February 10, 2012

SN22 Attending District C Capital Improvement Project (CIP) Town Hall

The City of Houston has recently scheduled the District C Capital Improvement Project (CIP) Town Hall meeting to take place on the same date and time as SN 22's February meeting, i.e., Monday, February 13th from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Because all but two of our SN 22 neighborhoods are now in District C, the regular SN 22 meeting will not be held so that our members will be free to attend the District C CIP meeting instead.

SN 22 meeting next month is on Monday March 12th.

More details on Distrct C CIP Town Hall Meeting: www.ellencohen.org/events/distrct-c-cip-town-hall-meeting

September 26, 2011

District C Candidate Forums on YouTube:

September 11, 2011

City Council Candidate Forums - September 20 & 22

LOCATION: West End Multi-Service Center 170 Heights Boulevard

Tuesday, September 20th, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Candidate Forum for the races to fill Houston City Council
At-Large Positions 1 and 2, West End Multi-Service Center, 170 Heights Boulevard.

Thursday, September 22nd, 6:30-8:30 p.m
Candidate Forum for the races to fill Houston City Council
At-Large Positions 3, 4, and 5, West End Multi-Service Center, 170 Heights Boulevard.

The two candidate forums are being co-sponsored by the following five Super Neighborhood Councils: SN 15 - Greater Heights, SN 22 - Washington Avenue Coalition/Memorial Park, SN 61- Downtown, SN 63 - Second Ward, and SN 66 - Museum Park.

The participation of all existing candidates has been confirmed. Don’t miss this opportunity to meet the candidates, ask them the questions that you want answered, and hear them address issues that are important to all of our neighborhoods. Please distribute information about the candidate forums to your family, friends, and civic club colleagues.

August 8, 2011

District C Candidate Forums for Nov 8 Houston City Council Elections

• Who: Greater Heights and Washington Avenue Coalition-Memorial Park SuperNeighborhood Councils
• What: Candidate Forum for Houston City Council District C and H Races
• Where: Council on Alcohol and Drugs, 303 Jackson Hill, Houston TX 77007
• When: Monday August 8th from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Download the Press Release July 2011 for this event.

May 03, 2011

Liveable Center

The Civic Associations of SN22, impacted by redevelopment along the Washington Avenue corridor, have contributed financial support to steer the city of Houston toward long-range solutions that could redefine the area as a "liveable center."

Assisting this effort through Better Houston, former city Councilmember and Mayoral candidate Peter Brown said: "The livable centers study can provide a vision for the area and a set of design standards needed to achieve it. The developers all want this. They want standards. They want predictability."

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2011_4965477

February 7, 2011

Welcome WESTWOOD GROVE Civic Association

Super Neighborhood 22 welcomes Westwood Grove Civic Association to our organization. The Association is bordered by Durham and TC Jester, and Washington Avenue and Allen Street. They meet the third Tuesday of every month at 7 p.m. at 5102 Center Street Houston Texas 77007. Read About SN22 and view all of SN22's neighborhoods in a comprehensive map and find links to your SN22 civic club.

Download a pdf version of the above article.

January 7, 2011

WWW.SN22.ORG Needs Website Volunteers

Our all-volunteer organization is seeking help to improve Super Neighborhood 22's Online Presence @ WWW.SN22.ORG. We want to upgrade our site to a cool open-source content management system and then we welcome residents and lovers of our neighborhood to keep us informed about Washington Avenue / Memorial Park stuff.

FIRST: We are looking for just a few CMS QUASI-EXPERTS to architect and migrate existing hand-done html site to a content management system (Joomla, Drupal or other open source application). SN22’s current content consists mostly of agendas, meeting notes, some op-eds, guest speaker presentations, special event content (train horns, candidate forums, transportation vision) plus a list of desired new categories and a growing pool of photographs to request use of at SN22’s Flickr site. Help is needed from someone who understands content evolution and can help in prioritizing content to categories and then assist in actually building the cms modules to populate with content. Timeline preferred is January to accomplish this task – anticipate four ten-hour blocks of time needed to get to a go-ready state. Day, time and location to work is very flexible.

NEXT: Many CONTENT CREATORS are sought to keep the site updated with information relevant to Memorial Park/Washington Avenue area. Aside from the obvious monthly content needs (meeting notices, agenda postings), the content will go in whatever direction the contributors are inspired to express about – meaning, if you like to take photographs of events in the area, then we’ll focus on a photo album, for example (please look at our Super Neighborhood 22 Flickr Group Page for an awesome array of photographs). The site will be easy to use and set up as a team editorial effort ensuring timely and fine presentation of information.

While the board has agreed that sn22.org is not intended to be a commercial site with advertisers, we are open to discussion of ways to improve the organization’s mission of being a forum to discuss neighborhood issues. At this time the pay for this is the warmth and fuzziness of being a part of an effective grass-roots organization which represents the diversity and dynamism of urban community. All ideas are welcome! All help is appreciated! Meetings will be scheduled and arranged by feedback, and posted at sn22’s facebook page if relevant.

PLEASE JOIN US AT SN22'S REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING THIS COMING MONDAY, JANUARY 10TH AT DEPELCHIN CHILDREN'S HOME 4950 Memorial Dr 77007 (access via Bethje and/or Sandman Streets). This will be an excellent time to meet in person and ask any questions about the website and other neighborhood stuff.

THANK YOU!
Mary-Jane (contact)

Download a pdf version of the above article.

