City Council holds transit corridor hearing

Earliest vote would be July 29

Steve Hawley, Jul 07, 09.

UPDATE (7/15/09, 4:38 pm): According to Marlene Gafrick, Director of the City of Houston Planning and Development Department, City Council is tentatively scheduled to consider the transit corridor ordinance on Wednesday, July 29.

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UPDATE (7/14/09, 1:34 pm): The proposed ordinance was generally supported by a variety of groups and citizens at the recent public hearing, including representatives of Houston Tomorrow, Richmond Rail, Houstonians for Responsible Growth, and Uptown Houston District. The earliest City Council could vote on the measure is July 22.

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The Houston City Council will hold a public hearing regarding the proposed transit corridor ordinance on Wednesday, July 8 at 9:00 am. The meeting will be held in the City Council Chambers, 2nd floor, 901 Bagby (map).

The ordinance would create incentives for developers to build a more pedestrian-oriented environment along light rail corridors. The only compulsory portion of the ordinance is a requirement of six-feet-wide sidewalks along the light rail corridors and five-foot sidewalks throughout much of the rest of the city. Currently, the city’s sidewalk standard is four feet.

Voluntary portions of the ordinance would require participating developers to create a 15-foot pedestrian realm while allowing them to build closer to the curb. The city currently requires a setback of at least 25 feet from the curb along major thoroughfares. In addition, the ordinance would encourage developers to include numerous windows in building facades, create a three-foot vegetative buffer between the pedestrian realm and any surface parking, and limitations on building driveways through the pedestrian realm.

City planning officials involved in the drafting of the ordinance consider it “a first step toward changing a development culture that’s long been focused on the automobile rather than on trains or pedestrians,“ according to the Houston Chronicle. The proposed ordinance has been criticized by some urban advocates who believe it will be ineffective, but others have expressed support for the measure as an important, if flawed, starting point.

City Council will not meet on July 14 and 15, so the earliest the Council could vote on the measure would be July 22.

Proposed transit corridor ordinance
Ordinance summary
Presentation to Planning Commission, March 14, 2009