Andrew Burleson
Proposed ordinance won’t work
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The Standards
The proposed standards that the City has developed are good. They follow many of the recommendations that were recommended by ULI, and they provide for most of the critical components of a good interface. Developments that follow them will be nice. However, the City is completely missing the point by structuring these requirements the way they have.The proposal is this: If you want to build in a transit-corridor, you can still build the typical suburban crap that you’ve been allowed to build all along - just leave a 25 foot setback (ie put a parking lot in front). However, if you want to build something with the parking in the back, you’ve got a long list of additional standards to comply with.
The Problem
Let me be clear: if the city adopts the standards as they are written, it will have exactly the opposite of the intended effect. It will be just as easy as it has always been to build suburban, auto-oriented trash near a train station, and it will be HARDER to build an urban building.The city is taking areas where you could ALREADY build right up to the street and telling you that now you CANNOT do that unless you comply with these additional “Voluntary” design parameters.
This is a punitive measure against exactly the wrong people! This is EXACTLY BACKWARDS from what their stated goal is!
Full story: Transit Corridor Streets
Source: neoHOUSTON, June 5, 2009
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.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) said:
Andrew…you make some good points. However, this is probably a positive step forward for Houston, although I have stated that we need more incentives (reduced parking requirements, payment in lieu of detention, financial assistance with shared, multi-level parking garages, and amenities, etc. to proactively promote real transit-oriented development.
There is a reason why TOD has not occurred along the Main Street line. The suggestions above, in my view, would serve to “unleash” a dormant real estate market. We need to attract a lot more high quality, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly development to our city.
Posted on Jun 14, 09 at 8:28 pm