October 23, 2010

SN22's Position on Proposition 1 (Renew Houston)
Earlier in the year, the SN 22 Council voted to issue a qualified endorsement for the Renew Houston initiative. SN 22 supports the concept of creating a dedicated fund for use on a pay-as-you-go basis to implement flooding and drainage projects ranked and executed in order of need. However, SN 22's endorsement was qualified by a call for establishment - before the November election - of clearly stated, objective standards and criteria to govern implementation of the initiative. SN 22 members expressed particular concern that the city's performance standards for new development be amended to incentivize use of Low Impact Design (LID) and to eliminate "grandfathering" that allows previously developed properties to be completely redeveloped without updated detention and mitigation so long as the amount of impervious cover does not increase. Moreover, when community members asked the Mayor and City Council to make approval of the "380 Agreement" recently negotiated to facilitate development of a Walmart Supercenter on an old industrial site at Yale and Koehler contingent on the developer's agreement to include LID features and to forego the "grandfathering" for drainage, the Mayor and 11 City Councilmembers* ignored the community's request and approved the agreement without these provisions.

In late September the Flooding and Drainage Committee of the Super Neighborhood Alliance wrote to Mayor Parker urging her to address Super Neighborhood concerns about flooding and drainage regardless of what the voters decide about Proposition 1. (Link to SNA Flooding Drainage letter to CofH)

Mayor Parker has issued a statement of principles that she has committed to use to craft an ordinance to implement Proposition 1 should city voters approve it. But neither Mayor Parker, nor City Council has agreed to be bound by those principles. Additionally, the mayor's statement of principles does not address the issues about which SN 22 members have expressed particular concern.

For these reasons SN 22 is unable to encourage its members to vote for Proposition 1.

* Opposing the 380 Agreement were Councilmembers: Ed Gonzales, Jolanda Jones, Melissa Noriega and James Rodriquez.

Download a pdf version of the above article.

September 1, 2010

Ainbinder Company Plans for Walmart Supercenter on Yale Street

Mayor Parker has recently hosted two public meetings to air concerns about the Ainbinder Company's plans to develop a retail center on Yale Street north of Washington Avenue and south of Koehler Street anchored by a 24-hour Walmart Supercenter, and the city's intent to encourage and facilitate the development by providing the Ainbinder Company a "380 Agreement." The "380 Agreement" would allow the city to use property and/or sales tax revenues generated by the development to reimburse the Ainbinder Company for improvements to public infrastructure. The first public meeting was held on August 25th, and the second public meeting was held last night. At last night's public meeting Mayor Parker stated that she expects to bring the proposed "380 Agreement" between the city and the Ainbinder Company to City Council for a vote in about two weeks.

Today, SN22 received notice that the city has established a website with links to the August 25th presentation.

Click link below for the city's website.
Shortcut to: http://www.houstontx.gov/koehler/index.html

Walmart's plans for the Supercenter and the Ainbinder Company's plans for infrastructure improvements can also be accessed on a website established by Ainbinder Company: http://www.washingtonheightsdistrict.com.

Community opposition to these plans and to the city's intent to enter a "380 Agreement" with Ainbinder Company to facilitate these plans is being organized by a newly created non-profit organization, Responsible Urban Development for Houston (RUD). Information about RUD and its efforts is available at http://www.stopheightswalmart.org.

Super Neighborhood 22 has not adopted any postion regarding these plans.

Super Neighborhood 22 representatives have been meeting with representaties of the White Oak Bayou Association (WOBA), the Bayou Preservation Association (BPA), the Citizens Transportation Coalition (CTC), the Congress for New Urbanism (CNU), and the Greater Heights Super Neighborhood (SN 15), in an effort to determine how the project will impact public infrastructure, and what benefits the community should expect to receive from the developer in exchange for a significant investment of public funds.

Because the Washington Avenue Corridor has been experiencing a rapid increase in the density of residential development, the joint efforts of these organizations are focused on the following issues:
Reconnecting the street grid across the large site to improve neighborhood connectivity and create walkable urban blocks;

1. Reconnecting the street grid across the large site to improve neighborhood connectivity and create walkable urban blocks;
2. Building mixed-use, street-facing buildings that will engage pedestrians instead of the proposed suburban big box store;
3. Incorporating structured parking and allowing for shared parking that will not only allow more income-producing development to occur on the site but also encourage diversity of commercial development;
4. Seeking support for Super Neighborhood 22's Transportation Master Plan and planning for adjacent transit because Washington Avenue is in the METRO Solutions plan and UPRR's Terminal Subdivision is a likely route for suburban rail service; and
5. Detaining stormwater on site and incorporating water quality mitigation measures to ensure that proposed stormwater improvements do not worsen downstream flooding along White Oak Bayou.

TODAY, the City of Houston Planning Commission will decide whether to grant a variance needed for the developer to extend Koehler St. east to Heights Blvd to improve access to the site. I understand that District H Councilmember Edward Gonzalez will be there urging the Planning Commission to deny the application as premature because traffic studies needed to determine how the variance will impact the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of Houston have not yet been completed and/or made available for public review.

Interested individuals can sign up to speak for 2 minutes during the meeting:

What: City of Houston Planning Commission meeting
When: Thursday, Sept 2, 2010 from 2:30 pm until finished
Where: 900 Bagby St, Houston, TX 77002

Super Neighborhood 22 presented its Transportation Committee's Proposed Master Plan to SN22's constituent civic clubs throughout May, June and July. You can still submit your comments through our feedback page at sn22.org.

Link to page. Download the presentation: SN22 Transportation Pres.pdf (4.6MB)

• DePelchin Children's Center, 4950 Memorial Dr 77007 (access via Bethje and/or Sandman Streets) www.depelchin.org.
  • Archive page of meeting documents