I don’t know about this. A group of residents who live near the site of the high-rise planned for 1717 Bissonnet filed suit against the developer in state district court Wednesday, another attempt to stop construction of the 21-story building. The seven plaintiffs say if the property is built it will cause harm to them [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Ashby highrise’
Ashby Highrise gets its permit
Ready or not, here it comes. The city of Houston [last] week granted full permitting approval for the 21-story apartment building planned near Rice University at 1717 Bissonnet and Ashby. An existing apartment complex at the site is now vacant and will be demolished soon, the developers recently said. But one major piece of the [...]
Alexan Heights update
The developers of the Alexan Heights project on Yale will go before the Planning Commission tomorrow to get a variance that would remove a single-family restriction on part of the property. Some folks in the neighborhood have been petitioning against the variance. The Leader reports from a meeting that was supposed to be between residents [...]
More on Ashby Heights
That’s not this project‘s name, but it’s how I think of it. Canadian developers of a condominium project on a wooded 1.4-acre plot near the Heights Bike Trail and White Oak Bayou late have dropped their request for a variance to develop the site – thereby allowing the city of Houston far less control over [...]
Et tu, Leo?
At least one person living near the Ashby Highrise is looking forward to its construction. Linbeck Group, a general contractor whose top executive lives in the neighborhood adjacent to the building site, is expected to start construction at the beginning of next year. Executive chairman Leo Linbeck III said the company is taking on the [...]
Ashby everywhere
Nancy Sarnoff notes a trend. Homeowners in the Memorial area held a meeting last month in the lobby of a nearby medical office building to discuss what to do about a large apartment complex being planned in their neighborhood. They said the project – and other new developments in the area – would lead to [...]
Ashby set to rise
Ready or not, here it comes. Construction on the 21-story luxury apartment building at 1717 Bissonnet is scheduled to begin by the fourth quarter of this year and is expected to take 18 to 24 months to complete. Kevin Kirton of Buckhead Investment Partners, which is developing the project, said he plans to go to [...]
Discussing the Z word
I have three things to say about this. The go-ahead for the Ashby high rise has left me feeling really depressed. If affluent residents with all their political and social connections can’t keep a 21-story skyscraper out of their bucolic neighborhood, what hope is there for the rest of us? When Mayor “I’m against the [...]
When will Ashby rise?
Real Soon Now, developers promise. After more than four years in the works, the so-called Ashby high-rise is expected to break ground by year-end. A lawsuit keeping the project from being built was settled last week. The proposed building pitted the developer against the city of Houston and a well-to-do neighborhood – some of whose [...]
Mayor tells Ashby foes it’s over
Mayor Annise Parker told the attendees at that neighborhood meeting to discuss the proposed settlement of the Ashby highrise lawsuit that it’s a done deal. “We have exhausted all legal means to stop this project,” said Parker, reiterating her opposition against the project. Next week, Buckhead and its architects will begin meeting to make changes [...]
City to meet with anti-Ashby forces
I’m not sure if they’re at anger, denial, or bargaining yet, but we’ll know soon enough. The city of Houston plans to meet with residents of the Southampton and Boulevard neighborhoods March 12 to discuss the Ashby high-rise settlement. In an email to members [last] Friday, the Stop Ashby Highrise Task Force said its leadership [...]
City to settle Ashby lawsuit
Another saga draws to a close. Mayor Annise Parker has sent a letter to residents of the Southampton area saying the city has no legal basis to stop developers from building the controversial Ashby high-rise as outlined in their 2009 plans. “I am accepting the advice of city legal counsel and recommending the settlement of [...]
Council passes high rise ordinance
And with that, Council is done for the year. After four years of planning and discussion, the Houston City Council on Wednesday approved new restrictions on residential high rises. The restrictions, which passed after a failed proposal to delay a vote on the ordinance, would require that neighborhood high rises be built at least 30 [...]
Council taking up highrise ordinance
And the Chapter 42 overhaul gets underway as the revamped highrise ordinance makes it onto Council’s agenda. The proposed rules, inspired by a planned 23-story high rise at the corner of Ashby and Bissonnet, would require that buildings over 75 feet tall in residential neighborhoods be at least 30 feet from the houses around them. [...]
Apartment boom coming
I have many things to say about this. High occupancies and rising rents for apartments are driving a new wave of development in Houston’s high-end urban neighborhoods. More than 3,500 units in a dozen complexes are under construction primarily inside the 610 Loop and around the Galleria. Nearly 8,700 more are proposed, according to Houston-based [...]
Chron overview of District C
The Ashby Highrise is casting its shadow over the race for the open seat in District C. Even with substantially redrawn boundaries, which in January will extend from north of Loop 610 down through the Heights and south to the Braeswood area, District C still is ground zero for the battle over height regulations. After [...]
Ashby rises again
It’s baaaaaaaaack. The Ashby high-rise is making a comeback. The developers of the proposed luxury residential tower that has enraged residents of the upscale neighborhoods around it resubmitted construction plans to the city Wednesday, requesting another permit to start building their project. The plans represent the same 23-story design the city approved two years ago, [...]
