 new residents is a pretty conservative estimate for what will be at least 700+ units. I would put it closer to 1250-1500 if fully booked. I am very happy with the dry restriction. It isn't easy for restaurateurs, and that is a good thing. The people coming into the dry areas and getting club licenses are serious about being here for the long run. Down House went through some serious upheaval with its chefs and with the twittergate scandal. Many other restaurateurs would have closed up shop and moved on. But, Down House righted the ship and is now one of the best restaurants in the Heights. And plenty of places are making a killing without serving booze or going BYOB. Dry Creek, Lola, Beck's, Kraftsmen, Revival, Jennis, are all doing fine.

It was deferred the first time and approved at the July 17 meeting.

Actually, the majority of the buildings around the Empire State building and Chrysler building are protected landmarks. And there is very scant newer construction around either building. Manhattan has some of the tightest historic preservation rules in the US. There is new construction, but it is the exception, not the norm. The tight preservation rules have enable Manhattan to preserve not just a few treasures, but to preserve entire streetscapes and neighborhoods. And without those, the Chrysler and Empire State buildings would not be such great icons of the NY skyline. So, you have ironically cited the rule on historic preservation as evidence of your argument against preservation. But, you have probably never actually set foot in NY and just saw a few odd new buildings on google maps. And it is fun how the argument against preservation always goes so quickly from the legitimate debate about what should be protected and to what extent to extreme hyperbole comparing preservation to some great affront to human liberty. Dark ages? Oh please. It is like the conservative attempts to claim that environmentalism began with the Nazis. Just pathetic.

Funny thing is that the vast majority of people who collect 57 thunderbirds spend huge sums to try to make their cars as close to the original condition as humanly possible and will pay a huge premium to find someone who can restore parts of the vehicle that cannot be replaced with spare parts to as close to the original condition as possible. There are some people who put hybrid/electric engines in old cars to try to be green, but they are definitely outliers.

It is also really idiotic to continually rely on ad hominem attacks instead of trying to contribute intelligently to what could be an interesting discussion. I am here and am not going anywhere. If you do not like it that someone has an opposing view point to you, that is very childish. Man up and contribute to the discussion instead of always saying "that guy is dumb, just ignore him".

Heights General Store will probably do a club licenses. Not sure how Torchy's will handle it.

I have already responded to that. Read my posts and keep up with the conversation. It is simply idiotic to claim to be a preservationist just because you put money into your own house but see no problem with 200+ historic homes getting demoed every year and getting replaced with a cacophony of architectural styles from cheap fake creole boxes to suburban transplants to mission and all the way out to modern minimalism. If you were anywhere else in the US and told people that you were a preservationist but had no problem seeing the wholesale destruction of the historic housing stock, people would laugh in your face. Historic preservation isn't like preserving a 57 Ford Thunderbird. You can't put your house on a flatbed and take it to a big house show in Auburn, Indiana to get an idea of what it would look like in the proper context. Historic residential architecture is dependent on the preservation of the neighborhood, not just a single example in a sea of creole wanna be boxes and other oddities. It is akin to saying that you are for preserving Rhinos because you spend a lot of money traveling to different zoos to see them, but don't think that any government should do anything to stop people from hunting them into extinction in the wild.

I have already responded to that. Read my posts and keep up with the conversation. It is simply idiotic to claim to be a preservationist just because you put money into your own house but see no problem with 200+ historic homes getting demoed every year and getting replaced with a cacophony of architectural styles from cheap fake creole boxes to suburban transplants to mission and all the way out to modern minimalism. If you were anywhere else in the US and told people that you were a preservationist but had no problem seeing the wholesale destruction of the historic housing stock, people would laugh in your face. Historic preservation isn't like preserving a 57 Ford Thunderbird. You can't put your house on a flatbed and take it to a big house show in Auburn, Indiana to get an idea of what it would look like in the proper context. Historic residential architecture is dependent on the preservation of the neighborhood, not just a single example in a sea of creole wanna be boxes and other oddities. It is akin to saying that you are for preserving Rhinos because you spend a lot of money traveling to different zoos to see them, but don't think that any government should do anything to stop people from hunting them into extinction in the wild.

No one is actually doing a camel back design anymore. The camel back design can work if you do a telescoping roof line. One in my HD is @2900 sq ft. You cannot tell that it has a second floor from the sidewalk until you look around the side of the building. What they are doing now is just building a second house with the original house being used as an entryway. That allows them to just cut and paste designs out of the faux creole design book from new construction instead of actually having to design the renovation from scratch. And the whole reason the ordinance is there is because the new construction looked terrible and was ruining the historic character of the neighborhood.

Dry area starts on W. 16th and Shep. Used car lots have been closing on Durham and Shep. However, I do not think that it is because they are getting huge offers for their land. I know of one used lot on Durham and 15th that is selling the land because they went bankrupt. Land has been on the market for a few months. The tote the note/wholesaler lots are big time wheeler dealers. If they get upside down on a couple of car deals, their entire house of cards comes down pretty quickly.

