May 14, 2004
A publication of the Gulf Coast Institute
"Any policy or plan adopted must be in the best interest
of this city's future growth and development. Only through open dialogue,
coordination, and participation will we arrive at a multifaceted transportation
plan that embraces the needs of the city as well as the greater
community."
Houston City Council Member Pam Holm, speaking about the
Regional Transportation Plan. She and other members of a regional group called
the Transportation Policy Council will vote on the plan in June. For the plan,
visit http://www.2025plan.org For Gulf Coast
Instituteıs continuing analysis of the plan, visit http://www.livablehouston.org and click on ³Houston
Transportation Bulletin."
³You just canıt keep on doing the same thing, which is widening
the thoroughfares.²
-City of Houston Mayor Bill White, speaking at a City Council
meeting on the Regional Transportation Plan.
LIVABLE HOUSTON / SMART GROWTH INITIATIVE
Dealing with Houston's tax-delinquent properties
Thousands of properties in the City of Houston are tax-delinquent
to the extent the taxes owed are more than the value of the properties. A Land
Assemblage and Redevelopment Authority (LARA) has been formed to deal with this
issue, and will soon begin to act. Stephen Tinnermon, Special Assistant to the
Mayor for Neighborhoods, will describe LARA and explain the strategies for
making new, productive use of these properties. The Livable Houston meeting is
Wednesday, May 26th, noon-1:30 pm, Houston-Galveston Area Council, 3555
Timmons, second floor. Bring your lunch. For more information call
713-523-5755. The Gulf Coast Institute and the Houston-Galveston Area Council
host Livable Houston/Smart Growth bring-your-own-lunch meetings that are open
to the public on the fourth Wednesday of every month. http://www.livablehouston.org
Regional Transportation Bulletins
Houstonians desiring a better understanding of the complex and
important Regional Transportation Plan about to be voted on can read the Gulf
Coast Instituteıs ³Houston Transportation Bulletins² online. The bulletins
are a series of one-pagers with facts and analysis of the Regional
Transportation Plan. In June, public officials are expected to vote on about
$65 billion worth of road, transit, and bike and pedestrian projects in the
plan that will pervade every neighborhood in the region. It is believed that
the Institute is the only entity outside of H-GAC that is publishing critical
analysis of the multi-billion dollar plan. The bulletins are a continuation of
the initial series published during the Metro Solutions referendum which local
newspapers, public officials, neighborhoods, and others used to understand the
public policy decisions at hand. For the bulletins, click on ³Houston
Transportation Bulletins² at http://www.livablehouston.org
Density by Design
Time is running out to register for the Houston conference Density
by Design: Building a great city, preserving a great environment. The
conference is Wednesday, May 19, at the Rice Lofts. Itıs hosted by the Gulf
Coast Institute, Texas Sea Grant/Texas Cooperative Extension, and
Houston-Galveston Area Council, sponsored by the Galveston Bay Estuary Program,
Main Street Coalition, American Institute of Architects/Houston, and American
Planning Association/Houston. For more about the conference and its speakers,
visit http://www.densitybydesign.com
The Nashville planning experience
Rick Bernhardt, Director of Planning, will discuss the citizenıs
role in Nashville's Concept 2010 General Plan, a living document that is
reviewed and updated on an ongoing basis engaging the community and
neighborhoods. This is the third presentation in a series of speakers to
learn about the most effective forms of city planning processes and how
citizens participate in them. A final report will summarize the
experience of other cities and the lessons of importance to Houston. The
presentation is Tuesday, June 8th at 11:30 am, 3015 Richmond in the downstairs
boardroom. Please RSVP to Heidi Sweetnam at hsweetnam@blueprinthouston.org or to Callie Bluemer
at 713-522-0590.
