The Langley: Residential High-Rise At 1717 Bissonnet St.

[Urbannizer]

228’

https://oeaaa.faa.gov/oeaaa/external/searchAction.jsp?action=displayOECase&oeCaseID=541455555&row=5

[hindesky]

[toxtethogrady]

I will believe it when dirt actually flies...

[strickn]

On 6/24/2022 at 7:32 AM, aachor said:

I get the sentiment. The solution is quite simple, really: don't live in the dead-center of the nation's fourth-largest city.

If you can afford to live near Bissonnet and Ashby, you can afford to live just about anywhere else. People have a right to control their own property. But they don't also have a right to control everything else within their eyesight. Especially when they are surrounded by seven million other people who also have their own interests.

If property owners consistently come back to car traffic, unshadowed views, unobstructed views, noise level, local character, air quality, drainage, and water quality -- roughly in that order -- when these things arise, then that's a useful hierarchy.  If they tend to organize in groups in order to try to externalize those costs in order to get the added market value without being contractually obligated for it, then two solutions present themselves.  
 

Concerned citizens might be willing to pay surcharges for offloading each of the local development nuisances to another part of the city, up to the point at which it's not worth it to them to pay another benjamin rather than just accept a little more traffic or high-rise construction in the neighborhood.  Those payments will not be spread out over the whole city's tax base, however.  They will accrue to the neighborhoods that are accepting the increases in square footage.

On the other hand they might acknowledge that they want these resources/nuisances wastefully allocated rather than responsibly allocated because they thought there was a political mechanism to step outside the property value system and game it.  
 

If they don't want the allocation management to be rigged, then people who buy property shouldn't expect control over through traffic easement unless some offsite control of it is explicit in the title deed of the property they bought, and expect to explicitly pay more for it in the bidding process.

In the long run, whether it's priced in in that way or on an annual basis, this "MAX Lane" approach would streamline and make things simpler in the development process than "move out if you don't like change cuz cities change."  In particular, it would directly erase the informal, invisible fee transfers that annually raise the market valuation of access to property in a quiet (but politically vocal) wealthy enclave in the form of offloaded nuisances.  It would continue to encourage the property value gains that come from sheer prime location and local growth, without damaging those.  And it would lower the lure of free-riding since it uses the development nuisance offset payments to 'net out' that ownership incentive with every other part of the local city or county at the same time.

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by strickn
Clarification of free-rider investment gain, at the end

[Paco Jones]

Project:

The Langley

 

Architect:

EDi

 

Information:

134 units with a total SF of approx. 388,000 (excluding garage). Construction to begin in February with a 32-month duration.

 

 

[por favor gracias]

As much as I hate the politics with this development (from both sides), it really looks terrific.

[HNathoo]

On 11/29/2022 at 10:14 AM, Paco Jones said:

Project:

The Langley

 

Architect:

EDi

 

Information:

134 units with a total SF of approx. 388,000 (excluding garage). Construction to begin in February with a 32-month duration.

 

 

Wow those are some giant units!

[toxtethogrady]

3 hours ago, HNathoo said:

Wow those are some giant units!

That works out to 2800sf per unit, but I'm assuming some of that is common space, so 1500-2000sf per unit.

[Montrose1100]

Like that this brick and beige stone has become the de facto design for the north/west Museum District. Is it a homage to the First Presbyterian?

[J Money]

13 hours ago, toxtethogrady said:

That works out to 2800sf per unit, but I'm assuming some of that is common space, so 1500-2000sf per unit.

Press release on it actually verifies the 2850 sqft per unit, they're gonna be pretty spacious apartments

[hindesky]

[Urbannizer]

18 minutes ago, hindesky said:

Does 33L mean it’s now 33 floors?

[Paco Jones]

8 hours ago, Urbannizer said:

Does 33L mean it’s now 33 floors?

No, it's just an internal code for the city plan review.

[hindesky]

"Almost a  year after StreetLights filed updated plans with the city, the developer says it is weeks from breaking ground on the 20-story apartment building. The city of Houston granted StreetLights Residential a permit for site work and foundation work Monday, though it still is waiting approval to start vertical construction.

Stephen Meek, developer at Street Lights Residential, said the approved work could begin in early April."

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/the-langley-the-ashby-high-rise-permits-houston-17825264.php

[toxtethogrady]

They are such teases. What's it been - a decade or so?

[astrohip]

14 hours ago, toxtethogrady said:

They are such teases. What's it been - a decade or so?

