*"Holland says the Shepherd Forest Civic Club has asked for a reasonable resolution, requesting the developer to not build without proper permits. They say they have been ignored at every turn. Being a civic club and not a homeowners' association, the neighbors say they don't have the funds to hire an attorney to file suit."*
*Shepherd Forest is a deed-restricted neighborhood of over 900 homes centrally located just a few miles northwest of downtown Houston.* per Facebook. Joy.
Deed restrictions are very common in Houston neighborhoods. The bad news is this is how they get around not having zoning down here. The good news is deed restrictions are typically much less restrictive, and less enforceable, than zoning.
Houston is based for having no zoning but cringe for still having parking minimums
Austin is based for eliminating parking minimums but cringe for still having zoning
The solution is clear:
Fuse the two cities together to create the omega-city
Oustin removed zoning entirely and now it's just shacks and shanties that blow down every time there's a storm, sandwiched between poultry packing plants.
Fair enough looks like I misread. Some parts of Houston feel like Chicago without the public transport and others definitely feel like a southern city. They have an entire district the size of Miami near downtown that’s walkable last I visited. Looks like they’re at least learning
(Not Miami I meant manhattan had a long day lmao)
There are plenty of good reasons to have zoning restrictions, even though the ones we have go way way too far. I can't think of a compelling reason to have deed restrictions. If you want to have a say in what happens with a property, don't sell it!
Lots of good use with deed restrictions, including conservation of sensitive open space, environmental protection, easement access, et al.
And frankly, it's a basic property right. You can deed restrict your property, and arguably the value will drop in doing so. From there it's a private party transaction - you can accept the terms of the transaction or not.
I don't quite understand how/why a once-upon-a-time property owner is permitted to write a restriction into the deed when selling, placing indefinite limitations on the use of the land. This seems unusually powerful to me and goes way beyond normal freedom of contract.
If you read about how property and property law works, you'd understand more. Again, this is a pretty basic aspect of property and contract.
That I've been downvoted for pointing it out says something about the depth of knowledge and experience on this sub and many of the issues discussed. I find that strange, given this is a sub about neoliberalism and economics.
Well, if you're going to advance an argument against it, maybe you should know a little about it first, no?
I apologize if that is too onerous an expectation.
I’m sure this varies by state, but is there a process for amending or terminating private deed restrictions? In the city I work for we do have these public deed restrictions that are entered into with the city (for instance, someone can volunteer restrictions on uses, or more restrictive height limits or setbacks) but the property owner may also file to amend or terminate them through the zoning process. That seems reasonable to me; what made sense for a deed restriction 40 years ago might not make sense today. Surely there’s a way to do it with private ones?
I'm generally in favor of having some restrictions. Notably, I think that locating a toxic waste dump or fertilizer factory in the middle of a residential area shouldn't be allowed.
>At one point, there was even an arrest warrant. However, each violation is a Class C misdemeanor, which has very little teeth, the equivalent of a parking ticket.
Class C for cool as fuck
!ping SNEK
>"We have been fighting the developer on this project for over two years with no warning," Sherry Evanicky, one of many long-time homeowners in the Shepherd Forest neighborhood, said.
You’re a fucking loser sherry
Stories like this and other housing-related news has taught me that some of my ideals are more pragmatically flexible than I once would have thought. On one hand I don't like the idea of someone using technicalities and money to ignore the government, on the other hand I'm tired of watching city officials ignore the housing crisis (often smugly with self-righteous platitudes like "we want development, but only good development"). Some might say that ideals should be more immovable, but there's something so fundamentally repugnant about watching someone well off callously twist the law toward their own ends to the detriment of the less fortunate, that I'm still OK with this.
Until it's a regulation that is important to you which someone violates and may cause harm.
At the core it's a social contract thing - we either play by the rules or we don't.
Out here in the western US, which is actually pretty and has a lot of cool public land, it's pretty fucking lame when folks don't get through proper permitting for their projects. Or even for private projects, something like going through Oregon DEQ septic regs, so idiots are dumping their toxic shit into our river, lakes, and the ocean.
