A Third Option for the Dynamo - the Plaz Americas Mall

Bellaire Mayor Cindy Siegal is mad. She doesn’t like Midway Development’s alternate plan for a new Dynamo Soccer Stadium. Meanwhile, neighbors in Sharpstown are worried. They fear that the PlazAmericas makeover of the Sharpstown Mall could scare away a lot of non-Hispanic patrons.

I’m always interested in ways to kill two birds with one stone. And these two stories made me wonder – what if the new Dynamo Stadium were built at the PlazAmericas/ Sharpstown Mall?

Traffic would be less worrisome than at the Midway site, because the mall is already designed for it. The Sharpstown Mall always had excellent access to the Southwest Freeway. A few blocks to the south, Boxer Properties runs the Arena Theater, and the concerts do not cause traffic jams on adjacent neighborhood streets. Neighborhood streets are already configured to avoid this.

The costs would be less than either the Downtown and Midway site. The stadium could use much of the existing Sharpstown Mall infrastructure – most notably parking and site drainage. Most of PlazAmerica’s anchors are vacant, so the square footage is there. It would require a reconfiguration of the mall – but that’s still usually less expensive than building everything from the ground up.

Soccer is an international sport, and the Alief-Sharpstown-Gulfton area is Houston’s most international. From a demographic standpoint, it would make sense to put the Dynamo stadium in the middle of it all – at the PlazAmericas mall. And this is to say nothing of the benefits to PlazAmericas. The stadium could buttress the funding that’s already lined up for the makeover of the Sharpstown Mall. Not to mention all the people that will come through the mall on game days.

The PlazAmericas mall would be a better choice for The Dynamo than downtown or Midway’s site in Bellaire. Soccer could be an ace-in-the-hole for the mall. It could be a match made in heaven.

The case for Bikeability in Houston - Why it could be better for us than Walkability.

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) recently published a study, “Cities for Cycling,” in which they review emerging best practices for the engineering of roads for bicycles. The goal is to make cities more bicycle friendly, so that people can use bicycles for transit; not just for recreation and exercise.

Urbanists spend a lot of time on walkability, but bikeability is often ignored. That’s a shame for Houston. Walkability is easiest to accomplish in dense urban cores, where travel distances are short. Houston has a handful of those, but most of the city was developed after World War II. Most of our neighborhoods are too spread out for walking. In many Houston neighborhoods, bikeability could be drastically improved with a few small changes – a new path here; a footbridge there; a crosswalk. Compare that to the upheaval of trying to turn suburbs into dense urban cores in order to get walkability.

Houston’s natural features lend themselves to cycling. The City is flat, which makes it easier to cycle. But more importantly, Houston is criss-crossed by bayous. Many of those bayous have become greenways – the longest of which goes for eleven miles. These are in addition to the greenways we’ve built on old railroad rights of way – something most cities have done. Greenways can be to cyclists what highways are to drivers; a fast, direct way from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’. They just need to be properly linked to on-street bikeways and transit centers, so that they are more than just recreational parks.

Houston’s handful of dense neighborhoods should keep working on walkability. It’s the right answer for places like Downtown, Montrose, and Midtown. But for the suburban neighborhoods where most Houstonians live – bikeability is a much more reachable goal.

Ex-Cons in Poor Neighborhoods

Posted on Civic Architect Houston Chronicle Blog: 1/20/2010 10:53 PM CST

Earlier this month, KHOU reported about the proliferation of sex offenders living in Houston’s Sunnyside neighborhood.

Sunnyside residents are right to be worried. Many of these guys have long histories, and recidivism is a very serious concern. On New Years Day, sex offender Larry Allen Rickets allegedly kidnapped and murdered Becky Hamilton. And sex offenders aren’t the whole story. An Urban Institute Study from 2004 found that a quarter of Houston’s ex-convicts are released to the City’s poorest neighborhoods.

There are many reasons poor neighborhoods absorb ex-cons. Ex-convicts are likely to be poor. They can’t afford higher rents in upscale neighborhoods. Landlords in these places don’t always screen tenants, so there is no protection on that front. Meanwhile, Houston has no limits on where sex offenders and ex-convicts can live (something the residents of Sunnyside are asking for). The only protection is from a 1994 state law that creates 1,000 foot “child safety zones” around places where children congregate – and the situation in Sunnyside suggests it may be too weak.

Unfortunately, it may be an uphill battle for Houston to put its own limits on where ex-cons can live. Miami took this approach, with a 2005 ordinance that prevented sex offenders from living within 2500 feet of a school. But they didn’t follow up with a facility or halfway house to accommodate the offenders. Miami’s sex offenders wound up living under a bridge, with no sanitation or running water. The City was sued.

As Houston moves into the 21^st century, this is an issue we must address. We’ve got to move past the “ex-cons have to live somewhere” mentality, and discuss what our options are. Just because a neighborhood is poor doesn’t mean it should be a “dumping field for anything that’s negative.” (as Sunnyside Civic Association President Travis McGee puts it). Surely there’s something we can do.

How to Teach Foreign Students

Posted on Civic Architect Houston Chronicle Blog: 1/14/2010 7:56 PM CST

Normally I don’t write about HISD. I’m not a teacher, or an expert in education. I don’t have kids who go to school. But I lived in France as a seventh grader, and that incensed me to think about this Chronicle Article on Fondren Middle School.

Fondren Middle School is almost guaranteed to fail under the Texas education system. In Texas, a school’s success is measured by test scores. The tests are in English, and English is the second language for many Fondren Middle School students.