Mayor and City Council get an earful on long-range
transportation plan
The Mayor and City Council recently heard an earful from several
Houstonians about their concerns regarding the draft Regional Transportation
Plan (RTP). Several residents came to Tuesdayıs City Council meeting to
complain about potential road projects in their neighborhoods that could be
funded with the long-term transportation plan. One of those residents, Margaret
Dower from Woodland Heights, said she feared this planıs strategy to ³move
traffic off the highways² and onto the ³center streets in the neighborhoods.²
The angst of several there was the multi-billion dollar build-out of
³Express Streets,² which would involve constructing Allen Parkway-like streets
out of parts of major arterials such as Westheimer and Shepherd.
Mayor Bill White said
he remembered his Mayoral opponent, Orlando Sanchez, often referring to the
Regional Transportation Plan during the election. White said that at the time,
he thought the plan looked like a ³nightmare.² It currently includes even more
roadway than it did at the time now a 60 percent roadway expansion. The mayor
said that the same road-based congestion formula isnıt appropriate anymore in a
region of four million: ³You just canıt keep on doing the same thing, which is
widening the thoroughfares.² The Mayor and Council members promised more
research of the plan and asked speakers for recommendations. One speaker,
Andrea Dahlke representing the young professional group Source Houston, called
for a ³revaluation² of the plan and a new one in which the main goal is to
improve the quality of life in Houston. The Transportation Policy Council, a
group of public officials, is expected to vote on the plan in late June. To see
the plan, visit http://www.2025plan.org
Paradise returned to empty lots
A group of empty city-owned lots in the Montrose area has escaped
the fate of becoming a surface parking lot or unofficial junk yard by having a
group of residents rally for its future as a park, resulting in moving
ownership to the Houston Parks & Recreation Department. The site of the
area is by the corner of Richmond and Mandell and the group that fought for its
future is made of nearby neighbors in Castle Court. This is the second time the
neighborhood group has rallied to turn empty lots into park space. A few years
ago, the group began an organic community garden called ³Meredith Gardens² on
some lots adjacent to new park land. The area had basically been abandoned
after the City, which owns the land and had targeted it for a new library,
decided to locate the new library instead in an old donated church on Montrose.
The Richmond/Mandell land also belongs to the City and not too long ago
there were rumors that a nearby business wanted to make it into their parking
lot. But the neighbors rallied the City again and the lot is now officially
part of the Parks Department.. The entire space, including the community
garden, will soon be a pocket park. The Parks department lists an
inventory of 47 pocket parks across the city on its website. The community
garden adjacent to the new park land just made the national magazine Organic
Gardening. For more about the community garden, visit http://www.urbanharvest.org/directory/meredith/meredith.html
Another ranking for business and quality of life
Houston ranks high for business climate and entrepreneurship and
not so high for infrastructure and quality of life, according to ³The Gold
Guide² published by the National Policy Research Council in Washington DC. The
city ranked 2nd for business climate and 9th for entrepreneurship but really missed
the mark when it came to other things such as infrastructure, quality of life,
and environment. The city came in 31st for infrastructure and didnıt even break
the top fifty for quality of life or the environment. Houston, the 4th largest
city in the US, is ranked 16th across all categories. Denver, San Diego,
Austin, Boston, and Dallas were the top five. http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2004/05/10/daily15.html
Forbidden City
The little-known
Forbidden Gardens in Katy was recently featured on National Public Radio.
Forbidden Gardens is an outdoor museum about ancient Chinese culture and the
countryıs only replica of Chinaıs Forbidden City. For the report, visit http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1849178
Pension vote tomorrow
There will be a City of Houston special election tomorrow
(Saturday) on the funding control of municipal pensions. To read about both
sides of the issue, visit a League of Women Voters publication http://www.lwvhouston.org/pages/May15ElectionInsert.pdf. For voting sites,
visit http://www.harrisvotes.org/index2.htm
Dallas at the Tipping Point
The Dallas Morning News recently commissioned a study to test the
thought ³If only Dallas were run like a business...² The resulting report, by
Booz Allen Hamilton, begins, ³Dallas calls itself ıthe city that works.ı Dallas
is wrong.² The report, entitled ³Dallas at the Tipping Point,² compares the
city to fourteen peer cities, including Houston. The report warns that while
city leaders may believe that everything is okay within the city; data clearly
show ³unmistakable signs of decline.² They warn that if trends continue,
the city could become another Detroit which is used by many as a model of urban
decay: ³On its current path, Dallas will, in the next 20 years, go the way of
declining cities like Detroit - a hollow core abandoned by the middle class and
surrounded by suburbs that outperform the city but inevitably are dragged down
by it.² The cycle of decline, it showed, begins with an eroding quality of
life. The group measured quality of life using six performance factors.