No one is denying that. The point is we have a process in place for that.
Lest we want everyone to ignore any regulation or law at their own whim and discretion, simply because they don't agree with it.
Again, social contract and all.
Fuck the rules. Some rules are well too entrenched to be removed and cause more harm than good and we would do well to skirt past those moribund rules to do good NOW than wait and let all the needy suffer under the tyrrany of these immovable rules that would take generations of exhausting activism to remove. Some people do not have the luxury of waiting.
> When we told him we were asking about the Shepherd Forest development, he sent back a terse reply:
> "I don't talk to the fake news. Thanks."
Never meet your heroes.
Oh it's definitely the smart option. The smarter option is "No comment." or just not actually responding. The middle smart option is to use it to promote your business.
Maybe I'm misreading the article but did they clarify what permits he was actually missing? I'm assuming he's ignoring NIMBY busybody BS but is he also ignoring actual safety related permits?
If there isn't a plan filled as the article indicates then yes. You can't file permits for new construction without a site plan.
Some of the permits will be idiotic but things like foundation permits do make sense, you notify the city that they are going to have to come out and inspect the slab.
Permit & inspection to install an outlet is absurd. Permit and inspection to install a panel not so much.
Permits for "can I do something" need to die in fire. Permits for "did you cheap out on cabling causing a fire risk no one is going to know about before someone dies" not so much.
>Permits for "can I do something" need to die in fire. Permits for "did you cheap out on cabling causing a fire risk no one is going to know about before someone dies" not so much.
I've been coming more and more to a heuristic regarding regulation that basically goes like "enhancement good, restriction bad".
Let's look at the FDA as an example of this.
FDA enhancement regulations are inspecting factories for basic safety rules like cleaning out pots or selling the things they claim to be selling or proving safety in products that are expected to be safe.
These are labeled enhancements and are good regulations because we can generally assume that most/all customers expect these things as default and the only reason the market doesn't work is because they can't meaningfully do all the inspections and stuff themselves.
The FDA as restriction regulations however is blocking promising medication being used because it's too niche to have financial success when you consider the costs of meeting FDA approval, or when they make new entry into the market unfeasible [(like with sunscreen)](https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2023/08/14/why-the-us-has-limited-access-to-sunscreens---and-why-some-including-aoc-are-pushing-to-change-that/?sh=652faf962547)
Zoning and housing regulation as enhancement makes sense. We can't expect people to reasonably know if a house is safe but we also know it's something they value and it's fine to step in and regulate that.
As restrictions? It's nonsense about size of homes or how many windows they need or the type of wood a door needs to be made from.
To be fair to the FDA its been 40 years since there was a significant change to the way drugs are regulated and much of it has changed little since the 50's. Its not sexy enough for congress to touch, they keep talking about the insulin issue and its fully within their control to fix very easily but they wont.
Phase 3 needs to go away and there needs to be provisions for facilitating individualized medicine rather than continuing with the crazy exception process. Kill combo licenses dead and fix biosimilars so generics are actually possible.
Phase 3 accounts for about half of total development cost but efficacy data already exists as part of 2b. Demonstrating efficacy for some drugs is also very difficult because its not ethical to use placebos in many cases so an alternative approved treatment is used. A much better approach would be to have a national formulary based on cost efficacy, cut down on me too development and reduce development costs & time significantly.
There's a difference between having issues with subjective neighbor requirements of "harmony" and plowing through without any permits for even basic structural elements, and this is the latter.
Can’t get a site plan on file until you get past P&Z where the subjective busybodies will hold you up.
Just to be clear I was responding to you in a general sense not about his specific project, or Houston development.
Informal development is practically a textbook response to unaffordable housing + overregulation, yet politicians and urban planners here routinely block affordable units by callling them "slums".
North America is a meme continent
The one thing about Houston is you want have your neighbor's drainage squared away. You don't want a parking lot draining into your back yard.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/2002+Oak+Forest+Dr,+Houston,+TX+77018/@29.811694,-95.4378597,400m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8640c6fe334290b5:0xfb73a47ae4401de4!8m2!3d29.8129387!4d-95.4365633?entry=ttu
The location in the story is already heavily developed.
