Seven Buildings (and Neighborhoods) That Would Never Fly in Any City But Houston
 

In my region, highrises aren't allowed except in the Downtown Seattle area, a couple other historic downtowns, and a small number of urban nodes, only one of which was upzoned early enough to have any (Bellevue). We don't allow highrises next to some existing highrises.

And industrial/port land is jealously guarded, true industrial, not the low-intensity stuff found in more urban neighborhoods.

That said, there's an enormous amount of infill in nodes. Six-story, 300 unit (and 50 unit) buildings are commonly built in dozens of nodes on both sides of the city limits.

Parking is a big difference of course. The article talks about a highrise with as much space for parking as actually living in, which we wouldn't do. The high-growth areas generally don't do surface parking either.

i dunnah.

Not many cities — okay, no city outside Houston — would let a developer build an entire business district from scratch miles from the urban core, but that’s exactly what Gerald D. Hines did nearly half a century ago. Anchored by the Galleria mall, the largest in Texas, Uptown has emerged as a “downtown” to Houston’s western suburbs, centered on Post Oak Boulevard, just west of the 610 Loop.

you have the plaza in kansas city, one developer.

downtown clayton in st. louis county, mo, also nearby by the galleria mall (pictured)....

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...l/clayton1.jpg
kcphotos.com

you see, this IS our uptown, except its a little further from downtown st. louis than uptown houston is from downtown houston.

Strangely enough, even though Austin has zoning, you find a mix similar to what you have in Houston, although not as much. There are also a lot of zoning variances granted in Austin.

I wonder if at some point voters in Houston will change things regarding zoning. The catalyst, I assume, will be the high rise condos that are sprouting in affluent neighborhoods (causing the most rebellion at this point). I personally enjoy seeing the chaotic variety of land use and architecture, but I might feel differently if I suddenly can't plant a garden because so much of the sun is blocked out by a highrise in my neighborhood.

The author does seem naive by saying that this is exclusive to Houston. Dallas has "downtowns" outside of the central downtown, as does L.A. and other cities. How about Atlanta's Buckhead?

Lots of cities are multi-nodal, but most have some zoning restrictions that limit these types of development. This article makes it seem like Houston is pretty much a free-for-all...

Yeah, although for the most part, major office, hotel, and high rise residential is still occurring within established nodal "downtowns" or along major thoroughfares. Midrise condos and apartments are definitely taking over neighborhoods that many people think needed to be razed anyway and are serving as good infill. Unfortunately, some historical neighborhoods have been damaged, and poor people have been displaced. What really makes headlines, though, is when highrises pop up in affluent neighborhoods (e.g., the famous or infamous Ashby highrise residential and at least one other controversial high rise). The NIMBY syndrome is alive and well.

The NIMBY syndrome may be alive but in Houston it isn't all that prevalent. Most people's reaction to the whole Ashby high-rise controversy has been "F**k em'. They live in the middle of the city. If they don't like high rises they can move out to Bellaire, West U, or any of the dozens of master planned communities and neighborhoods that have strict deed restrictions or are incorporated and have zoning." If you don't like dense development, you move to where these is none and where there can never be any. You don't get all pompous and self righteous and start suing real estate developers to dictate the economic terms of their investments.

As for the poor getting displaced, I don't have much sympathy. It's happened to me twice in the last 5 years. I just moved to a cheaper place. If you own and are forced to sell because property taxes are too high, that's upsetting. It happened to my grandmother recently. If you rent and are forced to move, that is simply a risk you take. I chose to pay unbelievably below market rents for the neighborhood I was in. The risk was that the owner would sell because the rental income barely covered more than property taxes. When they notified me that the building was going to be demolished, they gave me 60 days to move, returned my security deposit, and gave me an extra month's rent on top of that to put towards moving costs and a new deposit. I, as a renter had no right to force the owner to let me stay as long as I wanted so I found a new home and moved. I wouldn't consider it "displacement" as that has a real negative implication. The volcano displaced the villagers. The tsunami displaced the people. I moved from an apartment to another apartment nearby.