It behooves schools like Fondren Middle to do a better job teaching English as a Second Language. It should be a language immersion program. They could give foreign students a ‘free year’ when they first arrive. During their ‘free year’, foreign students take normal courses (in English), as well as intensive English as a Second Language courses. Their grade for this ‘free year’ is based on their grade in the ESL courses. Instead of a normal TAKS test, foreign students in their ‘free year’ are given an ESL test.

The next year, foreign students could repeat the normal courses from their ‘free year.’ In this year, they could be graded on all of their courses. The students could take the TAKS test with other students from this repeated year, and thereafter they could be mainstreamed.

This is, more or less, what the French school system did for me. Granted there was no TAKS test. But it worked marvelously. I went from speaking almost no French, to a comfortable level of fluency by the end of the year. If only there were room in Texas schools to do such a thing.

"Housing First" for the Homeless

Posted on Civic Architect Houston Chronicle Blog: 12/13/2009 2:32 PM CST

Lawyer Harry C. Arthur is suing to shut down The Beacon homeless day center. His timing is unfortunate – people are painting him as a Grinch because the story was released around the Holidays – but Mr. Arthur has a point.

It’s not politically correct to say it, but soup kitchens are horrible for neighborhoods. When the centers are open, they do not accommodate everyone who needs their services; so the homeless congregate outside. When the centers are closed, the homeless disperse into surrounding streets, to “urinate, defecate and drop trash in the street, sidewalks, doorways and other private property,” (as Mr. Arthur put it).

There is an alternative. The New York Times talked about a homeless shelter in Bergen County New Jersey that “has more of the feel of a Courtyard by Marriott than of a homeless shelter.” It is designed to be a one-stop shop for the homeless; where they can get hot meals, medical care, job-placement, laundry, and all of that. But the priority is housing. Before anything else, Bergen County finds permanent homes for its clients. This is the “Housing First” model.

Finding a place to live is a logical starting point to rebuilding a life. It’s difficult to get healthy, or keep a job when you’re worried about where you’ll sleep every night. Without an address you may as well not exist in America. And how can you go to a job interview if you can’t shower and clean your clothes first?

“Housing First” also solves many of the neighborhood problems caused by day centers for the homeless. Because the clients live there, they don’t congregate outside or disperse into surrounding streets. There are beds, toilets, and trash cans that they can use, instead of sidewalks and doorways.

Houston needs the Beacon, but Harry Arthur has a point, too. Maybe the Beacon could use the “Housing First” model– find homes for its clients instead of taking them in for a few hours, and then putting them back on the streets.

NIMBYs and Hypocrites. Magnolia Glen and The Ashby High Rise.

Posted on Civic Architect Houston Chronicle Blog: 12/12/2009 12:22 PM CST

Developers and architects have a word for irate neighbors: they’re called NIMBYs: “Not In My Back Yard”s. Anyone can be labeled a NIMBY. If you think your neighborhood already has too many homeless shelters, you’re a NIMBY. If you don’t want a high rise on your quiet street, you’re a NIMBY.

Hypocrisy is often behind the NIMBY cry. There are a million people who scream for property rights, but how many of them would build a skyscraper on their own street? Would they move their own families next door to a homeless shelter?

Hypocrisy certainly played a big role in the Magnolia Glen Homeless Shelter project. The President of the Houston Housing Corporation lives in Old Braeswood. The Houston Housing Corporation has its headquarters near Greenbriar and Highway 59. But they chose the Eastwood subdivision as a site for the Magnolia Glen.

The Ashby High Rise is not so different. The CEO of Buckhead Investment Partners lives in Southside Place, about a mile from the site of the Ashby High Rise. The President of Buckhead lives a little closer. But the Ashby High Rise will not cast shadows on either of their homes. It won’t add traffic to their streets. Buckhead Investment Partners will reap the profits of the Ashby High Rise, but won’t face the negatives.

Houston is a growing City. Development is inevitable, and if we’re not careful, there will be more fights like the Magnolia Glen and Ashby High Rise. A zoning ordinance is not the answer - there are alternative city ordinances that would be better. But ordinances won’t work without a change in attitude. Developers and architects need to stop crying “NIMBY” and start looking at the valid points raised by neighborhoods.

Apartment Ordinance 2.0

Posted on Civic Architect Houston Chronicle Blog: 11/21/2009 3:06 PM CST

Houston is finally going to do periodic inspections of apartments! This is great news for everyone; not just tenants in apartments.

But as great as this is, it should be considered “Apartment Ordinance 1.0.” The biggest area for improvement is that the ordinance requires the inspection of ALL apartments every four years. Brand new apartments are on the same schedule as older complexes.

I hope the City comes back and writes “Apartment Ordinance 2.0,” so older apartments are inspected more frequently. It could be a graduated schedule, based on a “clock” that starts from the apartments’ original certificate of occupancy:

The first inspection could happen 10 years after the original C of O.

The second, after 15 years.

The third, after 18 years.

The fourth, after 21 years.

The fifth, after 24 years.

After the fifth inspection, the property is inspected every 2 years.

“Apartment Ordinance 2.0” could encourage apartment owners to do the right thing. Owners could reset the clock on a property if they temporarily close the property, and do a gut renovation. They could stop the clock by enrolling the property in HPD’s Blue Star program.

The new inspections are a great thing. Apartments have to meet basic standards of habitability and safety – and now those rules will be enforced! It’s also great that it’s not complaint driven. Apartment owners won’t blame neighbors when their properties are inspected. But as with anything new, there is room for a “Version 2.0”.