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Originally Posted by M. Incandenza
We must be having a semantic difference here; I can think of plenty of examples of towers in neighborhoods comprised mostly of detached houses inside the loop. You must have a different definition of being "in" such a neighborhood.
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I guess we do. I just don’t think that a majority of the single-family neighborhoods in the inner loop have high-rises right in the middle of them. The Huntington is one and I hear that a lot of people in River Oaks still complain about it. I personally don’t think the Huntington has made River Oaks more dynamic or a better place to live.
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Originally Posted by M. Incandenza
I agree! The location is not ideal. But the issue isn't whether the thing gets built where it is proposed or at an ideal location - it's whether it gets built where it's planned or doesn't get built at all.
But also, I don't think we should only build tall buildings in neighborhoods that already have tall buildings. If we had always followed that policy, we wouldn't have any tall buildings at all.
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If the only two options are that this tower gets built or not, then I personally don’t want it to get built. Maybe if it were a few blocks farther away from South Boulevard, I would support it. But in its current location, it will never connect to any other urban developments unless you start ripping down all the other houses around it.
I agree that we can’t always just build in neighborhoods that already have tall buildings. However, with thousands of lots still available, I don’t really see the point in building this now in this location. We don’t need to start ripping down all the historic single-family neighborhoods in the inner-loop right now when there are still thousands of appropriate lots in Downtown, Midtown, and the Museum District. Maybe that will be an issue in 100 years.
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Originally Posted by M. Incandenza
I'm not a developer, but it seems to me that if I were one, I would look at the Ashby situation and take it as a sign of the power of NIMBYs wherever they might be encountered. I would consider it a possible cost of doing business, and this would raise the bar on what I would consider a profitable project. This would have a dampening effect on future high-density development in general.
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It could be considered a possible cost of doing business if another developer tries to build in the middle of a single-family neighborhood, but shouldn’t have any effect on any other projects in the currently established urban areas. Look at all the other developments going on around town. This certainly hasn’t made those developers think twice about building in Houston. If residents tried to stop a project like this in Downtown or Midtown, I highly doubt they would even make it to court no matter how much money they had.
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Originally Posted by M. Incandenza
I just don't see this. The neighborhood is protected; they're not gonna raze these people's mansions. All this building will do is make the neighborhood more dynamic; as I indicated above, I really don't see why this building - an attractive one! - is better for the neighborhood than an empty lot. I just really can't see that.
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I just don’t see how a high-rise in the middle of this neighborhood makes it more dynamic. Maybe if they transformed the entire neighborhood by ripping down all the houses around it and made the whole area more urban, but not as it currently is. Condos or a 5-story mid-rise would fit this location much better in my opinion.
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Originally Posted by M. Incandenza
You must be willfully misreading me here. I have nothing against wealthy people. I was specifically criticizing these wealthy people who are opposing this project - and of course not everyone in the neighborhood is opposed to it, either.
What peeves me is that these folks have the social and financial capital to win this sort of fight, which folks in poorer neighborhoods rarely do. It's unjust. And again, it is rather frustrating that these particular people have gone to the mat over this development; what if their energies had gone into something that actually benefits the city, or the world, rather than this extremely parochial battle to protect their (trivial) self-interest?
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Originally Posted by M. Incandenza
how it is driven by wealthy homeowners who are some of the most privileged people in the world, frankly (and of all the causes of justice in the world they might fight for, this is the hill they choose to die on!)
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I don’t think I misread what you said. You are angry that these people are fighting for their own self-interests and not for some other “cause of justice.” How do you know they aren’t fighting for other good causes? I’m pretty confident that there are people who oppose this project that also participate in many activities and give contributions to projects that improve their communities and the city of Houston. But when they fight for a cause that benefits themselves, they get villainized? It just doesn’t seem fair to me.
Like I said earlier, if an entire poor community was against a project in their neighborhood, it would likely go to court as well. A Civil Rights attorney would make sure of that. And again, why is it so wrong for them to fight for a cause that benefits their own self-interest? And how do you know they aren’t spending their energies on other projects that benefit the city?
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Originally Posted by M. Incandenza
How many homeowners have a real stake in whether this project gets built? A few dozen? But compare that to the hundreds of potential residents of Ashby. Their voices aren't being heard because they're dispersed and for the most part don't even know themselves who they are. Why would it be "responsible" for the developer to ignore their interests, just to mollify a few neighbors?
This isn't an incidental point. It's the very core of the problem of nimbyism: those who have incumbent interests have the ability to have their voices heard, and thus can use the political process to maintain the status quo and prevent others from sharing in their privileges - in this case, the ability to enjoy living in a nice neighborhood with a historic character.
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I believe that the utility that would be lost from the residents already living here is greater than the utility that would be gained from the potential new residents coming in. The potential residents have other options for luxury high-rise residentials, so they aren’t directly affected by whether this gets built or not. It isn’t a game-changer for them. It obviously does affect the people living here right now; otherwise they wouldn’t be so opposed to this project. I guess we’ll just have to disagree.
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