Mayor unveils latest strategy to curry favor with anti-Ashby highrise constituents
One of our early objections to the poorly-considered ordinance that Mayor White proposed when well-heeled constituents demanded he stop the Ashby high rise was the amount of discretionary power that it would have bestowed on unelected bureaucrats.
Since the development of that ordinance has pleased nobody so far, Mayor White has since unveiled an even more capricious plan to use an antiquated driveway law to hinder development that somebody, somewhere, might find objectionable (at least until he can win approval for the other ordinance to empower unelected bureaucrats with discretionary power to hinder development). The Chronicle's Carolyn Feibel reports:
The driveway law dates back to 1940, though its current form began to take shape in 1968. White acknowledged that reviving this broadly worded law might have a "chilling" effect on growth, so he circulated a memo Wednesday with criteria on how it would be applied. The memo said developments that meet three criteria will receive "more intense scrutiny" of their traffic loads. The criteria are:
•A location where 60 percent or more of the properties within a 500-foot radius are residential
•Driveways that feed onto local or collector streets instead of a major thoroughfare
•A net increase of 50 additional vehicles going to and from the development during rush hours.
To mitigate the traffic effects, developers might have to add turning lanes or lights, scale back the number of apartments, or change the type of stores, White said.Enforcement comes from the city's power to reject a site plan, which shows where driveways connect to public streets.
The city will use these "interim procedures" while gathering public comment through July 1, the memo said. By Aug. 1, the city will issue a new proposal for regulating traffic from high-density developments. But it was unclear if this meant a new ordinance or the adjustment or tightening of current ordinances or policies.
"We are listening to everybody's concerns," Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck said. "It's an extremely complex process, and one size does not fit all."
Pardon us for being crude for a moment, but a better description of this confused political process actually rhymes with the councilmember's last name.
Alas, this is yet another example of the "leadership" coming from City Hall these days.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 02/28/08 09:36 PM | Houston Miscellany | Print | Comments (2)
Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry
ADVERTISING
DISCLAIMER
All content © 2004-09, blogHOUSTON and the respective authors.
blogHOUSTON.net is powered by Nucleus.
Site design and Nucleus customization are by Kevin Whited.