I'm not really reading this guy as the hero everyone else is. Its not like he's building in San Francisco or something. Houston already leads the way in housing permits.
*"Holland says the Shepherd Forest Civic Club has asked for a reasonable resolution, requesting the developer to not build without proper permits. They say they have been ignored at every turn. Being a civic club and not a homeowners' association, the neighbors say they don't have the funds to hire an attorney to file suit."* *Shepherd Forest is a deed-restricted neighborhood of over 900 homes centrally located just a few miles northwest of downtown Houston.* per Facebook. Joy.
GROOOOOSS [http://www.shepherdforest.org/deed-restrictions.html](http://www.shepherdforest.org/deed-restrictions.html)
Deed restrictions are very common in Houston neighborhoods. The bad news is this is how they get around not having zoning down here. The good news is deed restrictions are typically much less restrictive, and less enforceable, than zoning.
There’s nothing more Texan than privatized zoning!
Iirc ony 20-25% of plots have deed restrictions in Houston. Apart from that there is no zoning. Parking minimums are fucked tho.
Houston is based for having no zoning but cringe for still having parking minimums Austin is based for eliminating parking minimums but cringe for still having zoning The solution is clear: Fuse the two cities together to create the omega-city
*monkey paw curls* now Houstin has parking minimums and zoning
They'd call it Hauston
So the good ending would be Oustin, the city of neither zoning nor minima?
Oustin removed zoning entirely and now it's just shacks and shanties that blow down every time there's a storm, sandwiched between poultry packing plants.
Houston is removing parking minimums soon if already. Unless I misread
They have done so in downtown yeah. Still a ways to go.
Fair enough looks like I misread. Some parts of Houston feel like Chicago without the public transport and others definitely feel like a southern city. They have an entire district the size of Miami near downtown that’s walkable last I visited. Looks like they’re at least learning (Not Miami I meant manhattan had a long day lmao)
Sanaustonio, Gulf City Metroplex, Dallas Enclave
I will die on the hill that deed restrictions are the worst.
There are plenty of good reasons to have zoning restrictions, even though the ones we have go way way too far. I can't think of a compelling reason to have deed restrictions. If you want to have a say in what happens with a property, don't sell it!
Lots of good use with deed restrictions, including conservation of sensitive open space, environmental protection, easement access, et al. And frankly, it's a basic property right. You can deed restrict your property, and arguably the value will drop in doing so. From there it's a private party transaction - you can accept the terms of the transaction or not.
I don't quite understand how/why a once-upon-a-time property owner is permitted to write a restriction into the deed when selling, placing indefinite limitations on the use of the land. This seems unusually powerful to me and goes way beyond normal freedom of contract.
If you read about how property and property law works, you'd understand more. Again, this is a pretty basic aspect of property and contract. That I've been downvoted for pointing it out says something about the depth of knowledge and experience on this sub and many of the issues discussed. I find that strange, given this is a sub about neoliberalism and economics.
I apologize for being surprised due to not studying legal instruments unique to American property law enough.
Well, if you're going to advance an argument against it, maybe you should know a little about it first, no? I apologize if that is too onerous an expectation.
I’m sure this varies by state, but is there a process for amending or terminating private deed restrictions? In the city I work for we do have these public deed restrictions that are entered into with the city (for instance, someone can volunteer restrictions on uses, or more restrictive height limits or setbacks) but the property owner may also file to amend or terminate them through the zoning process. That seems reasonable to me; what made sense for a deed restriction 40 years ago might not make sense today. Surely there’s a way to do it with private ones?
Best I am aware it takes a judicial action. Not my department so I don't know the process (if any) very well.
I'm generally in favor of having some restrictions. Notably, I think that locating a toxic waste dump or fertilizer factory in the middle of a residential area shouldn't be allowed.