More on directing density
We know that the city’s Planning Department is prepping a draft ordinance that would add some restrictions to highrise construction in parts of the city outside designated areas. Here’s the Chron story about it. The proposed ordinance was written in response to the controversy over the project known as the Ashby high-rise, a real estate [...]
Directing density
This looks interesting. A new draft ordinance prepared by the city’s planning department aims to make it tougher to build tall buildings next to single-family homes. The proposal is called the High Density Ordinance, but many of its restrictions would apply to any structure more than 75 feet tall, no matter how tightly packed or [...]
What could be done with the Wal-Mart site instead
If you read through my previous post, you may be wondering “if not Wal-Mart there, then what?” For that, I turn to Andrew Burleson, wearing his President of the Houston Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism hat, who makes a proposal to the Mayor and Council about what should be built at the [...]
Ashby developers refile lawsuit
Originally filed in county court, the lawsuit by the Ashby Highrise developers has been re-filed in state district court. [The suit] will focus more heavily on claims the project was denied permits for its original design because it was subjected to “capricious and unreasonable” standards. Court documents submitted by attorneys for the Buckhead Development Partners, [...]
More on the Ashby Highrise lawsuit
Here’s a longer version of the Chron story about the Ashby Highrise lawsuit. The key point: Although the petition filed in a Harris County civil court-at-law does not specify damages, [developers Kevin] Kirton and [Matthew] Morgan said they are seeking more than $40 million, which they said is the value the city’s actions have taken [...]
At long last, the Ashby Highrise Lawsuit
The Ashby Highrise developers have filed suit against the city. The developers of the Ashby high-rise sued the city of Houston today seeking more than $40 million in compensation after repeated denials of their permit application. “The city must learn that it cannot misapply the law to please a select few or to achieve de [...]
Council rejects Ashby appeal
I know, I can’t believe it, either. The Houston City Council on Wednesday eliminated the final option outside the courthouse for the developers of the Ashby high-rise to gain approval of the 23-story, mixed-use development they first sought to build more than two years ago. The council unanimously rejected the developers’ appeal seeking permission to [...]
Council to hear Ashby appeal
Via Nancy Sarnoff, the developers of the Ashby Highrise will appeal the dismissal of their appeal of not getting everything they wanted when their project was finally approved back in August. There’s a public hearing Tuesday and a Council vote Wednesday (assuming no tag), and they’ll have company for each. I presume they’ll eventually lose, [...]
Ashby developers appeal to City Council
According to Nancy Sarnoff, the Buckhead folks have appealed to City Council to allow their original vision to go forward. They’ve already lost an appeal of that with the city’s General Appeals Board, and as it’s the Mayor who sets the Council’s agenda, I wouldn’t hold out a lot of hope for them. Never give [...]
Ashby’s developer defends his project
Let me start by saying that I agree with Kevin Kirton, the CEO of Buckhead Investment Partners, also known as the developers of the infamous Ashby highrise, when he says that the “trip number” justification that the city used to block that project for as long as they did was bunk, and that the highrise [...]
Ashby developers lose appeal
Given how long it took for the Ashby highrise developers to get their permit in the first place, I figured their appeal of the requirement that they cut back on some aspects of the project in order to get that permit would drag out for months as well. Not so. The city of Houston’s General [...]
Ashby rises again
It lives! The developers of the Ashby high-rise announced today they will appear before Houston’s General Appeals Board at 5 p.m. Thursday to ask that the original uses designed into 23-story high-rise be allowed. “Removing these amenities completely contradicts city officials’ statements that they want new development inside the loop to create a ‘walkable Houston,’” [...]
We’re for more land use regulations, whatever that means
As long as Zogby was polling the Mayor’s race, they may as well ask about some other stuff, too. Like whether or not you like the Ashby highrise. Out of 601 people surveyed between Oct. 12 and 15, 71 percent said they strongly or somewhat agree that “Houston should enact tougher land use restrictions.” The [...]
Once and again with the Ashby Highrise
There was a town hall meeting on Wednesday night on the status of the Ashby Highrise at Poe Elementary School just as there had been back in 2007 when the project first came up. Given that the developers have finally gotten approval from the city, the impression I get from reading this Examiner story about [...]
Interview with Council Member Anne Clutterbuck
Today’s interview subject is Council Member Anne Clutterbuck, who is serving her second term in District C. There’s been a lot of action in her district of late – the Ashby highrise, the rebuild of Kirby Drive, the Universities rail line – so we had quite a bit to talk about. Clutterbuck has one opponent [...]
Parker statement on Ashby highrise
Fresh from the inbox: Statement by Annise Parker on Ashby High Rise August 22, 2009 Contact: Sue Davis, 713-392-6011, sue@suedavis.net I am disappointed with the city’s decision yesterday to grant a site development permit for the high-rise building planned for the corner of Bissonnet and Ashby in the single-family residential neighborhood of Southampton. From the [...]
Ashby highrise approved
That sound you just heard was a massive freakout in the Southampton area. More than two years after they first applied, the developers of the Ashby high-rise will receive permits for a project that generated protests and a renewed debate over how to regulate development in Houston, city officials said today. The decision was based [...]