s3mh
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Posts posted by s3mh
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Agricole seemed to lose interest in Revival when they expanded to the east side. It was still good, but in its prime it had some magical dishes like the smoked gulf by catch and the kolache specials. When Kolache Shoppe opened, I couldn't get my son to eat there because the kolaches weren't as good as Revival's. I do look forward to something new that is Revival adjacent that will hopefully breathe some fresh new light into the space. The Heights is starting to run a bit short on good new places from local chefs versus getting the second or third location of a popular Austin restaurant or a national chain that the foodies like.
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58 minutes ago, JJxvi said:
I dont think this has anything to do with the Heights. Painting houses white (esp with dark trim) is a popular trend and likely has nothing to do with White Linen Nights. I advised my parents to do it in Timbergrove with no idea it was popular or trendy back in 2018 and over the past four years since, every time I've noticed a house change color its like a 90% chance this is what they did too. I notice it all over. Garden Oaks, Timbergrove/Lazybrook, Oak Forest. Brick houses, siding, remodels, brand new houses.
For those of us who do not live under a rock, we have been watching with horror as the vapid home flipper industry (in particular a certain couple from Waco who shall remain nameless here) has adopted the modern Victorian farmhouse as the sine qua non of home architecture and interior design aesthetics. This cheap fad extended well beyond new builds and flips into painting every house white with black trim regardless of whether it is a MCM, Victorian, Craftsman, Contemporary, Modern or anything in between. But in a neighborhood filled with charming craftsman architecture, painting everything white is akin to the bleaching of a coral reef.
And the WLN reference was a joke.
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Stop. Painting. Everything. White. In. The. Heights.
White Linen Nights is a once a year festival and not a commandment to paint every freaking house white.
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12 hours ago, TacoDog said:
I keep referring to it as the Chicken Strip.
Shepherd Chicken Mile
Chicken Heights
Cluck City
The Chicken Ranch
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If you care about bird conservation, you should be 1,000 times more concerned about habitat loss than windmills. And there is a significant amount of habitat loss that is due to climate change.
Oil and gas waste pits are actually a bigger threat to birds than windmills. That is why Trump suspended enforcement of the migratory bird treaty at the behest of the oil and gas industry. Get rid of fossil fuels with windmills and you may have a net positive when it comes to bird deaths.
Houston is a choke point for several flyways for spring migration. Not so much in the fall. But when birds migrate, they like to find good strong winds aloft to ride like a conveyor belt across the ocean. Most birds during migration do not get any lower than 150m and most are up several hundred meters to a few thousand. Most of the time, birds will be way above the windmills during migration.
There is some preliminary research that showed some success painting wind turbines black. Birds strike the blades because they have a hard time seeing them when they are moving fast. Painting blade black seem to help the birds see the blades and reduce strikes.
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When I first got to Houston over 20 years ago, I landed at Briarwood on Winrock. My next door neighbor was a South Texas College of Law adjunct professor. A nice retired couple with a meticulously cared for 1980s Mercedes Benz lived in one of the townhome units above me. The complex got sold and renting standards all but abandoned. There was an Asian drug gang that sold whatever you needed out of one of the townhome units. One night there was a SWAT standoff with someone who holed themselves up with a couple of pit bulls. Just after I moved out, someone nearly decapitated their friend in a grizzly murder that some thought was terror related.
Even as the single family homes across the way gentrified into $1 mil+ lot value, the multifamily and retail development along and around Westheimer in this far west Galleria Area neighborhood have seen very little movement compared to so many other parts of Houston. You could build a small city out this way by taking out the old garden style apartments and converting the strip malls to mixed use. But this area just never keeps up any momentum.
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Dan Electro's has bookings posted that go through September. Hopefully, the new owner will let them stay and keep lease terms reasonable.
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Property is on the market. Listed as having month to month tenant with option to purchase vacant or with the tenant.
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The hot chicken sandwich district is diversifying. May now just be known as the chicken district.
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Announcement from the Leader. Brian Calle and Street Media are the buyer.
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17 hours ago, JJxvi said:
Learn something new every day. Who knew that The Leader was apparently radicalizing any bugs that got trapped in my recycle bin?
Careful. If your TAMU buddies find out that you recycle, they will call you a cuck and won't share their pepe memes with you.
