Towne Lake Worsening? (Houston, Pearland, Conroe: real estate, 2013, apartment)

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

But then the point seems to be that government should intervene in the private market and private property rights by force, based on the perceived relationship between renters and school quality, to ration the quantity of renter housing (and often entry-level single family) in any given school zone, with the preferred interest given to owners of more expensive owner-occupied homes. By this reasoning, government land use regulation should be explicitly biased toward those who have paid more for their homes, and use the perceived renter kid or entry-level home kid / school relationship as the guide.

Completely disagree with you,
I'm talking about good urban planning ... the exact same thing that is done when roads and highways are built.
You don't just "let the market decide" when building roads and highways. The local government should plan them.

Same thing goes for flood zones, you don't let the market decide (Houston approach)
Houston should have identified those areas and make the areas with high probability of flooding, parks.
Houston took the other approach, let the market decide and now we are stuck with the crp that we have.



County to spend $20 million buying out 200 homes flooded by Harvey - Sep. 26th 2017

The buyout program approved Tuesday comes as local officials discuss ways to sharply escalate flood control initiatives in Harvey's wake. During the storm, up to 52 inches of rain fell across the county, causing billions of dollars of damage, flooding an estimated 136,000 homes and structures, and killing more than 70 people across the state.

Earlier this month, Emmett called for a wide-ranging re-examination of local flood control efforts. Ideas he suggested be considered include the revival of a long-dormant plan to build a third reservoir to collect stormwater in northwest Harris County, spending millions of dollars on levees and bayous, large-scale property buyouts and the possible creation of a multicounty flood control district.

[Ghost Town]

I used to rent in the past, so what?
My point is that Towne Lake was regarded as more exclusive area and people paid higher prices to get there. Schools were one of the important factors. But not only the schools. Massive apartment complexes add a lot of traffic. Were the original homeowners aware of the changes in few years down the road? I assume many people had some sort of long term strategy to live there for years. Is it still nice area? Sure. But I think it already started getting through a transition point.
And yes I bought in an older area that is completely built out. But if I lived in Towne Lake I would be disappointed with those new changes. I think there has to be some sort of land use plan for 10+ years that homeowners have access to. To me those apartments are a big turn off. If you are buying in a new area I think it is important to know how it is going to look like in next 10+ years.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

In Louisiana, they call it the trailer park effect. Often times, a developer would open a large trailer park aimed at mostly temporary workers in the area that didn’t want to spend too much on rent. Overall, the communities would be decent and calm and do just what the plan was. 5-10 years in the future, they turn into the famous trailer park memes we all know.

The apartment effect is an urban version of this that’s a much longer process

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by Dopo

Completely disagree with you,
I'm talking about good urban planning ... the exact same thing that is done when roads and highways are built.
You don't just "let the market decide" when building roads and highways. The local government should plan them.

Same thing goes for flood zones, you don't let the market decide (Houston approach)
Houston should have identified those areas and make the areas with high probability of flooding, parks.
Houston took the other approach, let the market decide and now we are stuck with the crp that we have.



County to spend $20 million buying out 200 homes flooded by Harvey - Sep. 26th 2017

The buyout program approved Tuesday comes as local officials discuss ways to sharply escalate flood control initiatives in Harvey's wake. During the storm, up to 52 inches of rain fell across the county, causing billions of dollars of damage, flooding an estimated 136,000 homes and structures, and killing more than 70 people across the state.

Earlier this month, Emmett called for a wide-ranging re-examination of local flood control efforts. Ideas he suggested be considered include the revival of a long-dormant plan to build a third reservoir to collect stormwater in northwest Harris County, spending millions of dollars on levees and bayous, large-scale property buyouts and the possible creation of a multicounty flood control district.

Yes, flooding and other safety hazards should be an element of development regulation, of course. But you want government deciding the uses and densities of private development on non-risky sites? Sorry, that's not justifiable.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by Ghost Town

I used to rent in the past, so what?
My point is that Towne Lake was regarded as more exclusive area and people paid higher prices to get there. Schools were one of the important factors. But not only the schools. Massive apartment complexes add a lot of traffic. Were the original homeowners aware of the changes in few years down the road? I assume many people had some sort of long term strategy to live there for years. Is it still nice area? Sure. But I think it already started getting through a transition point.
And yes I bought in an older area that is completely built out. But if I lived in Towne Lake I would be disappointed with those new changes. I think there has to be some sort of land use plan for 10+ years that homeowners have access to. To me those apartments are a big turn off. If you are buying in a new area I think it is important to know how it is going to look like in next 10+ years.

