Harris County needs zoning laws now! (Houston, Dallas: apartment complex, lease, houses)

[Jamesww]

No they need Urban growth boundaries and tax ebatement for perseved needs. I really am not a fan of true and absolute zoning laws as they can form just as bad city arrangement as having no zoning at all. Plus it opens up even more avenues for corruption.

[Callo]

Originally Posted by jfre81

Here's the thing - you have your desirable, safe, middle class lily white suburb with great schools, etc. Which is great and all, but then retail, services etc. rolls in to serve this population. These create jobs, ones that don't pay well enough to make ends meet for a homeowner out there. So where is this labor coming from?

Either they're coming from lower income areas, or they're going to move into lower income developments near the (heretofore) desirable, safe, middle class lily white suburb with great schools, etc. This doesn't go over with people. So they move, fretting over property values and whether or not the school is going to be rated "exemplary" at standardized test taking, then throw the formerly "great schools" to the dogs as they leave for more pristine parts. Sprawl at work. Zoning doesn't eliminate the need for access to lower-paying jobs that are still going to be in demand there. Somebody's cleaning your table at Chili's, checking out your groceries at Wal-Mart and putting the cheap Made In China toy in your kid's Happy Meal, and it's not worth commuting very far for those jobs.

Sooner or later people are just going to have to deal with the fact that poor people are gonna live not far from them.

Yeah I get that love-income people have to live somewhere. Every municipality, even very wealthy places, have low-income Section 8 housing.

The problem is that Bammel/Westfield has far too much of it. We're talking 30+ complexs within a five mile radius. Most of them are falling apart. The rents are extremely low. There's open drug trading. No order and people come in and out all the time. And don't get me started about "starter homes," which are just as bad in that respect.

Have you been to Bammel Middle School lately? If you have some spare time, head on up there and take a gander. I guarantee you'll see kids running around, fighting, and doing God only knows what else at all hours. Ridiculous.

[crbcrbrgv]

Originally Posted by C2H (ComingtoHouston)

To put it lightly, Houston is like a young woman. She's open- toed sandals without the pedicure, but take time to get to know her, she's a hot personality. Dallas is prettier sister, the snooty cheerleader that always gets her nails and feet done but not so hot in the personality department.

Dallas's prettiness, much like Austin's coolness is greatly exaggerated.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by Callo

I guarantee you'll see kids running around, fighting, and doing God only knows what else at all hours. Ridiculous.

Sounds like my middle school.

I turned out sort of OK.

[sxrckr]

Callo, I understand where you're coming from but think it's futile to try and convince the people who
(a) have no kids yet or kids already grown so don't care about schools
(b) live in an area where half of the residents use private schools and/or can afford to do so

They're always going to say the poor have to live somewhere. Even if it's turning into a Sharpstown or Alief. By that premise, the government needs to build "affordable housing" for the middle class near Houston's employment centers (downtown, med center, galleria) so they can
"live near work." If you're a family needing to live near those areas and want good schools, expect to pay what, at least $500k for a home? Not possible if you need a home in the $150-350k range, which would be the category of most families in the suburbs. So, they end up in the suburbs with a long commute. Then you get slammed if you complain of the government wanting to use your tax dollars to build low-income housing in the suburbs and kill your schools, just so that they can be "close to work" or whatever. Why should only people below a certain income bracket get this special treatment, especially at the detriment to the middle class?

Back to the area you speak of. Just look at the change in Westfield High School over two decades. Obviously something is going on. Enrollment through the roof, sounds like you are right, probably too much multifamily housing was built.
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/TX/schools/4122004721/school.aspx

[Callo]

Well, those numbers are a bit misleading since they were before Andy Dekaney High School opened.

But as you pointed out, Westfield suffered from a perfect storm. They overbuilt apartments on either side of the highway. Then they extended the district lines to include the tip of Greenspoint. Finally, they absorbed a chunk of Aldine ISD in the east. That also happened to coincide with the natural decline in white students due to the aging of the subdivisions. It wasn't able to handle all of that.

[htxdrone]

Originally Posted by DDDD24DDDD

HTXDrone...