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Word is that McElvy Partners sold to a group that owns Village Voice and LA Weekly. I miss the old Leader before McElvy bought it. They used to get out into parts of the Heights and GOOF that got little attention. McElvy almost ruined the Leader when he tried to turn it into a neighborhood version of FoxNews, railing against the historic districts and printing some utter nonsense on the subject (law professor claimed that HDs were unconstitutional despite US Supreme Court holding that historic preservation passes constitutional muster). Clearly at some point, McElvy figured out that no one wanted a caustic right leaning neighborhood news paper and toned it down (McElvy then stepped down as publisher). Since then, the Leader has done a decent job of being a community news paper more like the Leader of old.
I am concerned that the new owners may see the all the money coming into the neighborhood as an indication that the Leader needs to be more like something someone would read in Bushwick or Park Slope instead of focusing on community affairs, like schools, City of Houston issues, etc. But we shall see.
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I have been going to one of the original Crust Pizzas in the Woodlands for a few years. Then, I went to one of the new locations in Spring. Big difference in the quality. They are quickly going from about a dozen locations to about 25.
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Tap wall almost runs the length of the building.
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From the article:
"Customers will also be able to order pizza from Coltivare."
And we have a winner.
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3 hours ago, Heights88 said:
s3 - it is true many 'Conservatives' oppose such efforts to intentionally limit roadways to car traffic, as you highlighted above. That WSJ oped you cited casts an opinion that road diets are ill-conceived, counter-productive projects that make ordinary peoples' lives worse...that may be a 'Conservative' view point, but it's also defensible, rational, and supported by at least some facts. Bike lanes aren't inherently bad, but there are trade-offs to removing miles and miles of roadway that are used by the vast majority of people for car traffic. Acknowledging and weighing the trade-offs...sounds like a good place to start.
That is not what was happening with this project. This project had been in the planning stages for a few years with multiple community meetings where planners heard community concerns and made changes to the project in response. Then, at the eleventh hour (pun intended), a very astroturf looking group popped up and started throwing everything at the wall to see if anything stuck. This group was looking to burn it down, not discuss balancing trade offs. People who stood by while the dry area was lost and all sorts of development went in suddenly were rocked to their core at the idea of a few extra cars going up their street. I know a right wing freak out when I see one. This was definitely one.
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18 hours ago, JJxvi said:
Yeah, worrying about how you’ll be able to turn into the neighborhood or whether more cars will be forced down your side streets, critical planks in the right wing political identity.
Build your strawmen at someone else’s expense. These arent political operatives trying to keep the cyclists down, they are nimby’s that drive cars. They dont want bike lanes because they dont use them and they think building them might be a disruption to them… kinda like how people who dont go to WalMart’s dont want Walmart’s built near them.
If you didn't live under a rock, you would know that opposing road diets and bike lanes has been a favorite cause for conservatives. Talk radio hosts in LA went nuts over its "Vision Zero" plans for bike lanes and road diets and lead an opposition "movement" (the opposition to these things is usually very astroturfed with mostly businesses leading the way over lost parking spaces). Conservative think tanks went nuts over Federal proposals to use highway funds for local road diet and bike lane projects.
And your own biases are pretty clear as you give these people a free pass for throwing up what are clearly pretextual arguments about traffic while throwing a fit over any argument that WalMart and other crappy development might have negative impacts.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/vision-zero-a-road-diet-fad-is-proving-to-be-deadly-11547853472
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-08/when-a-bike-lane-battle-goes-nuclear
https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2021-03/PA-913.pdf
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3 hours ago, JJxvi said:
One of the intermediate plans for this, which was only scrapped within the last year or so, that was sprung on most people would have shut down all left turns except in a couple locations. It would have meant that everyone traveling west on 11th and needing to get to the south half of the neighborhood and everyone travelling east trying to get to the north half, would be funneled into only like two entrances, so if you lived like on Rutland within a block of 11th, half the neighborhood would be forced to drive by your house.
I think many that I've seen discuss this are frustrated that this is being sold as "bike lanes" and not with bike lanes being the excuse to justify removing car lanes. Anyone in that lives or has every lived in the neighborhood knows that bike lanes on 11th does'nt really make sense compared to the existing network as it exists right now. There is already an off street E/W path for cyclists just 4 blocks to the south. In addition, 3 blocks to the north is an ideal wide, quiet E/W street at 14th which is ideal for adding a new E/W bike lane that is in the heart of the neighborhood rather than being so close to the already existing E/W path at roughly 7th street. In addition, 14th is already a shared car/cyclist lanes east of Heights Blvd to Micheaux. Anybody with a brain who felt like bike lanes were needed would add them on 14th.
