![]() |
Single family homes will be destroyed to make room for townhouses after upzoning. |
![]() |
The view on Las Gallinas Avenue ? |
![]() |
Do you want to live in a "transit neighborhood"?
Editor's Note: Although much of our focus has been on the affordable housing that pay no taxes into the community, residents of Marinwood-Lucas Valley may have more to worry about. When upzoning happens on your street with pri your neighborhood may become a noisy apartment block. Upzoning may allow 4-5 homes where single family residences once stood. You will be forced move if you want to retain a suburban lifestyle with adequately funded schools, less congestion and other urban problems.
This article just published in the Houston Chronicle is a cautionary tale for us in Marin. We have no plans for funding our schools, government services or a reliable water supply for the expected growth of our community with the 2012 Housing Element of unincorporated Marin.
Make no mistake, Marinwood-Lucas Valley is the test community in Marin for the Supervisor's Priority Development Area scheme to intensify development along the 101 corridor. We are politically weak and they only need three votes to change zoning in our community. If our Supervisors won't support us, we are effectively subject to the whims of the county planners and politicians. That is why many of us are signing the recall at www.marinrecall.com to seek immediate representation on the 25 year plans before us. Supervisor Adams sadly is favoring rapid development over neighborhood majority who want a community focused plan instead . =========================================================== |
See Article in Houston Chronicle: The townhouses are coming! The townhouses are coming!

Billy Smith II, Staff
A delivery truck squeezes through tightly -packed Crooms St., between Asbury and Detering, Tuesday May 21, 2013. (Billy Smith / Chronicle)
"So the bad stuff we're going to see today," I asked, "it'll be a cautionary tale for the suburbs?" I was driving west from downtown on what I thought of, privately, as the Terror o' Townhouses Tour, a sort of scared-straight exhibit for suburbanites like me, who haven't realized what a boring-sounding change to city development rules may be about to unleash on our outside-the-Loop neighborhoods.
David Robinson and Jane Cahill West were my guides. As neighborhood activists, they'd both seen firsthand how, 14 years ago, a similar change to Chapter 42 of the city of Houston ordinances made high-density development possible inside Loop 610, transforming entire neighborhoods lot by lot. One-story houses with yards gave way to townhouses so quickly that it became disconcerting to drive down a street you hadn't seen in a while.
"Just getting the word out is a problem," said West in the front seat. (Her résumé is as overstuffed as his: vice president and resident expert on development for the Super Neighborhood Alliance, recent president of Washington Ave/Memorial Park Super Neighborhood Council, a former board chair of the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone for the Old Sixth Ward, and on and on.) "It's a tough subject to cover."
"They're getting hit by a tidal wave," said Robinson.
"Now get in the right-hand lane," West said. "Crooms Street is coming up."
Crooms Street
I drove slowly down Crooms, a single long block just north of Memorial, between Asbury and Detering, one of those townhouse-lined streets that looks nothing like it did 15 years ago. Slow was the only speed possible. The skinny street, once able to handle two-way traffic of its few residents, is now one-way, with cars parked here and there along the sides. And that morning, garbage cans lined both sides, making it seem even narrower.
Midblock, a man was walking tentatively at the edge of the street, next to an open ditch, dodging the cans. "That guy could use a sidewalk," said Robinson.

Billy Smith II, Staff
A delivery truck squeezes through tightly packed Crooms, between Asbury and Detering.
As a matter of policy, West explained, the city doesn't build neighborhood sidewalks. Instead, it requires private developers to build them in front of each new project, or at least to make sure that they're up to code. If that system worked, a street jammed with new development would have nice fresh sidewalks 5 feet wide, friendly not just to pedestrians but to wheelchairs and strollers. But Crooms was a scary place to walk - and it's hardly alone.
"There aren't enough inspectors to enforce the rules," West explained. "Or the developers ask the Planning Commission for a variance, so they don't have to build a sidewalk, or so they can build one that's 4 feet wide instead of 5. The Planning Commission hands out variances like Halloween candy."
"No, we don't!" said Robinson. (I checked the rearview: smiling.)
West continued unfazed. "And once that happens, a precedent is set. 'So and so at the property next door got that variance, so why can't we have it?' You end up with a street like this."
I kept inching down Crooms. "That one has no drainage," West said, pointing to a townhouse. "Lots of them don't."