I don't think my prior comment was in any way contradictory. I don't think people want to spend for any common upkeep of the areas in the city. At least I haven't seen a lot of nice parks and well cared for public lands. Look at all the abandoned parking lots around the city, or the lack of curbs and sidewalks in some areas, and the list goes on. Besides the recent Pride parade, I haven't seen any neighborhood parties or fairs or community events, like you do in other large cities. I admit only living here for a few months, so I may have missed them, but in my home city, there is a street festival in a different neighborhood every weekend. And they raise money for the local community group to buy flowers to plant or clean up the streets, etc. I haven't seen any sort of community involvement like this in Houston. And I also think taxes in Houston, when all is said and done, are about average for a city. I don't know where you got 9.3% for an average state or local government income tax. Maybe in California or something, but that's not normal. I came from another large city, my state taxes were 3% of income, no city income taxes. City sales tax was a little higher than Houston. But my property taxes were only about 1%. In my situation, it ends up about the same as Houston. And I was living in one of those so called "free spending liberal northern cities". It all evens out is my point, although you're right, when its property or sales tax, at least you can decide how much you pay (assuming you have disposable income).

I stand by my previous post. I've never seen anything like Houston. If its not the zoning and or lack of care by the citizens, what is it?

Ahh, ok I took it as contradictory to say that people didn't want to pay for things and that being the cause of problems, and then following it up with a statement about how high taxes are =)

The number one thing about Houston, is that I find that people tend to get exactly what they expect.

If they expect a vibrant, diverse, artistic city -- they'll be drawn to old china town, new china town, the Indian and Korean areas, they'll boggle at the number of great galleries, museums and the plethora of cuisines available at any given moment. They might even spend a bunch of time hopping around the warehouse district on the weekends.

If they expect a flat, hot, humid sprawl - they'll see nothing but that, wherever they go in town.

If they're a sportsman, they might enjoy the easy access to great fishing in the Galveston Bay area, the great duck and dove hunting in the fall, or maybe just alligator and bird-watching down at Brazos Bend.

There's so much to be had here, it's really hard to experience all 600 sq miles of it in a short period of time. Everyone will be able to find things they like and don't like. Among my friends, we always say "we ended up here because of work, and stayed because there was no where better to go." =)

[dv1033]

I'm going to repeat this again:
"It seems people either don't realize or don't take into account the very large blue collared workforce we have in Houston compared to many cities. Silicon Valley, Dallas, Atlanta all look very nice and have a large college-educated population compared to us because of the jobs they employ there. Yes Houston has the energy industry, healthcare and medicine, and aerospace (NASA) but we have a very large industrial/manufacturing/distribution employment sectors. In fact, Houston has more manufacturing jobs than LA and NYC. These blue collared jobs are going to affect the makeup and look of the city."

I'm going to add some more:

Houston has a larger than average illegal immigration population. Seems lots of people move here from places that don't have the amount of lower to lower middle income individuals and it's a shock.

However, I think some people need to get out more and explore Houston. To generalization Houston as completely ugly is saying you don't get out too much.

[Spade]

I read an interesting discussion on another board regarding Houston and only Houston about this situation. It would be great if any of you would like to read it and then post your thoughts on the discussion in here. Due to respect of this board, I will not post the link in here. But I can discuss it with you in DM.

But it talks about the urbanity of Houston and zoning was brought up. The lack of infrastructure brought up is what is stopping Houston from maximizing it's full potential and I agree. When I visit some Houston neighborhoods, I see neighborhoods with no curbs, sidewalks, or drainage. These are pretty basic when it comes to building a community. This is as important as zoning, IMHO.

This is the way Houston was built because it was a sleepy Southern town added to the fact that it grew in the post world war 2 era which means, it was built around the car. Now, Houston is no longer that sleepy Southern town and is now becoming a cosmopolitan, urban, dense, and vibrant big city as it starts to look more like it's peers in the Midwest and Northeast compared to it's smaller peers in the Southeast. Zoning and infrastructure is needed IMO in Houston if it wants to improve.


The conversation started out from this link here in the Houston chronicle. Read those comments as well (even though most of the time, the Houston Chronicle's comments are comedy. They make good points in reponse to this article.)
Houston considers sweeping change in development | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

[Callo]

I'm just glad there are some people out there that share my point of view. Sometimes it feels like I'm fighting a lost cause. After all, even if they adopted zoning laws now, it wouldn't do anything to get rid of the horrible apartments that have ruined the area.