Somerset Green: Residential Community At 3709 Somerset Green Dr.

[IronTiger]

I felt the same way in thinking Hines was a more visionary developer than to build gated neighborhoods but I guess his business is first and foremost to make money.

More disturbing is the thought that, given a blank slate, urban Houstonians want to live inside gates just as much as suburban Houstonians. Perhaps most new residents of the Heights would gate the whole neighborhood if they could. The civic beauty of a city where sidewalks line the streets and the streets flow into avenues, where one can walk for hours and pass from neighborhood to neighborhood before returning home, and see and say hello to other people doing the same thing, is dead to them, if they can even imagine it.

The area is a former industrial site and it shows. It's on a dead-end road next to a railroad with no walkable retail anywhere nearby.

It certainly doesn't feel like the way the Inner Loop's ought to be, but then again, what does?

[Timoric]

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Edited July 8, 2019 by Timoric

[fernz]

Who designed Houston's street system or did non-zoning mean no one did?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Enfant_Plan

Probably a traffic engineer from A&M....

In all seriousness, one of the biggest problems is the closed neighborhood and cul-de-sac development pattern that kills any type of grid layout.

Think about all the people that work inside the loop, including galleria area, and live west of the galleria (from the villages all the way to Katy) There are only 6 roads they can take. (westpark, Richmond, westheimer, SF/briar forest, memorial and I-10). In a non suburban model city, all the streets in between would run full length, and the traffic load would be shared by 50 streets instead of 6.

[Timoric]

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Edited July 8, 2019 by Timoric

[houstontiger]

All of the recent and planned residential development in the area follows a similar pattern, i.e. gated and completely closed off from the surrounding community, although on a much smaller scale in comparison to this Hines project.  I can't really blame developers at this point because they are the first movers in this area and there is literally NO immediate neighborhood that homebuyers would want to interact with.  If this brownfield to residential redevelopment trend continues, it would be such a tragedy to be left with dozens of similar style developments, completely cutoff from each other, islands to themselves, especially when you have the polar opposite in a 60 year old neighborhood immediately to the east.

Edited July 2, 2014 by houstontiger

[Houston19514]

All of the recent and planned residential development in the area follows a similar pattern, i.e. gated and completely closed off from the surrounding community, although on a much smaller scale in comparison to this Hines project.  I can't really blame developers at this point because they are the first movers in this area and there is literally NO immediate neighborhood that homebuyers would want to interact wit.  If this brownfield to residential redevelopment trend continues, it would be such a tragedy to be left with dozens of similar style developments, completely cutoff from each other, islands to themselves, especially when you have the polar opposite in a 60 year old neighborhood immediately to the east.

 

It's nice to have choices.

[H-Town Man]

A French guy named L'Enfant (L'Enfant Plaza) designed the streets of Washington DC.

Who designed Houston's street system or did non-zoning mean no one did?

Can they be redesigned to work better now and are they doing that?

I have always thought of Houston as all freeways with a few crossing streets commuters don't really use unless avoiding a wreck.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Enfant_Plan

 

I think the original grid downtown was laid out by the Allen Brothers and then extended into midtown and east end; most later additions were probably laid out by the developers of the respective areas, except for maybe the other wards. So the Shadyside developer (Joseph Cullinen?) laid out Shadyside, the Broadacres developer laid out Broadacres, the Heights developers did the Heights, etc. Luckily up until the 1920's most of these developments were open grids because people got around on horses and wagons and wanted simple direct routes, but I guess around 1910 you started to have new exclusive neighborhoods that were designed for privacy (Shadyside, etc.), and as the automobile became more widespread, more and more neighborhoods went to this pattern.

 

I'm not sure what sort of a precedent there is in American cities for the city government forcefully opening up a street grid that was closed off and exclusive. I know it took decades for them to put Voss across Buffalo Bayou and connect Westheimer to I-10 against staunch local opposition. To do anything more than the occasional one-off road to relieve a desperate traffic problem would probably require a level of civic power that Houstonians don't have the stomach for yet. It will be interesting to see what becomes of the KBR area.