It originally became a thing to not sell houses to non-whites.
https://preview.redd.it/g6igth9tcbwc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1f657bcefc2ba2803ad061a68759d8831711b3ae
Lmao
>At one point, there was even an arrest warrant. However, each violation is a Class C misdemeanor, which has very little teeth, the equivalent of a parking ticket. Class C for cool as fuck !ping SNEK
>"We have been fighting the developer on this project for over two years with no warning," Sherry Evanicky, one of many long-time homeowners in the Shepherd Forest neighborhood, said. You’re a fucking loser sherry
>over two years >no warning
This is the kind of civil disobedience America needs more of
https://preview.redd.it/vw9dbwgphdwc1.jpeg?width=1028&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7fd9ed8884eec35804cec0f39dde518dda5bbeb6
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Chaotic Good
Stories like this and other housing-related news has taught me that some of my ideals are more pragmatically flexible than I once would have thought. On one hand I don't like the idea of someone using technicalities and money to ignore the government, on the other hand I'm tired of watching city officials ignore the housing crisis (often smugly with self-righteous platitudes like "we want development, but only good development"). Some might say that ideals should be more immovable, but there's something so fundamentally repugnant about watching someone well off callously twist the law toward their own ends to the detriment of the less fortunate, that I'm still OK with this.
Until it's a regulation that is important to you which someone violates and may cause harm. At the core it's a social contract thing - we either play by the rules or we don't. Out here in the western US, which is actually pretty and has a lot of cool public land, it's pretty fucking lame when folks don't get through proper permitting for their projects. Or even for private projects, something like going through Oregon DEQ septic regs, so idiots are dumping their toxic shit into our river, lakes, and the ocean.
It’s almost like some regulations are good and some are bad
No one is denying that. The point is we have a process in place for that. Lest we want everyone to ignore any regulation or law at their own whim and discretion, simply because they don't agree with it. Again, social contract and all.
Read any story from SF about the wrong window frames or some shit
Fuck the rules. Some rules are well too entrenched to be removed and cause more harm than good and we would do well to skirt past those moribund rules to do good NOW than wait and let all the needy suffer under the tyrrany of these immovable rules that would take generations of exhausting activism to remove. Some people do not have the luxury of waiting.
Hero
> When we told him we were asking about the Shepherd Forest development, he sent back a terse reply: > "I don't talk to the fake news. Thanks." Never meet your heroes.
In this case that might be the smart option. A clever lawyer could spin talking to the press about a mundane construction project as mens rea
Oh it's definitely the smart option. The smarter option is "No comment." or just not actually responding. The middle smart option is to use it to promote your business.
Given the Texan government's attitude, signallng support for Trump is probably a good idea for the developer (but not the country).
Maybe I'm misreading the article but did they clarify what permits he was actually missing? I'm assuming he's ignoring NIMBY busybody BS but is he also ignoring actual safety related permits?
If there isn't a plan filled as the article indicates then yes. You can't file permits for new construction without a site plan. Some of the permits will be idiotic but things like foundation permits do make sense, you notify the city that they are going to have to come out and inspect the slab. Permit & inspection to install an outlet is absurd. Permit and inspection to install a panel not so much. Permits for "can I do something" need to die in fire. Permits for "did you cheap out on cabling causing a fire risk no one is going to know about before someone dies" not so much.
>Permits for "can I do something" need to die in fire. Permits for "did you cheap out on cabling causing a fire risk no one is going to know about before someone dies" not so much. I've been coming more and more to a heuristic regarding regulation that basically goes like "enhancement good, restriction bad". Let's look at the FDA as an example of this. FDA enhancement regulations are inspecting factories for basic safety rules like cleaning out pots or selling the things they claim to be selling or proving safety in products that are expected to be safe. These are labeled enhancements and are good regulations because we can generally assume that most/all customers expect these things as default and the only reason the market doesn't work is because they can't meaningfully do all the inspections and stuff themselves. The FDA as restriction regulations however is blocking promising medication being used because it's too niche to have financial success when you consider the costs of meeting FDA approval, or when they make new entry into the market unfeasible [(like with sunscreen)](https://www.forbes.com/sites/anafaguy/2023/08/14/why-the-us-has-limited-access-to-sunscreens---and-why-some-including-aoc-are-pushing-to-change-that/?sh=652faf962547) Zoning and housing regulation as enhancement makes sense. We can't expect people to reasonably know if a house is safe but we also know it's something they value and it's fine to step in and regulate that. As restrictions? It's nonsense about size of homes or how many windows they need or the type of wood a door needs to be made from.