I understand the reality of what you're saying. While I fully understand why it happens, I still don't feel great about poor people having to relocate due to economic pressures. But it is reality and it will continue to happen. It's a huge deal here in Austin as well, and probably many other cities.

http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/six-...ty-but-houston

Good grief, that one rendering plopped into that aerial photo is hilarious and epically bad at the same time. Nimbys crack me up. They did the same for the Spring Condominiums in Austin when someone made a bad Lego model of the area that was most definitely not to scale. They just plopped down some Lego bricks and made one skinny stack of bricks to show the tower. Do they not know that if their model isn't to scale that their argument is being severely damaged? It would be like a developer proposing a building with a bad presentation that doesn't accurately show their proposal and gives the wrong idea of what it'll actually look like. Imagine a developer knowing that and using a bad model to under estimate the height of their project to win support. But, accuracy and honesty are not something Nimbys are shooting for. They love making projects out to be a boogieman. They should just go ahead and use an image of the Stay Puft Marshmallow man to denote the building instead.

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/i...S349SH5vZzesPx
Source

Not much of this article seems to be "only in Houston". A CBD built miles away from downtown by one developer? Sounds like Century City to me. Multi-story wood framed buildings being built in SFH neighborhoods? Sounds like a lot of Los Angeles to me. Industrial space being turned into residential neighborhoods? Sounds like the Arts District to me. This article is just factually incorrect.

In Oxnard, CA.the biggest "WTF" building I've ever seen:

http://www.tricountycounsel.com/wp-c...thorpv2_05.jpg

http://www.tricountycounsel.com/wp-c...thorpv2_05.jpg

http://www.venturaweekly.com/images/...n-stanley1.jpg
http://www.venturaweekly.com/images/...n-stanley1.jpg

Houston is just an experiment where we let the free market run the urban development. Although I would like to say that I think the road transportation planning is very good and mostly cohesive. With a large grid, two loop highways and freeways in every direction.

I would also like to say that a lot of you should read the article, which lays out seven buildings and neighborhoods which wouldn't happen outside Houston and explain why that would be.

No city outside of Houston but only in Houston? I can think of many cities in North America and beyond where buildings/developments of this sort took place.

Rob Ford in one of his "drunken stupors"

Cheap land and the free market also conspire to make most of this Houston infill not terribly urban.

The townhouse trend is good, but marginally urban in density and form.

Every time I dig into a new Houston highrise it has an "entry drive". Most infill seems to have parking garages above grade, with huge amounts of parking. Outside the core many have surface parking. Between form and density, it's better than what was there, but not terribly urban.

Above-grade garages aren't the worst thing in the world but even if well done the result is less density than the same parking underground. To say nothing of mode splits.

Long story short...it's good, but my local suburban downtowns are far more urban than most of what gets built in Houston.

This article is about zoning. Los Angeles actually does have set of limits in designated areas of what you can and can't build, and NIMBYism is much more powerful and toxic in LA like many other cities, sky. It's not even remotely like Houston where it's relatively easy to plop down a tower in a sea of single family homes. And you can't even compare CC to Uptown (a full fledged CBD in its own right thats getting rapidly bigger, unlike CC). LA has one (mild) downtown. Houston has five. The article is correct, there is no other city in the country like Houston and I can't wait to see what its like 20 years.

Houston's "free-market" philosophy certainly follows the sun belt model of development. I think what holds Houston back is also what makes it's positive; this "libertarian" type ideal of planning and development. In hindsight, Houston should have had a more cohesive regional transportation plan to accommodate the million people per decade growth the past 3 decades and future growth. Houston has the large employment centers surrounding downtown but needs to focus on them being more cohesive in terms of form and connectivity.

You mention your local suburban downtowns...where are you located? J Not disputing what you're saying at all...just want to know. Thanks.

mhays lives in bellevue, WA iirc

This article is a bit silly. What's different about Houston is these dense employment centers came about in spite of top down planning. Uptown, Greenway Plaza, and Texas Medical Center are rather large employment centers, even by sunbelt standards. However, the most unique thing is these centers (except TMC) were built over night in the 80s during the boom and have been trying to figure out how to become truly urban since. I think Houston is finding a better public-private balance as of late.