[H-Town Man]

 

Ain't no street grid like a Midwestern street grid, 'cause a Midwestern street grid don't stop...

 

[Houston19514]

Let's not get too carried away here.  There are breaks in the Chicago street grid, and <GASP> gated neighborhoods too.

[H-Town Man]

Let's not get too carried away here.  There are breaks in the Chicago street grid, and <GASP> gated neighborhoods too.

 

Well of course in a metro area of over 9 million there are going to be some breaks and a few gated neighborhoods. Big difference from Houston though, which was <GASP> the point.

[On to the Next One]

The street grid where this is located is so messed up that I don't blame them for doing a gated community.  It is adjacent to a major railroad junction.

[Houston19514]

The street grid where this is located is so messed up that I don't blame them for doing a gated community.  It is adjacent to a major railroad junction.

 

Exactly.  It's really pretty irrelevant to the rest of Houston whether this community will be gated or not gated.

[H-Town Man]

I agree if nothing else around there turns over. If other industrial properties around there continue to turn over, then it would be better in the long run if they weren't all separate gated developments. It could even be a denser, non-Victorian version of the Heights if coordinated well, which is admittedly unlikely, but by no means impossible.

[BigFootsSocks]

Have you guys ever been over to this area? There are at least 3 other gated neighborhoods within a 5 minute walk of this project. This is nothing new.

[H-Town Man]

But there's no point in going on that 5 minute walk, since all you'll meet with is a wall or a gate.

[Marcus Allen]

Ain't no street grid like a Midwestern street grid, 'cause a Midwestern street grid don't stop...

Whoa, looks like an areal view of my Sim City Mega Cities!

[BigFootsSocks]

But there's no point in going on that 5 minute walk, since all you'll meet with is a wall or a gate.

Touché

[mollusk]

Perhaps most new residents of the Heights would gate the whole neighborhood if they could. 

 

No perhaps about it.  All around my neighborhood, immediately after the noobs tear down the real bungalow to build a fake bungalow four times bigger, the very next thing installed is a full perimeter fence with an electric gate.  I suspect they'd like to turn the sidewalks into moats while they're at it.

[BigFootsSocks]

Well my brother just spun out his F250 into one of these small gated condo communities and plowed right through the rod iron fence so I guess we're one step closer to removing those gates

[Triton]

They have a massive hill on the property now. Maybe it's the dirt from the lakes...?

[cloud713]

They have a massive hill on the property now. Maybe it's the dirt from the lakes...?

I hope they utilize it for some change in elevation instead of hauling it all away..

[Fortune]

Project website with information about project and some renderings:

http://www.somersetgreenhouston.com/index.html

[Dakota79]

Geez. How exclusive is it with 1000+ or - (exaggerating) units tucked in between the quietness of 610, I-10,290 interchanges. Of course it does have canals, so perhaps one can forget all the aforementioned exclusivity.

[monarch]

fine.. clean lines everywhere.. european appeal.. splendid.. expensive mos def.. i love it!

[Houston?]

Yaaaassssss!

 

Very DC like!

[Luminare]

I'm fine with townhomes, but why are we still planning out these areas as if they were suburban developments that are out in the middle of nowhere? I just don't get it.

[H-Town Man]

I'm fine with townhomes, but why are we still planning out these areas as if they were suburban developments that are out in the middle of nowhere? I just don't get it.

Yeah. Because the prospective buyer will want gated security (and fake lakes) like they're accustomed to in the suburbs. But, yeah.

[houstontexasjack]

Hines may be targeting First Colony residents looking to make a move inside the Loop, among other similarly situated buyers. Anecdotally, I am aware of a couple parties interested in this development who are former First Colony residents who fear crime inside the Loop. It is not a rational fear, but it is there.

[brian0123]

I've always wondered how long it would take for developers to bring a master planned community inside the loop. I think things like this are good in order to attract the suburban buyer wanting a shorter commute. If HISD were smart, they'd figure out ways to zone these types of places to nicer schools in order to increase their tax revenues.

[Avossos]

I think this is a pretty cool project. huge undertaking too. As Monarch said, it does feel European. Someplace I think alot of people (surbanites for one) would enjoy.