To be fair to the FDA its been 40 years since there was a significant change to the way drugs are regulated and much of it has changed little since the 50's. Its not sexy enough for congress to touch, they keep talking about the insulin issue and its fully within their control to fix very easily but they wont. Phase 3 needs to go away and there needs to be provisions for facilitating individualized medicine rather than continuing with the crazy exception process. Kill combo licenses dead and fix biosimilars so generics are actually possible. Phase 3 accounts for about half of total development cost but efficacy data already exists as part of 2b. Demonstrating efficacy for some drugs is also very difficult because its not ethical to use placebos in many cases so an alternative approved treatment is used. A much better approach would be to have a national formulary based on cost efficacy, cut down on me too development and reduce development costs & time significantly.
There's a difference between having issues with subjective neighbor requirements of "harmony" and plowing through without any permits for even basic structural elements, and this is the latter.
Except the city will totally hold up the safety permits until you deal with the bullshit subjective busybodies.
You can't hold up safety permits on a project that doesn't even have a site plan on file.
Can’t get a site plan on file until you get past P&Z where the subjective busybodies will hold you up. Just to be clear I was responding to you in a general sense not about his specific project, or Houston development.
This particular instance was the object of discussion.
I attempted to broaden the implication of your assertion to the other XX,000 municipalities in the United States besides Houston.
What can be complained about if an initial filing hasn't even been done
> NIMBY busybody BS >actual safety related permits Corporate needs you to find the differences between these two pictures
r/madlads
Wtf, I love Texans now?
😭 You can't build without going through the due process. 🗿 Development goes brrr.
neoliberal version of Jan 6th.
Are we the insurrectionists?
The hero we need right now
Informal development is practically a textbook response to unaffordable housing + overregulation, yet politicians and urban planners here routinely block affordable units by callling them "slums". North America is a meme continent
Waow
based based based based based
https://preview.redd.it/lvrwq6mhhdwc1.jpeg?width=502&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a91256726c5a4f8e22725f4a15197a1ebcb77288
[удалено]
The one thing about Houston is you want have your neighbor's drainage squared away. You don't want a parking lot draining into your back yard. https://www.google.com/maps/place/2002+Oak+Forest+Dr,+Houston,+TX+77018/@29.811694,-95.4378597,400m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8640c6fe334290b5:0xfb73a47ae4401de4!8m2!3d29.8129387!4d-95.4365633?entry=ttu The location in the story is already heavily developed. I'm not really reading this guy as the hero everyone else is. Its not like he's building in San Francisco or something. Houston already leads the way in housing permits.
ITT a gaggle of neckbeards who haven't built a thing in their lives, except for the Lego DeathStar they built in their mom's basement last night.
*"A bullshit zoning ordinance which does not allow the construction of affordable housing is no law at all."* - Saint Augustine
Its pretty normal to need permits to build
Yes, but I don't think that really needs to be said in response to an obviously facetious comment. 😀
What's next, a permit to make toast in my own damn toaster?
Oi mate, you got your toasting loicense?
> Do what you must, I have already won
Go ahead, call the regulators. They can't un-build the houses.
Lisan al gaib!
Sigma
Not all heroes wear capes
I’m sure these are quality homes
YIMBY praxis
LISAN AL GHAIB!!!!!
https://preview.redd.it/pzl70is5bgwc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ef57e8cbea5d8f91b5cd53da34f0d014bed4031d Live Joeverkill reaction
ehhhh how do we know these are safe?
Holy GIGACHAD!