In three of them Houston fared worse than Dallas (Public Health,
Transportation, and Environment) and in the other three Houston narrowly beat
Dallas (Public Safety, Economic Development, and Public Education). For the
report, visit http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/spe/2004/dallas/
PLANNING
The business of smart growth
In Atlanta, itıs the business community calling for smart growth,
according to Governing Magazine. The Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerceıs Task
Force for Quality Growth recently released a report that stated that the region
needed to drastically change its land use patterns. ³If we donıt,² the task
force chair warned, ³weıll overwhelm our infrastructure.² A task force member
said this was not what some critics call anti-free-market or big government.
³Where there is exclusionary zoning, say, single-family housing only, youıre
prohibiting the free-market system from working,² he said. They want to loosen
zoning laws so developers can build denser communities in existing corridors. http://governing.com/notebook/today.htm
Cities get high grades for walker-friendliness
The top ten walker-friendly cities ranked by percentage of
residents who walk to work each day are: 1) Boston (13 percent), Washington DC
(11.8 percent), New York City (10.4 percent), San Francisco (9.4 percent),
Philadelphia (9.1 percent), Seattle (7.4 percent), Chicago (5.7 percent),
Portland, Ore. (5.2 percent), Denver (4.3 percent), and Cleveland (4 percent).
Source: American Podiatric Medical Association
URBANISM
Take the elevator, not the car, to the grocery store
Some residents of Portland, Ore., will have only a few floors to
go down to pick up their groceries, according to an article in the Metropolis
magazine. Safeway has constructed a grocery store that literally fits into its
urban landscape with townhouses and apartments above and parking underground. http://www.metropolismag.com/html/sustainable/case/safewaygreengrocer.html
MOBILITY
Londonıs congestion charging paves road for other cities
San Francisco, Minneapolis, and St. Paul all are talking about
some form of congestion charging similar to that of London, according to the
Observer newspaper in London. London began charging drivers a fee to enter its
central city over a year ago. Since then, traffic has decreased and
transportation revenue has increased and several cities around the world are
thinking about following Londonıs path. Singapore, Durham, Rome, Oslo, and
Melbourne are some cities across the world that already do some kind of
congestion charging. Edinburgh, Stockholm, New York, San Francisco,
Minneapolis, and St. Paul are all planning or seriously considering some type
of road pricing scheme. Source: The Observer, February 15, 2004.
EVENTS
REGIONAL AND STATE
Annual Texas Transit Conference, May 15-18, El Paso.
The annual Texas Transit Conference will highlight the new public transit
provisions at the state level. http://www.texastransit.org/
Density by Design Building a Great City, Preserving a Great
Environment, May 19 at the Rice Hotel. Convened by Gulf Coast Institute,
Houston-Galveston Area Council, and Texas Sea Grant/Texas Cooperative
Extension. Register at http://www.densitybydesign.com
Nature field trips, Houston. The Houston Audubon Society is
hosting May field trips to Waller, Anahuac, Bolivar Flats, High Island and
Brazos Bend State Park. http://www.houstonaudubon.org/
Note to readers: If you have news to share, have reports from
events, or would like to add subscriber names, please let us know at issues@gulfcoastideas.org.
Prepared by Catherine
Rentz Pernot
Gulf Coast Growth
News is a publication of the Gulf Coast Institute. The Gulf Coast Institute is
a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life in Houston.
To support the Institute, go to http://www.gulfcoastideas.org. To join the Instituteıs
1000 Friends of Houston, go to http://www.1000friendsofhouston.org