Survey: Many Houstonians want better land use planning, urban renewal (Dallas: apartment, townhomes)

[jfre81]

Should I create another topic about METRO's questionable financial projections? Just saying.

[matthou]

Originally Posted by Scarface713

And again, KHOU was flat out wrong with their reporting on METRO. KHOU is usually on top of things in my opinion, but obviously not here. And what do you mean, why would the Chronicle respond to KHOU? Anyway, here is the article that corrected KHOU's big mistake:



Metro, city officials deny effort to mislead FTA | Houston Politics | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle[/url]





The rest of the article is in the link.

Why would the Chronicle respond to KHOU?? It will be interesting to see whether you figure it out.


Ah I thought you had some facts....using a Chronicle blog to correct METRO's faux pas? METRO is the one who submitted old data. In the meantime, FTA has pulled their funding. When METRO gets its act together and prove that is has a funding mechanism to pay for the project longterm, funding will be restored.


Poor Annise is now having to defend actions of her staff. My favorite quote is "The officials knew very well that they had received 2008 numbers, Moncur said, and didn't believe Metro was trying to mislead them."


Ironically, no mention that 2009 numbers existed.

[Trae713]

Post the link that shows that the FTA pulled their funding, because the Chron article obviously proves otherwise. You must have missed this part, but I'll gladly post the quote for you again:

But James Moncur, who headed a transition committee that examined Metro's finances for Mayor Annise Parker, told me today he discussed the sales tax projections when he met with FTA officials in February. The officials knew very well that they had received 2008 numbers, Moncur said, and didn't believe Metro was trying to mislead them.

The mayor agreed, saying in a statement that "the FTA assured transition team members that it conducts its own analysis."

As for the Chronicle responding to the KHOU, it should be fairly obvious to you, but could it be because KHOU had horrible reporting on the subject?

[matthou]

Originally Posted by Scarface713

Post the link that shows that the FTA pulled their funding, because the Chron article obviously proves otherwise. You must have missed this part, but I'll gladly post the quote for you again:



As for the Chronicle responding to the KHOU, it should be fairly obvious to you, but could it be because KHOU had horrible reporting on the subject?

by Mark Greenblatt / 11 News Defenders
khou.com
Posted on April 22, 2010 at 12:42 AM
Updated Thursday, Apr 22 at 9:39 AM
Related:




HOUSTON -- The Federal Transit Administration said it "won’t approve" federal funding right now on two light rail extensions proposed by Metro; until it can become confident the transit authority can afford to finish the jobs while still maintaining current service.
"In the interest of protecting the taxpayer, the FTA will not approve full funding grant agreements for the north and southeast corridor light rail projects until we are confident that Houston Metro can afford to build and operate these two new lines while maintaining its existing system," said Paul Griffo of the FTA.




KHOU's report appears to be on target otherwise funding would NOT have been pulled. Funding was pulled after the story.

METRO went in and asked for a waiver so that they wouldn't have to use American products which is a requirement from the FTA to receive public funding.. They signed a certificate of compliance saying they would buy American. Now they decide they don't want to and the FTA said then you won't get public funding. Is this another KHOU "problem"?

Buy America Letter 2

[bornrich]

Houston is so weird.

It needs zoning, ASAP.

What a disaster.

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by bornrich

Houston is so weird.

And that's why some of us like it.

To paraphrase something somebody said something else, on my last photowalk I went from a place that looked like another country, into an Old South setting, then into an urban area with a New Orleans vibe and all I did was walk down Washington Avenue from Shepherd to downtown - less than four miles.

I can't say I don't dig that.

[houstoner]

Originally Posted by jfre81

A city that constantly reinvents itself is a dynamic city, but government is rarely dynamic. What needs to be done is update these ordinances to reflect the city's needs in 2010, not in 1960 or whenever they were put into place.

If we go the traditional zoning route, I'd rather it be done on a localized basis according to the needs of that part of the city. Houston has annexed a lot of areas that are not urban and were never really intended to be. What might be in the best interest of Midtown or Third Ward may not be for Clear Lake or Kingwood, which are in the city limits but were designed to be master planned suburbs. Let them have their own plans, and have a different one for more urban locations. This might mean that you have "traditional" zoning in Kingwood but not necessarily in Montrose. You might have historical preservation guidelines in the Heights that don't apply to a place like Gulfton that contains little of historic value. The contrast in landscapes is by far the most interesting thing about this city - keep that.