It's an awesome place and I would agree with mhays that it's more urban.

Agreed. To me, with all the new public parks, greenbelts, infill, increasing light rail (though not nearly enough), ethnic diversity, and highrises, the momentum is going in a positive direction. It's still a big work in progress but there's a lot of excitement about the changes. I'm not saying there aren't problems; just saying it's nice to see good things happening.

Can you tell me where in Houston you have seen this? I've never seen this in Houston and I'm not being critical, I would like to see where it is.

Also, if you read the article it says "wouldn't fly in any city but Houston" not "wouldn't be built anywhere but Houston". It is very hard to have an architectural style entirely found only in one city, if not impossible. I think the article is just saying there isn't much pushback or difficulty building these things in Houston.

Houston a place with no zoning.
Miami a place where zoning doesn't matter.

Contrast and compare.

I usually always defend Houston, as it has many many many haters. I will still defend its incredible urban growth, its overall economy, and its lack of urban planning.

However....


If you look at Houston from above on Googlemaps, you might think " wow, this place is pretty dense in areas, quite a few areas in fact." However, I have been to Houston and google Streetview it all the time. Once you look at the street level, that density seems to matter less and less. The city has in fact been building multitudes of density all around the city. But this density hasn't been, over the whole of the city, converted into an urban environment which we(since this is SSP) probably all would prefer over suburbia or suburban-like development.

So I'll still defend Houston and everything awesome about it, but I think the newer developments need more connectivity with the streets. Density for sake of density doesn't always equal *awesome*. It wouldn't take much to convert Houston to a more urban environment. The city could build sidewalks and improve street-appearances. Developers could simply add retail at the bottom, townhouses could be built with less focus on the garage etc etc.

We are urbanizing fast but we are a big city. It will be a long long time before we are fully urban. Also, many US cities have had nearly a hundred years (since we never started getting big until the 20th century) ahead of us.

However, when it comes to sprawling sunbelt cities. Houston and Los Angeles are urbanizing the most.

Hmm....I thought I had been seeing some new developments with retail at the bottom, but those who live there will have a better handle on that than I will. It certainly needs to take off and be the rule rather than exception. I know I've been seeing townhouses with no garages in front. Whether it's a trend or not, I don't know. Doesn't bother me one way or the other. Regarding street appearance, I've seen a lot of street landscaping in Houston. Lots of flowers, palms, other landscaping on the medians. I understand that some of the landscaping is financed by corporate dollars. I think Uptown's landscaping along Post Oak is a good example. Certainly not all streets by any means have been landscaped, but there's been excellent progress. Many U.S. cities have no landscaping at all along right of ways.

There was a well publicized initiative from the mayor last fall (it was discussed in SSP) regarding more "complete" streets that would not just be focused on automobiles. A great deal of work needs to be done in that regard, but it's another example where Houston leadership and citizens are getting on the stick and transforming the city in a positive way.

Hope you don't mind my asking, but I don't know where you're located. A lot of members don't show their location in their profiles (unless I missed yours). Thanks...appreciate it, and thanks for bringing up these important and very valid issues.

I went to the stopashbyhighrise.org site and they have archives going back to 2007! :haha: That developer is seriously patient. What is the update on that thing? I have to run but if anyone has renderings I would love to see them. 7 year battle wow.

Ashby High Rise will be built but the neighbors will be financially compensated.

Ashby High Rise
http://swamplot.com/wp-content/uploa...-bissonnet.jpg

Swamplot.com

Seattle area.

Bellevue is the largest suburban downtown. Since the late 80s the majority of new parking has been below grade, and buildings have happened on smaller lots. Towers tend to go straight up from the sidewalks.

Likewise in lowrise suburban downtowns like Kirkland, Redmond, and many others, six-story apartments are common, and their parking is usually below-grade too.

Sounds really great. Would love to actually visit. I've been to Seattle itself several times, but not Bellevue. Have just seen it from the air flying in.

No problem, I live in Austin. Moved here last summer. Yeah, I'll be the first to admit my knowledge of Houston is limited, which was showcased when I brought up "streetviewing" as one of my experiences with Houston lol I support all Texas cities and love whats going on in Dallas and Houston as far as increasing their urban environment.

