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NEARTOWN FORUM

Residents share ideas for development, planning

By BETTY L. MARTIN HOUSTON CHRONICLE

No shortage of ideas for beneficial Neartown development was heard as residents and city officials aptly demonstrated with charts, graphs and plenty of passion during the Neartown Development Forum on Oct. 18.

But with the shift in funding priorities since Hurricane Ike and general economic woes, there’s little money to invest in projects new to the city’s planning, approval and budgeting processes, City Controller Annise Parker said.

While she applauded the civic enthusiasm represented at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 1805 W. Alabama, Parker told about 75 people that city borrowing for new projects has been put on hold, except for safety issues, until interest rates come back down.

“We’re using internal cash funds until we can pay less interest rates,” Parker said. “Some projects will be targeted for delay or deferral, but not safety projects.”

Her comments came in the fourth and last hour of the community forum, as residents listened to project ideas presented by public and private nonprofit groups

Groups included the day’s host, the Neartown Association, Metro Solutions, Blueprint Houston, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, Montrose Boulevard Conservancy and RichmondRail.org.

Residents were also able to ask questions of representatives from the city of Houston’s Planning and Development, Public Works and Engineering, and Legal departments, as well as the Sustainable Growth Committee.

“The focus of what we’ve been presenting at our table is that our urban corridors increase our walkability, access and living a more urbane life. The city is working on the urban corridors, but we need people to jump in and make sure the corridors are pedestrian-friendly,” said Doug Childers, who heads richmondrail.org.

The project’s alignment of light rail down Richmond Avenue was chosen in 2007, Childers said, but is awaiting funding before construction can begin.

“The goal was to open in 2012, but there’s a financial crisis. The city government has chosen the alignment, Metro has approved it, but it’s a federal issue at this point,” Childers said.

Nat Holland, who lives in Roseland Estates, said he hopes Metro will build a dual station on Richmond just west of Montrose to accommodate the heavy ridership anticipated.

John Walsh of the Montrose Boulevard Conservancy said the nonprofit group’s Walkable Montrose project begun three years ago is intended to tie together area park and bayou jogging trails and provide sidewalks, pedestrian lighting systems and crosswalk signals. The project “requires more structure” than working with another agency, such as a management district, may provide, he said.

It could tie to an existing $5 million Texas Department of Transportation project with the Memorial Heights Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone to increase flood capacity, Walsh said.

Claude Winn, also of the Conservancy, argued for putting city utility lines underground.

“It won’t do any good to have 6-foot-wide sidewalks if there’s a 3-foot utility pole in the middle of it,” Winn said.

Allen Ueckert, the Conservancy’s vice president and treasurer, told city Planning and Development’s Tenesia Mathews he wants to see a more aesthetic Allen Parkway, one “with trees, pocket parks” and better use of open space,

Ray Chong of the city’s Public Works and Engineering Department said that with all the priorities and city resources given to improving corridors, “2009 will be the year of the street” in Houston.

Steve Longmire, who writes the newsletter for First Montrose Commons, said the area attracts more than 100 cars per hour down Jack Street, which is not a major thoroughfare, and parking is available on only one side of the street.

There is already unbridled development in the area, Longmire said, with traffic pouring from surrounding U.S. 59 and the entrance lanes to Texas 288 and Spur 527. Longmire added he is alarmed about how traffic will be contained once the rail project begins along Richmond Avenue.

In a recent accident, he said, he monitored the traffic and saw that a Houston Fire Department truck got stuck in a traffic jam at Jack and Greeley streets off Richmond.

“What happens when they close Richmond Avenue for rail? They need a master plan for Roseland Estates,” Longmire said. “They need to start planning for this.”

Louis and Rose Marie Frey, who have lived in the Neartown area since 1961, say they just want the traffic that bottlenecks on U.S. 59 to find a route other than crisscrossing through their Castle Court Street neighborhood near Montrose Boulevard and Richmond Avenue.

“It’s already a mess,” Louis Frey said.

“Traffic is a citywide issue,” Chong said. “It’s a plan that requires money.”

Houston architect Rey de la Reza, of Rey de la Reza Architects, Inc., 1243 W. 18th St., agreed that the area, including Richmond Avenue, is an obstacle, but civic organizations and property owners need to collaborate to find compromises and solutions.

“We had enough trouble just getting approval for rail. The streets are our front porches for our properties and we just can’t afford not to get it right,” de la Reza said. “Metro has done the yeoman’s job to get rail. Now developers and property owners need to unify in a common rally.”