When we say "Houston doesn't have zoning" basically what we mean is that there is no legal separation of residential and commercial zones. This can actually be conducive to mixed use development. You even have it in some places, like on Gray in Midtown where you have the apartments built over the New York Pizzeria or in downtown where the Kirby Lofts have a CVS that is more along the lines of urban development. Shows that it can and has been done here.

Some people are going to hate the idea of more density and urbanization, mainly the people who want the detached house in a subdivision. The city and metro is big enough for two forms of living. Sure, once the 20-somethings grow up and start a family they may very well move out to the burbs, but then you have a whole new group of 20-somethings coming up. And maybe a handful of of them might even (shock!) decide to stay in the city and raise their kids there. The inner city schools aren't going to reclaim themselves - the people have to do it.

Exactly! Nail, meet head. For many of my friends and myself, the lack of options for a more urban lifestyle is a big reason why we left Houston. I have nothing against the suburbs, but there's a problem when a city offers that as the only viable option for decent living. Garden-style apartment complexes shouldn't be in an urban core, and there aren't enough duplexes and the like to meet demand. Houston has a lot to offer and I wouldn't rule out a return someday when the city gets its act together. That and the aesthetics are the biggest problem, not lack of zoning. I see some of the same type sprawl and commercial development around the Boston area as you'd find in Houston, but the difference is it's outside the city of Boston, which has a real urban core and more traditionally planned areas to balance it.

[houstoner]

Originally Posted by randian

Because nothing says walkable like hot, sticky, and mosquito-infested swamp. Which Houston is/was. Like you're going to walk anywhere in the heat and humidity, let alone walk your groceries a half mile back to your condo. Lest you forget, that will be nearly every day, since you can't carry a week's worth of groceries by yourself. In day-to-day operation, "walkable" gets tiresome very quickly. Apparently the solution to everything is "walkable", the actual conditions on the ground be damned.

This argument doesn't hold water. New Orleans' weather is nearly identical to Houston's. Somehow it manages to be one of the best planned cities in the Southeast and have good public transit. That city has its own challenges, but the point is Houston can't use its weather as an excuse for lack of good urban planning. Developers and city planners need to stop trying to reinvent the wheel and look at what New Orleans and other cities have done right to help improve the city's urbanity, rather than drag out the tired, old "Houston is Houston, not Austin/Dallas/NYC/San Francisco" stuff when faced with constructive criticism.

[jfre81]

Well, to be fair, randian wants Houston to be an endless suburban strip mall paradise where you have to drive everywhere. And he/she(?) can

The weather thing is a copout. The "it's too spread out" thing is a copout. Every other excuse that gets thrown about in these kinds of discussions are copouts.

Austin is dense in the core but we're talking a small area, and their transit system isn't anything to brag about. Give me Houston's any day and twice on Sunday, even if some of the METRO lines don't even run on Sunday.

Dallas is basically what Houston would look like with the zoning everyone wants. No thanks. For that matter, every other Sun Belt sprawl has zoning and Houston is no less urbanized than any of them save for New Orleans which for being much older and constrained by geography hardly counts. Maybe Los Angeles and only within the last 20-30 years, where Houston could be in the same time frame. It's moving in that direction already. Comparing any of them to NYC/SF/Boston is meaningless. We're talking about cities that rose under an entirely different set of circumstances. But even there, the suburban sprawl is everywhere once you get out of the core city.

Transit is the key. The financial mess at METRO needs to get sorted out, or better yet maybe it should be dismantled so we can start anew with the whole thing. I could go for that.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by jfre81

Transit is the key. The financial mess at METRO needs to get sorted out, or better yet maybe it should be dismantled so we can start anew with the whole thing. I could go for that.

If that was to happen. Do you think there could be a regional transit network? Like a Gulf Coast transit authority instead of just the city or just Harris County.

Oh yes, I must repeat that the weather thing is a huge copout.