It's taking a series of booms to transition from its 1970 version to its final form over maybe 500 acres. The late 80s and late 90s had sizeable contributions. The 2006 version was epic. Another is well underway and is supposed to reach "epic" status this summer. But still it'll need one more to be a cohesively urban place. And light rail is supposed to arrive in 2021, including a short tunnel through Downtown. It's a fascinating transformation to watch, but no hurry in seeing the "final" product.

In most major areas in the US and Canada, there are separate cities with their own "downtowns."

For example, if you travel into the coastal hills around LA and look down at the metro-area, there must be 10 or more mini-downtowns, connected by freeways (you may need a pair of binoculars and a good wind to keep the sky clear).

Houston is unique in one respect- within the city limits of a huge city there has been almost no zoning during the period of freeway building.

Even more remarkable, though, is that Houston has maintained this practice through times when urban violence and integration caused unincorporated suburban fringes around the US to become municipalities to localize any forced busing. In fact, the city limits continued to expand.

My impression while reading the article is that it's emphasizing the culture of the city with new projects. We've voted down zoning 2 maybe 3(?) times and I don't see that changing anytime soon. It keeps property taxes low and the city developing in on organic fashion. Our 5 centers developed on their own, and yes, they need to be connected better with light rail, but Metro has met NIMBYs on that front, so it's kinda on hold. In the meantime we're working on restructuring our bus system and Uptown is looking into BRT. Mind yall, this is HOUSTON, not a Midwest or a Northeastern city. If we were to be as dense to please urbanists, my goodness I think our population would have to be 8 million inside the city limits, and idk, 15 million metro? I'll pass. (yes I'm just guesstimating those numbers). But the fact we don't have zoning is what I love about this city. You never know what is coming up, or down for that matter. It's constantly changing and I find humor in the juxtaposition of certain businesses and residences. We're Houston, we pride ourselves on our quirky city that most people don't understand and are always ready to show visitors around! Mayors White and Parker have done a fantastic job moving and developing this city in the right direction and I hope we continue to move full steam ahead. We're obviously doing something right!! :notacrook:

This.

You realize you're the third person in this thread to mention in the same post that you wish the transportation planning was better, while noting that you never know what's coming next in Houston? You realize also, don't you, that those two things are related? There is no way to plan transportation effectively if you have no way to predict what land use is coming next.

Not saying that is a bad thing necessarily. Just that you guys will always be reactionary when it comes to transportation. In particular, public transportation. I would go so far as to argue that a lack of planning is inherently incompatible with transit, which relies on predictable clusters of density to be effective.

Or, alternatively, it relies on a very powerful government and a lot of money to come cram it in after the density is built up. Since that doesn't really happen in the US, if only because there isn't the money for it, I would say that fixed route transit Houston is a lost cause - a waste of your time and money. Focus on buses.

From what I understand, though, the light rail lines have been successful, giving people an alternative at least. It needs to be a combination of types of mass transit.

Houston certainly isn't a model for land use but even cities with zoning face the issues Houston does with accommodating growth. A million people per decade growth metro poses a great challenge. Conversely, when you know you're going to have large growth then you should try and plan better.

Houston has done a great job upgrading it highways and building a ton of toll roads (I know blasphemy on here) but it's true. It certainly has come at the expense of some public transit. Houston's METRO transit agency has certainly done it's damage from sheer incompetence to corruption.

I disagree, fixed route transit can work in limited action in Houston. I do agree that Houston should focus more on bus service, which it will do for the near future.

The light rail line, singular. The Main St line has a top 3 ridership per mile because it connects two of Houston's largest employments. The other lines won't have solid ridership for some time.

i don't think houston is really doing anything that hasn't been done. certainly it has the wealth to do a lot more than most american cities ever have - and i think it's failing the same way some of the great midwestern boom cities failed on their first shot before it (they also didn't have strong urban planning frameworks - st. louis was very, very laissez-faire and eschewed city-beautiful unlike most midwestern cities and embraced the free market. the city is still dotted with industrial everywhere. i also think of detroit.) that's not to say that i personally don't like houston, either, because i do. other than new orleans, it's the southern/sunbelt-city that i'm rooting for.

