DigitalKoans

The Wall Street Journal has run an article about the growing problem of Houston's lack of zoning ("Houston's Twilight Zone: Projects Rise in Odd Spots").

What got the newspaper's and the Mayor's attention is a plan to build a 23-story condominium in a high-end neighborhood not far from Rice University. Understandably, the influential residents of this area are not thrilled by the prospect of an enormous tower looming over their increasingly pricey homes.

Real estate values in the "Inner Loop" (an inner city area bounded by the 610 highway) have skyrocketed in the last 15 years, and property taxes have followed the sharp upward curve. Desirable older neighborhoods with single-story houses built in the 1950s and 1960s have been ravaged by developers, who have torn down these houses to build large multiple-story mansions in the $800,000 to well over $1 million range. Builders have been undeterred as the prices of these single-story houses have doubled (or more) to roughly the $300,000-$400,000 range. Poor neighborhoods close to downtown have been decimated as builders have erected one high-end condo or apartment complex after another. This trend has increasing driven those looking for affordable housing outside the Loop, the further the cheaper (good values can be found there, and they keep Houston's overall housing costs fairly low). But Houston is a big sprawling city (about 600 square miles), and those fleeing inner city face long commutes on packed highways that are under perpetual construction in a futile attempt to keep up with the demand for new lanes.

Zoning issues are not new in Houston, but what is new is the trend for developers to want to erect large, expensive condominium complexes in the midst of high-end neighborhoods (the project mentioned in the article is not the only one in the works), and that's got the natives riled in those neighborhoods.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Houston. Comments closed here. Read and add comments at http://www.digital-scholarship.org/digitalkoans/.