The same folks who did this flip: http://marketedge.reiwise.com/default.aspx?propID=55727 appear to be renovating that complex. I am no fan of the old garden style complexes, but they did a really nice job with the one on W 16th. It is now very quiet and clean. Before the flip, I saw a drug deal go down with someone in the apartment coming out to meet their dealer on the street, all while I was walking my kid down the street in the middle of the afternoon (a fix waits for no man). It is an interesting niche market. There are a few small operations working inside the loop who have been able to make good money flipping small garden style complexes. Not sure how much longer they will be able to out maneuver the deeper pockets for these properties. A lot of opportunities in the Heights for this kind of flip.

Not intending to argue with Brie. I have made a few responses for the benefit of others who apparently are waiting on pins and needles for me to respond.

If you are against the ordinance, I disagree strongly but would fight to the death to preserve your right to voice your opinion. My issue is with people who dishonestly try to get people who are inclined to support preservation to get on their side by claiming that you can be for historic preservation but also be against any kind of government involvement. The facts in the Heights before the ordinance shows you exactly what that looks like. It is like saying that you can be for saving sea turtles while being against requiring escape shoots on fishing nets. Sure, maybe some benevolent fisherman will incur the additional expense or will want to advertise that their catch is sea turtle safe. But, the reality is that before the requirement, sea turtles were getting scooped up all over the place and no one gave a crap about it.

I had to do work out in the Greenway area that would put me out to commute back to the Heights around 4:00 pm. I tried several different routes, but could not get back to the Heights in less than 35 min. 45 min was about the average. I could have probably made it out to Sugar Land in about the same amount of time at that hour. Normally, traffic inside the loop does move well. But, we are about to get a new normal with the addition of 10,000 multifamily units and all the other development going on. There is some spare capacity to deal with that increase, but not a lot. Just look at how quickly Yale St. at I-10 went from being an easy route out of the Height to being the worst just with a change in the timing of the light and the addition of a shopping center. The problem with "wait and see" v. plan now for the future is that when you wait and see, you cannot un-build all the apartment complexes that are going in and rebuild the city in a way that mitigates all the density issues.

If you disagree that density is happening, then you are further backing away from your claim that Houston is 11 times more dense than Portland (maybe that was referring to collective intelligence rather than population density). But, if you disagree with my reasons that density is happening, then so what. There are lots of factors that are contributing to the build up of multifamily developments inside the loop. Reasonable minds can differ over which factors are major or minor. That is all just a sideshow to the real issue which is whether density without any planning in Houston will be detrimental or whether some planning, especially in light of many lesson learned from other areas, is needed to be sure that the benefits of density are realized in Houston. We need look no further than the Gulfton area to see what density without planning looks like in Houston.

To be clear, Portland is not a magic city of enlightenment. What Portland has done well is manage near-urban density in a redeveloping area that did not have existing infrastructure needed for density. The big problem with redeveloping areas near downtown business centers is that you are trying to put a lot of square pegs into round holes. You are trying to put large multifamily developments into neighborhoods that were built for low density single family of light industrial/commercial. The existing street grid, public transportation and retail development is usually insufficient to support the big influx of people who will want to live, work and play in the neighborhood. In Portland, they have done an excellent job of mitigating these issues by requiring ground floor retail, building transit and lots of bike/pedestrian amenities. Thus, the externalities of traffic, lack of retail and pedestrian/bike unfriendly redevelopment has been mitigated. In Houston, density is happening because the suburbs are basically built out (to the extent that cheap land is available within a reasonable distance and in an area with good schools), highways are at capacity, and inner loop neighborhoods have become desirable because of lots of new restaurants and bars and other amenities. Houston is adding 10,000+ new multifamily units inside the loop without any new transit options in the same area (light rail is going north and east, but west expansion is probably a long ways away). Also, the vast majority of the new multifamily units are not providing any space for retail. While this will hopefully get some notoriously underperforming properties inside the loop to flip into decent retail centers, even if it does, it will mean that the 15,000+ new residents will be dependent on their cars to get to retail. Right now, parking around retail inside the loop isn't that bad, but certain areas (Montrose, White Oak, Wash Ave. etc.) are becoming a big challenge. If the current pattern of development continues, most everywhere inside the loop will be a challenge in terms of parking and traffic because there will be no mitigation of car dependent living inside the loop.

For each alleged travesty your little internet think tank can come up with about Portland, there are two dozen real travesties happening in Houston every day. Highrises in the back yards of single family houses. Big box suburban stores subsidized in wealthy urban areas. But you fail to see the difference between Portland and Houston and how Houston can learn from Portland. In Portland, density was encouraged and managed well. If the density in Portland was so awful, no one would be paying the huge premium needed to buy/rent near the city. As your little internet posts indicate, there is affordable housing in the suburbs and across the border in Vancouver WA. Density created value that people are very willing to pay to have. The rules encouraged more building close to Portland, not less. And the density created a lifestyle that is very desirable. In Houston, density is coming just because the cheap land is running out very quickly. The question then is whether you are just going to sit there and hope that everything comes out alright (like the City did when there was densification in the Gulfton area during the last major boom--didn't turn out so well) or whether you are going to manage the density to minimize the externalities and maximize the benefits. Failure to do the latter runs the potential risk of repeating Gulfton.