November 1 2002
A publication of the Gulf Coast
Institute
“The future is not some
place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found,
but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the
destination.”
—John Schaar, Political Theorist and Futurist
Next meeting: Toward a
Houston General Plan- Continued
The Blueprint Houston process to arrive at a vision and a set of values,
goals, and priorities for the City of Houston is underway, and the meeting
participants will continue to discuss this throughout the year. There will be a
report on where the process is today and how it will work, and continuing
discussion of the kinds of questions Houstonians want answered. The event,
which is open to the public, is Wednesday, November 20, at 11:30 am at the
Houston-Galveston Area Council, 3555 Timmons, second floor. Bring your own
lunch. For more about the Houston plan, http://www.livablehouston.org
The Blueprint Houston
initiative to establish a process for planning for the City’s future will
get underway in November at a luncheon for the new steering committee members.
The first public event will be held on January 11, 2003, as the tentative
schedule indicates. That will be followed by nine more meetings, one in each of
the City Council districts, and it will culminate with a large public
“town hall meeting” in early May, 2003. A website is under
construction at http://www.blueprinthouston.org,
and an executive summary about the effort is available there.
Remember to Vote Tuesday, November 5
For election information, http://www.cclerk.hctx.net/elect.htm
For candidate information, http://www.lwvhouston.org/
Park proposed for Midtown “superblock”
The Midtown Management District is looking at a proposal from its Urban
Planning Committee to establish a park in the four-block-long
“superblock” that begins at McGowen and Main and goes south on the
west side of Main to Anita. The concept of the park is to create added
value in the blocks around the property to encourage mid- to high-rise mixed
residential, commercial, and office development there. An underground garage is
being explored as a means of paying for the park and diminishing the need for
some parking in surrounding buildings, as well as to provide public parking for
transit riders and visitors to the area. One of three light rail stops in
Midtown would be adjacent to the park. Kevin Shanley of SWA Group has
been engaged to produce an initial proposal for the area.
Calls for more environmental disclosure at Bayport
Calls are intensifying for a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact
Statement (DEIS) on the proposed container terminal at Bayport because of
alleged disclosure inadequacies in the published DEIS. According to the
Galveston Bay Conservation and Preservation Association, several attending a
large public meeting last December called for a Supplemental DEIS on the
grounds of numerous inadequacies. Those problems still exist, the organization
claims, andother issues such as permit application revisions, national security
issues, and the nearby San Jacinto Rail Project also need to be addressed. http://www.gbcpa.org/
Texas transportation plan Houston meeting
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) will hold a series of public
meetings on the statewide transportation plan, including one in Houston on
November 18. The Texas Transportation Plan, updated every five years, is the
blueprint for a multimodal, statewide transportation system, and contains a
rail system plan as a component. This effort will update the 1994 plan.
Thus far, public attendance in other cities has been low – most
recently, the Amarillo meeting had only a newspaper reporter and five members
of the Amarillo Hike and Bike Planning Committee. The meeting in Houston
will be held from 3-8 pm in the TxDOT District Office Main Building Conference
Room located on 7721 Washington Avenue. The meeting will follow an
informal open house format with a presentation to be given at 7 pm. For further
information on meetings call Michelle Conkle, Transportation Planning and
Programming Division, at (512) 486-5023. Draft materials for the plan can
be found at http://www.dot.state.tx.us/tpp/transplan/transplan.htm.
Historic Preservation Ordinance
The Neighborhood Protection and Quality of Life Committee of Houston City
Council recently passed recommendations offered by Council Member Mark Ellis
for basically an opt-in and opt-out of Section 250 of the Preservation
Ordinance, which already allows applicants to Houston Archaeological and
Historical Commission (“HAHC”) total freedom with the building at
issue 90 days after application decision. Upon passing Ellis’s
amendments, City Planning Director Robert Litke stated that “essentially
the passage of this negates the entire preservation ordinance making it
useless.” http://www.historichouston.org
Houston Solution
Two local young professionals, Catherine Rentz Pernot and Megan Strait,
have started a group called Houston Solution whose mission is to mobilize young
Houstonians (twenty- and thirty-something professionals) to discuss what kind
of city they would like to have in ten years and to find ways to achieve it
through their own voices and actions. They meet with a variety of young
professional groups - from alumni groups to corporate groups – to talk
about facts and action items regarding Houston’s economy, mobility, air
quality, and green space. The group is actively looking for interested
volunteers as well as groups interested in their “road-show”
presentation (they come to your group meeting). For more
information, please contact Catherine at pernot@gulfcoastideas.org,
or Megan at megan.strait@bp.com. A
website is under construction at http://www.houstonsolution.org,
and a small amount of information is available there now.
