Houston QOL Committee: graffiti, historic preservation

Notes from Feb. 5 meeting

Wendy Natt, Feb 06, 09.

PUBLIC MEETING NOTES

City Council Members of the Quality Life Committee met yesterday to discuss the problem of graffiti in Houston, and to review proposed changes to the City’s Historic Preservation Ordinance. Council Member Sue Lovell, Chair of the QOL Committee, led the discussions.

Over the winter holidays, graffiti damage in Houston was extensive, said Council Member Lovell. Both children and adults have been identified as creators of graffiti in Houston, with the work of adult graffiti writers, or “taggers,” typically being the most sophisticated (placed in difficult to access spaces) and destructive (very large in size). At this time, graffiti abatement – the cleaning or covering of vandalized areas - is the City’s primary means of dealing with this problem. Lovell said that the large sums of city funding currently being spent on abatement are potentially funds that could have gone toward “legitimate” community arts projects. Lovell made a plea to meeting attendees and to all city residents to appeal to those they know who are creating graffiti and ask them to stop destroying property and start “behaving like good citizens.”

Graffiti abatement is Houston is conducted, in part, by the General Services Department, which has been responsible for removing graffiti from city property since 2006. In a demonstration of increasing yearly costs to the City for graffiti abatement and an apparent trend of higher graffiti incidence,  Issa Dadoush, Director of the General Services Department, presented figures for the amount of money the City has spent on graffiti removal from 2006 to 2009. Abatement costs increased from $395,000 in 2006 to $597,000 in 2008, and just since December 31, 2009, 1,748 graffiti sites have been abated, costing $303,000 so far this year.  Based on these trends, the number of graffiti cases this year is expected to exceed 2008’s total by 25 percent.

A Neighborhood Protection Corps (NPC) program was also formed in 2006 to deal with “visual blight” violations. The NPC is responsible for tracking new graffiti and act as a liason between the abatement agency, the Houston Police Department, owners of vandalized property, and those who report incidences of graffiti. An NPC officer was present at the committee meeting, and he advised all residents to call 311 if they see a new case of graffiti or witness someone in the act of applying graffiti.

The next item on the agenda was the review of eight proposed changes (pdf) to Chapter 33 of the City’s Historic Preservation Ordinance. Michael Schaffer, Deputy Director of the Planning and Development Department, City of Houston, presented the proposed changes to the Quality of Life Committee for review.

Mr. Schaffer said that the most significant proposed change for the ordinance is the new requirement that applications for certificates of appropriateness for demolition of “a landmark, protected landmark, or any contributing or potentially contributing building, structure or object in an historic district” must be non-concurrent with applications to begin construction on that same property. Demolition/building relocation permits that are not initially approved by the Houston Archaeological & Historical Commission or the Planning Commission will continue to require a full 90-day waiting period, and developers will not be permitted to apply for a certificate of appropriateness for new construction until they obtain a copy of a certificate of appropriateness approving demolition or relocation of any structures on the proposed property, or the 90-day waiting period has elapsed and the developer has obtained a waiver.

Shaffer also presented to the committee the “Design Guide for the Heights Historic Districts,” a document that is meant to guide homeowners, restoration builders, and developers in using compatible construction and design that “blends into the fabric” of historic districts. The guide was prepared for the City by Jonathan Smulian of the Houston Heights Association, who will present the guide next week at the next Houston Heights Association meeting on Monday, February 9.

Council Member Lovell concluded the meeting congratulating members of the HAHC board, the Planning & Development Department, the Houston Heights Association, and others for their work in preparing these ordinance changes and design guidelines.

The City of Houston website also lists the proposed changes to the ordinance.

(photo credit: Tony Frankino)

More from Houston

Comments

Page 1 of 1 pages