Yep. 2007 (I lived in the neighborhood back then). Sixteen years if my math is correct.

I had some pics of the first protests, but can't find them. Need to keep hunting.

[toxtethogrady]

Yep - moving forward. And there's this singer named Miley Cyrus, who goes by the name of Hannah Montana, who's on the charts...😁

[hindesky]

The anti high rise tower signs have quadrupled since the Houston Chronicle story. They no longer say Ashby though.

[Houston19514]

22 hours ago, hindesky said:

The anti high rise tower signs have quadrupled since the Houston Chronicle story. They no longer say Ashby though.

IMO, those signs do more damage to the neighborhood than the high-rise will.

[toxtethogrady]

My college humor magazine came up with a Mad-Libs parody of lefty Causes du Jour that featured the headline, "This Time, It's _____!" Those signs have the same flavor...

[hindesky]

[Luminare]

7 hours ago, hindesky said:

This moment was foretold in the good book, when Moses speaks to the Pharaoh he says "Let my apartment go!"...At least that's what I remember...somebody fact check me. I'm still only on my first cup of coffee in the morning.

[Ross]

Hmmm, the address on the permit is not exactly inspiring Street view

[phillip_white]

1 hour ago, Ross said:

Hmmm, the address on the permit is not exactly inspiring Street view

That's the address for the company that filed the permits: J.R. Permits (aka Jasmine Rios). They show up on quite a few of the permits that I've seen.

[toxtethogrady]

How soon is now?

Controversial Inner Loop high-rise gets go-ahead; City Council member decries 'terrible news'

[Amlaham]

I'm not opposed to this project, but I do understand the neighbors frustrations. The streets are really narrow, and the area is veryyyy residential with only a few small businesses here and there along Bissonnet. However, this is very much a Houston type project. Massive buildings going up residential/ small streets, with strip centers/ gas stations/ parking lots going up main streets. Wish we could work the other way to put these larger buildings along major streets like Kirby or somewhere in the museum district, but it is what it is. 

[toxtethogrady]

Kirby's got a few high-rises, including some that were built in the last five years. I'd think Midtown would have been ripe for all of this but that Australian venture that was supposed to build five residential highrises turned out to have mirage financing and got canceled after the first one.

At least it's not Conroe, but that's bound to happen sooner or later...

[Houston19514]

2 hours ago, Amlaham said:

I'm not opposed to this project, but I do understand the neighbors frustrations. The streets are really narrow, and the area is veryyyy residential with only a few small businesses here and there along Bissonnet. However, this is very much a Houston type project. Massive buildings going up residential/ small streets, with strip centers/ gas stations/ parking lots going up main streets. Wish we could work the other way to put these larger buildings along major streets like Kirby or somewhere in the museum district, but it is what it is. 

Bissonnet, in addition to not being "really narrow," is categorized as a "Major Collector" street.  Across the street from the site are:  a massage studio, a law firm, a special events/catering business, Houston Hillel, and other commercial properties.  No single-family residential on the entire block.  The whole stretch of Bissonnet from Kirby to the Museum District is a mix of residential and commercial.  It's quite an understatement to claim there are only a few small businesses here and there.  And another reminder:  this property has been multifamily residential for decades. 

[samagon]

1 hour ago, Houston19514 said:

Bissonnet, in addition to not being "really narrow," is categorized as a "Major Collector" street.  Across the street from the site are:  a massage studio, a law firm, a special events/catering business, Houston Hillel, and other commercial properties.  No single-family residential on the entire block.  The whole stretch of Bissonnet from Kirby to the Museum District is a mix of residential and commercial.  It's quite an understatement to claim there are only a few small businesses here and there.  And another reminder:  this property has been multifamily residential for decades. 

that's the most important part, it was an apartment complex with (IIRC) 175ish units?

the sole purpose for opposition to this was to keep a tall building out of the area, this is brilliantly characterized by calling it the tower of terror, and the scary monster tower in their characterizations of the tower on their yellow signs.

however, with no ordinance against tall buildings, given appropriate setbacks, parking, etc, the only thing they had in their pocket for opposition was traffic.

anyway, I can't wait until this is a completed building.

[004n063]

I would also add that the streets in the area really aren't narrow at all, at least in my perception. But I do tend to think of most Houston streets (including most quiet residential streets) as shockingly wide. Freedmen's Town is the only part of the city that I would describe as having narrow streets, and even those aren't that narrow.