Did you miss me?
Since a judge sided with developers of the so-called Ashby high-rise in 2016, the grassy lot at the center of one of the most closely watched land-use battles in Houston’s history has sat untouched, surrounded by chain-link fencing.
Now, the owners of the property are resurrecting efforts to build a high-rise residential tower at the corner of Bissonnet and Ashby Street near Rice University. They have brought in a new development team and a scaled-down version of the original plans they hope will win over neighbors who fiercely opposed the earlier iteration.
Hunt Companies of El Paso is partnering with Dallas-based StreetLights Residential to build a 20-story luxury apartment community called The Langley. They plan to break ground in November and complete construction by 2025. The tower is one story lower with 94 fewer units than a 2016 version of the project. The new proposal also features a smaller parking garage at three levels instead of five.
Fewer units mean fewer residents, which the developers hope will ease concerns over traffic on the two-lane streets surrounding the site — a key point of contention for the prior proposal.
[…]
When Buckhead Investment first announced a project in 2007, it quickly drew the ire of residents who argued a high-rise was out of character for the neighborhood. They worried about traffic congestion and plummeting property values.
The opposition sparked a yearlong battle to squash the project through protests and lawsuits in what became a symbol for fighting Houston’s lax zoning. Ultimately a judge sided with Buckhead in clearing the way for the developers to build.
But the legal win for developers came near the bottom of the 2014-to-2016 oil bust, which made it difficult to attract investors to Houston, and the property instead sat undeveloped.
Hunt Companies, however, didn’t shelve the project. The owners kept their original permits up-to-date with routine inspections and permit renewals every few months, said a spokeswoman for Houston Public Works Department. In a statement, the department said the city’s legal team would review an earlier agreement with the project owners to determine how the new proposal might be affected.
The developers have scheduled meetings with the city to determine next steps in the approval process, Meek said.
The prior project was “another developer, from another time. We’re the right developer for this and we’re excited to see The Langley come forth,” Meek said.
See here for all my previous blogging in this epic saga. The photo I’m using in this post, which I’ve used many times before, is of a sign that parodied the iconic and ubiquitous “Stop Ashby Highrise” signs from the height of that controversy. I took that picture in 2007, to give you some idea of the time span. As far as I can tell, the old stopashbyhighrise.org domain is kaput; there’s still a Facebook group whose last post was in 2013, and a #StopAshbyHighrise hashtag, which gave me a chuckle when I clicked on it:
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#StopAshbyHighrise called, and it wants its signs back.— Joe Cutrufo (@JoeCutrufo) 11:37 PM – 17 April 2021
Well, Big Tex Storage is mostly built now, so maybe that’s a positive omen for The Langley, which will always be on the Ashby site as far as I’m concerned. Will the neighborhood residents rise up against it? Will I be forced to undertake another decade-long blogging quest to document it? Tune in and find out. CultureMap has more.
This is what happens with the citizens within the City of Houston and/or Harris County vote against any forms of zoning ordinances.
It’s all well and good to be vocal opponents of multi-story shit buildings being built in the middle of your idyllic neighborhood(s), but when you don’t carry that concern to the polling place, said shit buildings come home to roost right down the tree-lined neighborhood street from you.
WalMart on Yale/I-10 ? Check.
Big Tex Storage E. 11th and Studewood ? Check.
Ashby Highrise/The Langley ? Pending…
There’s nothing wrong with any of those buildings. Besides, if you don’t own the property, you have no say, or interest, in what goes there.
Ross, a lot of the objection to the Walmart was to the $7 million COH tax dollars gifted to the developer, including money spent beautifying a bridge that was then demolished.
And speaking of interest, yes, some of that $7 million was interest COH paid to the developer.