Houston Homeowners Association meeting Monday, November 18, 2002
The November general meeting will be on the third Monday because of
Thanksgiving. The speaker will be Michael T. Gainer and his topic will be on
the report filled by the Senate Committee on Intergovernmental Relations
dealing with Property Owners Association. The report has seventeen
recommendations from the committee on how to change Property Owners
Associations. Monday, November 18, 2002, First Presbyterian Church (in
the solarium), 5300 Main @ Bissonnet, 7:00 P.M.
PLANNING
Twin Cities plan with returnable
brochure
''The public is really driving the process,'' said Met Council Chair Ted
Mondale about the region’s Blueprint 2030 growth plan. The agency
has targeted 600,000 area residents to vote by returnable brochure on one of
three growth plans for the region. The three plans reflect the
council’s new policy of growing in concentric circles around
transportation corridors rather than directionless sprawl. According to a
recent article in the Pioneer Press,
the Blueprint plan will cost about $8.5 billion to implement. Most of the
funds will go toward transportation by 2010. Source: Pioneer Press,
October 17, 2002
No land-use plan, no water
"By failing to plan for land use in connection with our limited water
resources, we are in danger of letting Colorado's water future go down the
drain," said Matt Baker, executive director of Colorado Public Interest
Research Group. The group also cites high monetary costs for utilities
resulting from a lack of planning in a recent report.
http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_1479975,00.htm
Designing safer neighborhoods
Some developers are designing safer neighborhoods using measures such as
cluster housing, landscaping, traffic calming, sidewalks, and more.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/realestate/chi-0210270353oct27.story
MOBILITY
New federal transportation bill may
reach $300 billion
The new transportation bill to be drafted next year is expected to ring in
as much as $300 billion for highways and transit systems for the following six
years. That amount would be double the amount Congress appropriated
between 1992 and 1998. http://www.sltrib.com/2002/oct/10212002/utah/9096.htm
Value lanes or Lexus lanes?
A mobility experiment in San Diego is yielding both praise and scorn.
The project involves an eight-mile stretch of lanes whose motorists
include carpoolers riding for free and single occupancy vehicles paying tolls
of 50 cents to $4. The lanes have been popular enough among commuters to
generate $1 million a year to fund a new bus line, but critics, calling the
lanes “Lexus lanes” worry that the project is discriminating
against people of low economic means. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lanes21oct21,0,5813125.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dcalifornia
Longer distances but shorter commutes
District of Columbia workers living in nearby suburbs are discovering that
they can realize more affordable housing and shorter commutes by living in
further-out Baltimore. It’s made possible by taking advantage of
Maryland Rail Commuter trains, locally known as MARC trains. The train
trip enables commuters to travel 50 miles in 50 minutes whereas car trips from
nearby suburbs often enable commuters to travel only about 15 miles in 50
minutes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/06/realestate/06OSER.html
Could cycling lead to a healthier American city?
One quarter of all daily trips in America cover less than a mile, and could
easily be made via a bicycle according to a recent Philadelphia Inquirer
opinion article. In Western Europe 10 percent to 30 percent of trips are
made by riding a bicycle. Riding bikes has not only cut down on traffic
congestion and energy usage, but it’s also reduced the need for expensive
highways and parking lots. http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/4207706.htm
URBANISM
Vouchers as urban renewal tools
The story is the same everywhere: many young people who choose to live in
the city for fun eventually have kids and then move out to the burbs hoping for
better schools. School vouchers could reverse that trend according to
Thomas J. Nechyba, an economist at Duke University. “Vouchers are
possibly the best desegregation and urban-renewal program that the United
States has hardly ever tried,” according to Atlantic Monthly writer
Jonathan Rauch in examining the research of Nechyba. http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/10/rauch.htm
How to compete with the burbs - ten steps for cities to develop urban land
“One of the city’s greatest assets is its available land for
redevelopment,” according to authors of a recent Brookings Institution
report. The report, “Seizing City Assets: Ten Steps to Urban Land
Reform,” highlights ten steps that urban leaders can take to facilitate
urban development.
