An Open Letter to Apartment Developers

It has been a bad week for Houston’s apartments.

On Sunday morning, a man was found fatally shot at the Tall Timbers Apartments, in east Houston. On Tuesday, a man shot his wife while his daughter watched in front of a small apartment complex at 910 Adele in north Houston. On Thursday, a man was shot just steps from his home at the Arbor Ridge Apartments in north Houston; and another man was found dead at the City Parc II at West Oaks in southwest Harris County. On Friday, two separate apartment complexes caught fire – one in Northwest Houston, and another near The Galleria.

As if this week’s mayhem weren’t enough, the news also reported two stories from earlier this year. Joshua Leon Marshall is still on the run for his role in the May 9 shooting of Reginald King at the Pine Ridge Place Apartments in northwest Houston; and in the most tragic of stories, a 14 year old girl is in jail after she gave birth and killed her baby at the Greyfield Apartment Homes in southwest Houston.

Horror stories like these drive a wedge between neighborhoods and apartments. Nobody wants to live next door to a complex that’s notorious for crime. And the stories sit in the back of neighbors’ minds when a developer plans to build apartments near them, too – but developers don’t always listen.

A few months ago, I came across this post on the multifamilybiz.com blog. Caution – it’s not fun to read. The author spares no effort in insulting the valid concerns of neighbors. Traffic, flooding – he laughs at those. Public hearings are “kangaroo courts,” and developers are constantly having their ‘perfect’ projects shot down by little old ‘Aunt Sally’s.

The developer who wrote the post might have good reasons to be frustrated. Maybe he missed the required drainage and traffic studies on a project, and a neighborhood group called him on it. Or maybe he’s just venting after being on the wrong side of one too many canceled projects. I actually agree with what he wrote about meeting with neighbors – even if he suggested it for all the wrong reasons.

The vast majority of apartments in Houston are fine places to live. Most development is good. But we constantly hear about the bad apples: the developers who are at war with neighborhood groups; the apartments where people are getting shot. Developers would be wise to read these stories carefully, and work with neighborhood groups (not against them) to do projects that benefit everyone.

In My Hiatus

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Two excellent stories

I read two articles today that really made me happy.

First, there was an excellent article about Commuter Rail in Cite Magazine. Author and new Metro board member, Christof Spieler says “Rather than rush ahead with a system based on preconceived, often faulty assumptions [about transit] and driven by political urgency, we need to engage in a discussion about what we want to accomplish and how best to do that.”

Mr. Spieler is absolutely right. Metro needs to have an honest dialogue about its transit system. I would hope that includes average Houstonians. Neighbors should be asked “where do you travel to and from? How do you get there? If you drive, what’s keeping you from taking transit?” I’ll bet the answers would be surprising, and very informative about how to improve transit in our city.

Also today, Mayor Annise Parker announced her new choices for City Attorney and director of the City’s Department of Housing and Community Development (David Feldman and James Noteware respectively). The choices weren’t as interesting as what the Mayor said: “We can put more housing out for more people if we upgrade the multi-family housing we have and we do whatever we need to do to remove the really terrible multi-family apartment complexes in our city that drag down the neighborhoods around them.” I’ve been advocating for this all along; most recently in this thread on HAIF. It’s a relief to have a Mayor that understands.

There are three caveats on this. First, apartments need periodic reinvestment or they deteriorate. It’s not enough to just upgrade apartments and then walk away. Sooner or later, they’ll be back where they started. Second, like Mr. Spieler said about transit – we need to carefully study which apartments are demolished and which are upgraded. Neighborhood Protection has data on the worst apartments; the Department of Housing and Community Development should use that data. Third, they need to do these things in ways that are welcomed by neighbors; not in ways that anger neighbors. This last piece may be the most difficult of all.

These are two very important things. Houston really needs good transit. We absolutely must replace slums with quality, affordable housing for working people. It will be very interesting to see where these two initiatives go.

Good News! The "$50,000 Club" Doesn't Exist in Houston.

The Boston Globe ran a piece about New England Colleges that are in “the $50,000 club”. If you want to study at these schools, and you pay full-fare – it will total over $50,000 a year. Schools include Harvard (of course), Boston University, Boston College, and Wellesley among others.

So, how did Houston’s universities do? I did some research and found out:

Rice University: $44,841

University of Saint Thomas: $42,530

Texas Southern University: $32,068 (non-residents)

Houston Baptist University: $27,400

The University of Houston: $21,994 (non-residents)

Of course few people pay full-fare to go to college. For most, the price tag is greatly reduced by financial aid packages.

Still, Houston should be very proud of these numbers. Our best universities are, on the whole, less expensive than Boston’s. I’ll bet you’d find similar savings if you compared us to New York or Los Angeles. This means a lot for our economy and our future.

Let's Fix What We've Got - The Right Answer to Low Income housing in Houston.

There’s a debate raging in Katy. A company from Charlotte, North Carolina has applied for low income housing tax credits through the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA). The housing project is actually slated to be built just outside the Katy City Limits, but residents of Katy are rightly afraid of the impact it will have on their community. Neighbors to the project aren’t the only ones who should oppose it.

Houston’s affordable housing has been allowed to deteriorate. In some neighborhoods (Gulfton; Alief), apartments that were built for the middle class, now house the poor. These apartments were developed 30 years ago, with life-spans of 30 years. They are in dire need of repair or replacement, but there's little money available to do it. In other neighborhoods (Sunnyside; Acres Homes) poor homeowners desperately need help to repair older houses; but the programs available to them are inadequate.

There is a finite amount of resources available for low income housing. Every dollar that’s spent to build new low income housing, is a dollar that can’t be spent elsewhere. We owe it to ourselves to demand that those funds be used to repair existing affordable housing.

If you want to help, there will be a hearing for the project near Katy. It will be held at the Houston City Hall Annex (900 Bagby) on April 7, at 6 PM.