It seems to me the real argument for road diet is about safety, but that message isn't getting to the people who are mad. They just hear that lanes they use probably every day are going to be closed, and then they hear that they wont be able to turn left into their neighborhood anymore (I think/hope this concern was mostly fixed), all for bike lanes that would make way more sense on a different quieter street that would connect many of the same existing trails in the bike plan that isn't duplicating another path just a half mile away.
See these arguments regurgitated here just shows how the opposition to this is really just throwing anything at the wall because they are against left leaning urban projects like this just as a matter of political identity. No left turns would just mean that people would have to take 14th and go an extra block or two or go south of 11th and cut over on 8, 9 or 10th (which people already do). And to the extent people would use the streets that allowed left turns, would that mean an extra 20,000 vehicles a day? Of course not. It might mean maybe a dozen or two dozen more vehicles a day.
The whole point of a bike lane along 11th is to make it easier to access shops and restaurants on bike. 11th st has over a dozen restaurants and lots of shops between Shep and Studewood (with more on the way). There is nothing on 14th st. And anyone who actually cycles in the Heights knows that the last place you want to be riding is by Heights High due to student drivers, buses and traffic during school events. And 11th st would not duplicate the MKT hike and bike path. 11th st would offer cyclist only paths and pedestrians would be able to use the side walk. MKT is shared and gets very busy with walkers.
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For what it is worth, I have always felt that Dallas leaned more towards the East Coast with a more traditional old money approach to wealth with everyone trying to chase status symbols (country clubs, preppy clothes, etc.). Houston is much more of a "come as you are" city with a lot of new wealth that isn't as concerned with East Coast status symbols. This is also a function of the dominant employers. In Houston, O&G engineers, geologists, etc. wear a blue dress shirt and khaki dress pants. In Dallas, people in finance and insurance will suit up more often as that is the uniform in financial centers like NYC.
As far as development goes, Houston is a boom and bust town that has traditionally struggled to attract long bets, but has shown a lot of improvement over the past 20 years. Dallas has been more insulated from oil and gas volatility and other than the S&L crisis has managed to have a more sustained and dependable growth than Houston. So, people in Dallas place a priority on the big high end projects and the money is there to get it done. But Houston is definitely catching up in its own way. I think Houston aspires to be more like LA and Dallas looks to the East Coast more. And Dallas definitely has tourism. Fort Worth rebuilt its downtown with conventions and stockyard visitors. Dallas has the JFK stuff, although it is still amazing how downtown Dallas is still scarred by the trophy towers from the S&L days.
But to be clear, Dallas sucks.
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I just thought it was noteworthy that the minimum lot size push ultimately got rolled by this development. Every time a developer wants to take a big crap on a neighborhood, everyone jumps in with the chorus of "we don't have zoning" and then wags their fingers at residents for not getting minimum lot size. This time, they got minimum lot size and still got rolled.
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4 hours ago, steve1363 said:
I wouldn't know, and not sure why you have to be so disrespectful?
Why is it wrong to be concerned about additional traffic on an interior residential street?
It's ok for people to have different points of view. I'm apparently in the minority here on this forum and that is fine by me.
Disrespectful? You should have seen this place 10 years ago. And what is really disrespectful is trying to stop a much needed community improvement that can possibly save lives just because it may have a slightly negative impact on your particular property. Everyone in the Heights has had to take one for the team when it comes to development. When I moved in, I had a back yard that was all trees in every direction. With the exception of my yard, all the trees have been taken down and replaced with humper house additions that now use my backyard as a detention pond. The dry area is gone. Development is just going to keep roaring through the neighborhood. This is the one thing that will actually benefit the community instead of the guy with the biggest bag of money. We all give a little to gain a little in the Heights.
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11 hours ago, steve1363 said:
You think people use 11th Street to avoid I10 and 610? That's absurd. These changes to 11th, along with the planned changes to White Oak will absolutely change traffic patterns into the neighborhood. Brace yourself for more speed bumps on interior streets.
Just want to know whether the people who are losing their sh#t over the possibility of a few extra cars coming down their street are the same people who shout down anyone complaining about the impact of restaurants and bars on residential streets.
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Gatlin's is opening a seafood and fried chicken restaurant in Independence Heights.
Heights Mansion - 540 Heights Blvd.
in The Heights
Posted
More on the Revival replacement:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/food-culture/restaurants-bars/article/Louisiana-inspired-cafe-to-open-in-Revival-17342667.php