http://www.brook.edu/dybdocroot/es/urban/publications/brophyveyvacantstepsexsum.htm
Corporate ads take to the sidewalks
Nike and ABC have illegally pasted large plastic advertisements to New
York’s public sidewalks according to an editorial in the New York Times.
The paper decries what it calls “guerrilla advertising” and
questions the safety of this new medium. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/23/opinion/23WED3.html?tntemail0
HOUSING
NAHB responds to sprawl report
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) agreed with much of the
“Measuring Sprawl and Its Impact” report by Smart Growth America,
especially the call for more infill, mixed-use, and higher density development.
However, NAHB was disappointed in the report’s omission of the
importance of “housing affordability and choice to the quality of life
for working Americans.” http://www.nahb.org/news_details.aspx?newsID=175
New York to receive over $3 million for housing and development
U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mel Martinez announced that
his agency will disburse more than $3 million into three New York communities
in an effort to aid the homeless, develop affordable housing, and stimulate business
and employment growth. Source: Associated Press, September 12, 2002
President Bush hopes to boost minority home ownership
President Bush called for an increase of minority ownership by more than 40
percent. At a conference on Increasing Minority Ownership at George
Washington University, the President noted 2001 homeownership rates of 71.8
percent for white Americans, and 48.1 percent for blacks, and 48.8 percent for
Hispanics. He also referred to the Department of Housing and Urban Development
estimate that if 15 percent of the projected 5.5 million minority buyers get a
newly built home, they would help create 4.1 million jobs and pump a total of
$256 billion into the national economy. The President has proposed to increase
government funds for 40,000 low-income families lacking down payments on their
first homes, provide $2.4 billion in developer tax credits for low-income
housing construction or repair, and let federal rental aid recipients use the
money for down payments or mortgage payments.
Source: The Associated Press, October 15, 2002
ENVIRONMENT
83 percent of earth’s land
influenced by humans
New maps produced by a team of scientists from the Wildlife Conservation
Society (WCS) and Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science
Information Network (CIESIN) show how humans have directly influenced over
three quarters of the earth’s landmass. http://wcs.org/7411/?art=9836050
Mexico City bans old autos
In an effort to control a recent heavy smog emergency that is about 2.5
times the “acceptable” level, Mexico City ordered about 350,000
older-model vehicles off the streets for one day or possibly more should the
smog persist.
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/09/09202002/ap_48484.asp
World’s most polluted coasts
The southern coast of Asia recently received the unfavorable mention of
having the world’s most polluted coasts. A report by the United
Nations’ Environment Programme found that the coast hosts almost 40
percent of the world’s population and currently faces a great health
threat from the discharge of untreated sewage. The report, a follow-up to
the World Summit on Sustainable Development, focused on the global threat from
untreated sewage discharges to coastal people and the environment. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2293621.stm
“The Most ‘Environmentally’ Correct Building in the
World”
The 20 River Terrace residential tower in lower Manhattan – just
blocks away from where the World Trade Center once stood – was thought of
as nothing special just two years ago. Now after September 11, its roof garden,
solar panels, and air filters are making headlines. The New Yorkers
affected by the dust from the twin towers’ collapse are a little more
health conscience. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/15/nyregion/15GREE.html
Nothing as money as green
Architect and businessman William McDonough addresses the
cost-effectiveness of green development.
http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=209864
New Partners for Smart Growth, Jan 30, New Orleans.
The main show in the Smart Growth movement. http://www.outreach.psu.edu/C&I/SmartGrowth
Note to readers: If you have news
to share, or have reports from events, or would like to add additional
subscribers names, please let us know at issues@gulfcoastideas.org
Prepared by Catherine Rentz Pernot
.