I guess people forget that Buckhead in Atlanta exists. It's skyline looks like it can be a downtown of any midsize southern city and make them appear like a large city. In this picture, you can see the main Atlanta skyline on the right, then the Buckhead skyline on the left. You'd think it was 2 different big cities.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7371/1...fef483cf_h.jpg

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4146/5...5fe47266_b.jpg





Atlanta is still more centralized than Houston and has way better zoning.

Did the article say edge cities were exclusive to Houston? Houston is not the only city with edge cities but it does have a lot of them.

Uptown
Texas Medical Center
Greenway Plaza
Greenspoint
Energy Corridor
The Woodlands
Galveston

OK, the article didn't say Houston was the only city with edge cities. It said that two of Houston's edge cities were built almost entirely by single developers and that was considered exclusive to Houston (is it?).

Uptown

Greenway Plaza

Houston is an interesting case study. While, on the surface, it appears to mirror the other sun belt cities it is slightly different story once you analyze how things are actually getting done.

True there are no "zoning" ordinances per se but that doesn't mean there are things not directing planning in a certain direction. Let me explain the 3 major factors than CAN influence planning in Houston.

1) Private Interests. George Hermann died a wealthy bachelor and left land to the city. He also left a stipulation on what the land was to become. He asked for some to become a park (Hermann Park) and for some to be set aside for a future city hospital. This was the site of the first hospital in the Medical Center and even without formal 'zoning' it somehow turned into one of the largest medical centers in the world. Future developers and city planners kept up with the "intent".
Rice University, The Museum District, The University of Houston, Memorial Park, St. Thomas, etc. were also created by private interests and they morphed into what they are today.

2) By Developers. Houston is a very pro developer city. There are very little hurdles, even though they are increasing by the day, but developers with enough clout can find a way to manage their interests via Deed Restrictions. Rive Oaks is the perfect example of this in Houston. You can't buy a lot in the middle of River Oaks and build a boutique office tower. maybe on the periphery, on "unprotected land", yes but not in the middle. The NIMBY's are upset with exactly this...developments on the border of the deed restricted neighborhood.

Also developers with big pockets can heavily influence what an area becomes...think Gerald Hines and Uptown, Frank Sharp and Sharpstown, and George Mitchell and the Woodlands.

3) Management Districts and the Mayor. This is the game changer for Houston. Both of these entities can HEAVILY INFLUENCE development patterns. Houston has a very strong Mayor/City Council setup. We also have divided the city into "mini cities" called Management Districts. Doentown, Uptown, Midtown, EADO, Sharpstown, ets. are all different Management Districts. Here is a link to more info and a map of the Management Districts:

http://www.houstontx.gov/planning/Ne...hood/mgmt.html

Each Management District has a board that tends to issues "within" their management District. they have built in ways of enticing certain type of developments or discouraging certain type of developments. It's a fluid process but things are really taking shape and it makes Houston a very interesting case Study.

One of the most active Management Districts is Downtown. Together, the Mayor/City Council and the District are working at steering the type of the development in the district. the Management District ran studies on how to encourage residential and retail developments and they turned to the city for help. The city responded with many solutions...One was Discovery green which was a hybrid of #1 and #3. The City purchased the land and turned to private interests to build and manage the park. On the Residential situation, the City Council under the Mayor approved a residential incentive (something like $12,000 PER unit) for developers who build residential in a defined part of downtown. This has bee Highly Successful with a half dozen-dozen large residential projects currently under construction or are set to rise in the near future.

Obviously lots of cities have their own cluster of urban centers outside of downtown. Height isn't always an important factor with this. For me, I don't like Houston's lack of zoning because it makes regional planning for growth much harder to do and it increases the demand for car dependency by making it harder to plan out regional rail.

Coral Gables was built that way 90 years ago.

I can't think of a city that has seven downtowns within its borders. LA has two. Atlanta has 3. But Houston's 7 is unprecedented. Incredible when you consider most of it developed writhing the last two decades. In a way, Houston is America's shanghai. It's potential at the moment is limitless.