Billy Smith II, Staff
A no parking sign put up by a resident on Crooms St., between Asbury and Detering, Tuesday May 21, 2013. (Billy Smith / Chronicle)
As things stand, she said, it's important for neighbors to monitor new construction closely and file a complaint if there's obviously no drainage. The city might then stop the project until the problem is fixed. But once construction is finished, it's too late. A right has been established, and the city won't act - never mind that the neighbors become far more likely to be flooded.
"The city needs more staff to review plans, do inspections and enforce the rules we have," said Robinson. "We can't enforce those rules already. Now we're about to expand those rules to an eightfold increase in territory. And so far, the city hasn't allocated or reallocated money for a single new inspector."
At the end of the street, where Crooms meets Detering, we heard the beep and rumble of a garbage truck. "Do they have special trucks for a one-way street like this?" West asked Robinson. "With special arms on both sides, to get cans on both sides of the street? Or does the truck just drive the wrong way down the street?"
I thought that was another rhetorical question. But then, suddenly, the truck turned onto Crooms, driving the wrong way: facing my car.
Robinson, an old hand at documenting neighborhood annoyances, jumped out of the back seat, clicking away with his phone camera. I pulled into a driveway so the truck could pass.
A minute later, he climbed back into the car, grinning, and passed his phone to the front seat so West and I could see the photo. He'd scored: The screen showed the garbage truck entering Crooms, right next to the Do Not Enter sign. It was the kind of Exhibit A documentation that beleaguered neighborhood activists treasure, the kind of thing that shows the unexpected, unplanned-for problems of high-density development.
"You know something is wrong when the municipal authorities have to break the law to do their job," Robinson said. It was a good line. I figured he'd use it again soon with that photo, at one of the subcommittee or commission meetings where the nitty-gritty work of fixing a city gets done.
It was too late to fix Crooms, of course. But for those suburban townhouse neighborhoods yet to be born, there's still a chance to get things right.
Density for dummies
What's up: Chapter 42, the city of Houston ordinance that controls how land is subdivided, changed in a big way last month. Now city rules encourage higher-density development outside Loop 610.
Why it's a big deal: The last revision, in 1999, transformed inside-the-Loop Houston. In an astonishingly short time, many neighborhoods' single-story houses and grassy lawns gave way, one lot at a time, to three-story townhouses. Now that kind of development will be allowed in a much, much larger area: not just the 96 square miles inside Loop 610, but in all 600 square miles inside city limits.
What won't change: Neighborhoods protected by well-enforced, up-to-date deed restrictions that specify a minimum lot size. Those private contracts will still apply.
What could change radically: Neighborhoods without strong deed restrictions, or whose deed restrictions don't specify minimum lot size. (Those neighborhoods have a year to submit a minimum-lot-size petition.) Development pressure will likely be greatest in the north and west suburbs.
Possible upsides: Rising land values in denser neighborhoods. More new housing in the $200,000-and-up range. Development of run-down properties.
Stuff to worry about: Lack of enforcement of existing city rules. Radical change of your neighborhood's character. Drainage problems. Increased traffic tie-ups in suburbs with only one or two entry points. Noise. Lack of sidewalks, which become more important as a neighborhood grows denser. Loss of green space.
Timeline: The new ordinances are being phased in over two years. To tighten deed restrictions or petition for lot-size protection, neighborhoods need to start right away.
========================================================
The map below is the Priority Development Area that Supervisor Adams advocates 30 to 50 housing units per acre. It is all land east of Las Gallinas to the 101 Freeway.
What's up: Chapter 42, the city of Houston ordinance that controls how land is subdivided, changed in a big way last month. Now city rules encourage higher-density development outside Loop 610.
Why it's a big deal: The last revision, in 1999, transformed inside-the-Loop Houston. In an astonishingly short time, many neighborhoods' single-story houses and grassy lawns gave way, one lot at a time, to three-story townhouses. Now that kind of development will be allowed in a much, much larger area: not just the 96 square miles inside Loop 610, but in all 600 square miles inside city limits.
What won't change: Neighborhoods protected by well-enforced, up-to-date deed restrictions that specify a minimum lot size. Those private contracts will still apply.
What could change radically: Neighborhoods without strong deed restrictions, or whose deed restrictions don't specify minimum lot size. (Those neighborhoods have a year to submit a minimum-lot-size petition.) Development pressure will likely be greatest in the north and west suburbs.
Possible upsides: Rising land values in denser neighborhoods. More new housing in the $200,000-and-up range. Development of run-down properties.
Stuff to worry about: Lack of enforcement of existing city rules. Radical change of your neighborhood's character. Drainage problems. Increased traffic tie-ups in suburbs with only one or two entry points. Noise. Lack of sidewalks, which become more important as a neighborhood grows denser. Loss of green space.
Timeline: The new ordinances are being phased in over two years. To tighten deed restrictions or petition for lot-size protection, neighborhoods need to start right away.
========================================================
The map below is the Priority Development Area that Supervisor Adams advocates 30 to 50 housing units per acre. It is all land east of Las Gallinas to the 101 Freeway.
Townhouses on your street?
No comments:
Post a Comment