It doesn't matter, new are or old built-out area. Places should be allowed to redevelop per the market also. The folks in Frostwood paid a lot of $ for their homes, but whine about the density that's gone in at Memorial City through redevelopment. They don't have a case to make, other than Memorial City should have a better internal street network (and should always have had one, regardless of density). But that's transportation planning, not land use planning.

Your position means that every community which ostensibly offers higher-priced housing will have an incentive to sharply limit or prohibit renter housing through government planning. That's not justifiable.

Planning for streets, roads, flood control, parks and recreation, community services, utilities...sure, absolutely. That's unquestionably a good thing.

But the more home buyers pay for their home, they more it seems they feel they are owed by government to "protect" their investment from market forces that they don't like. That is simply, utterly false.

And then you have homeowners that buy their home and later find out that a pre-existing street / thoroughfare plan (which they could have reviewed) calls for connections from their community to areas that they don't like (see: The Woodlands). And they insist that the government should change its pre-existing plan to "protect my value." Sorry, those folks are being laughably ridiculous.

[hbcu]

unfortunately, these developers love the bait and switch - they'll show a land plan that's full of unrestricted reserves so you don't know what'll happen long term

or in some cases, you buy in the community next to you and there's no land plan for the areas on either side as they don't own the land - developer comes in and does what they want

[Raider Scott]

This is exactly why I would NEVER buy a house in the Houston area that is near lots of undeveloped open fields.


Fifty-fifty chance they fill it with something I am not going to want, like a super Wal Mart or....yes...apartments.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by Raider Scott

This is exactly why I would NEVER buy a house in the Houston area that is near lots of undeveloped open fields.


Fifty-fifty chance they fill it with something I am not going to want, like a super Wal Mart or....yes...apartments.

That's fine, it's your choice. But it's no business of government to lower your "risks" regarding land uses you consider undesirable, apart from business / industry that deals in say, toxic chemicals, posing an actual health / safety risk.

[mkwensky]

Originally Posted by LocalPlanner

But then the point seems to be that government should intervene in the private market and private property rights by force, based on the perceived relationship between renters and school quality, to ration the quantity of renter housing (and often entry-level single family) in any given school zone, with the preferred interest given to owners of more expensive owner-occupied homes. By this reasoning, government land use regulation should be explicitly biased toward those who have paid more for their homes, and use the perceived renter kid or entry-level home kid / school relationship as the guide.

So you paid $550,000 for your home and annually pay what you think is a boatload in property tax, so that you can be in what is perceived as a "desirable" public school zone. How does that mean government should interfere in private property rights in deference to your choice? Answer: it doesn't. That's California / Northeast mentality that doesn't have a place in Texas.

So education in Texas was never segregated by class or other factors before the CA/NY folks came?

I don't have a stance on how the law should be on development decisions, but I do believe local homeowners have every right to use all the legal recourse at their disposal to protect their property value.

[LocalPlanner]

Originally Posted by mkwensky

So education in Texas was never segregated by class or other factors before the CA/NY folks came?

I don't have a stance on how the law should be on development decisions, but I do believe local homeowners have every right to use all the legal recourse at their disposal to protect their property value.

Obviously pre-1960s it was segregated by race.

I don't know about whether it was segregated by income. I will say, however, that because suburbia as we know it was pretty limited pre-1960, I'm not sure that schools outside of maybe some elementary schools really had enough upper middle class and affluent students, even Anglo students, to avoid income mixing.

Once you get to the mid to late 1960s and much more massive development of middle class and affluent suburbia, driven in part by people moving to Houston from out of state (not so much California then, more the NE, SE, Plains and Midwest), income-segregated suburban schools became more feasible.

Sorry, but deliberately using government land use policies to achieve income segregation in schools is not OK, your property value be d*mned.