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MRC


Oct. 2, 2000, 11:58PM


Houston Heights Association presents deed restriction proposal


By MARTIN HAJOVSKY
Home in the Heights


After more than a year of work, the Houston Heights Association's board
of directors last month accepted a set of proposed revisions to the
Heights' deed restrictions. The revisions are intended to severely
curtail prospective townhome and other new construction considered by
the association to be inappropriate to the historic nature and character
of the area.


Just over 20 percent of Houston Heights properties are currently
protected by the deed restriction documents, first drafted by the
association more than 20 years ago. The updates are necessary in order
to keep pace with current threats to the neighborhood, according to
association President Allan Tiller.


"When the restriction documents were first drafted, the perceived threat
was from commercial intrusion, having a business set up next to your
home," he said. "Now with the rise in property values, that's not as
much of a threat. What is a threat is the possibility that townhomes
with their canyons of garage doors up and down the street will replace
the essential character of the neighborhood with a level of density that
is inappropriate."


Tiller is not dismayed by the fact that after two decades of work, only
a minority of area homeowners have signed on.


"Certainly we want this to extend to everyone in the neighborhood and
we're working to do that," he said. "But just the fact that you have it
and it's publicized means that it becomes kind of a guideline for the
neighborhood, and builders and developers are still reluctant to go in
and change that or build anything contrary to that. That's been my
experience."


The proposed revisions deal with eight major areas in new construction
dealing with design, density and placement, but not use, of properties.

? Setbacks -- A house or structure would have to leave at least three
feet, increased from the current two, on the sides, three feet from the
back and 15 feet from the front. Corner lots would have the 15-foot
setback apply on both sides facing a street (similar to the city's
10-foot front setback rule).


? Front-facing construction -- Any new house will have to face the
street rather than a common private driveway to prevent multiple-unit
"compound"-type construction.


? Common wall construction -- Although the association board feels that
the setback rules should generally prevent common-wall construction (two
units sharing a common exterior wall), this provision was put in to help
ensure that the prohibition is not circumvented by multiple-unit
construction on a single lot, such as apartments.


? Garage setback -- The new restrictions would require that any garage
facing the street be set back at least halfway to the back lot line, and
in any event be no closer to the street than the front of the house
itself. This is the case throughout the Heights currently, where garages
are generally unseen from the street, as opposed to the newer townhome
styles found throughout the Montrose area and the West End near Memorial
Park.


? Garage-dominated front -- A new provision would mandate that a
front-facing garage door could not take up more than a half of the
first-floor front of the house, a direct blow at the most common
townhome styles.


? Raised foundations -- Preserving another dominant characteristic of
home construction in the Heights, the new restrictions would require
either pier-and-beam construction, or other foundation construction that
would raise the bottom floor of the house at least 2 feet from the
ground. There are currently no townhome styles in Montrose or the West
End that have raised construction of any kind.


? Height restrictions -- The revisions would retain the current height
restriction of 40 feet, except that for lots of width greater than 50
feet, the limit would go up an additional foot for every 2 feet of
additional setback from the nearest lot line. The point of this is to
maintain the general Heights practice of no more than two stories in a
single family dwelling.


? Density and lot width -- The minimum lot size would be increased from
one residence per every 2,500 square feet to one per every 5,000 square
feet, and there would be a minimum frontage of 50 feet for each lot.
This would essentially establish a minimum lot size of 50 feet by 100
feet. This would represent a major break from the past. When the Heights
was originally laid out in the 1890s, lots were considered to be
generally no wider than 25 feet and houses occupied two or more of these
lots. However, throughout the area, examples abound of homes constructed
on 25-foot-wide lots only.


Recognizing that situation, there would be two important exceptions to
the new density and lot width requirements. First, garage apartments
would not be treated as "residences" for this purpose. Second, lots of
smaller frontage or size with existing houses as of the date of adoption
of the revisions or other fixed date (to be determined) would be
"grandfathered." That is, their size would be treated as conforming to
the deed restrictions.


A bracketed bill enacted by the Texas Legislature in 1999, applying only
to the Heights, created a means by which the deed restrictions could be
changed, setting the stage for these revisions. However, the alteration
process is something that in itself could take many months, according to
Tiller.


There are three methods by which the restrictions can be changed,
according to the bracketed law. First, a ballot could be mailed or
delivered to each qualified property owner, that is, those who have
already signed the deed restriction documents. Adoption of the revisions
would require an affirmative vote of 75 percent of those submitting a
ballot.


Second, a petition could be mailed or otherwise sent out to all
signed-on owners. Adoption would require the signature of 75 percent of
the owners.


The third, and as Tiller pointed out by far the easiest, method would be
to call a meeting of signed-on property owners. Adoption would require
the affirmative vote of 75 percent of those attending the meeting.


"Obviously what we would prefer to do is to hold the meeting because
it's the easiest thing to do," he said. "We would send out the notice to
everyone, see who shows up and pretty much do it all in one fell swoop.
Also, the group that would be most excited about the issue would be
those attending the meeting."


However, Tiller said that no one on the board or the association's Land
Use Committee, which originally drafted the proposed revisions, wants to
enact any change to any document without ensuring that the entire
community supports such a move.


"The number one priority is to build a consensus of support for the
proposals," he said. "We are in the public education phase of the
campaign. Before there's any kind of vote taken there's going to be a
mailer to everyone that we have on our list who own deed restricted
properties. That's going to be a hassle trying to track all those people
down, but we need to do that.


"The statute requires that notice be sent to all restricted property
owners. What steps do you need to take in order to satisfy that? We'll
take every practical step we can, and we'll record we did that. But
that's another technical issue we have to deal with.


"First and foremost, our goal is finding out whether or not we have the
consensus to do this."


Tiller did acknowledge the difficulty inherent in building that
consensus with the association's all-volunteer work force.


"With the petition it's my understanding you'd need 75 percent of
everyone," he said. "That appeals to me because that means we've got as
broad a consensus as possible. But that's a lot of work. With an
all-volunteer process that might be too much.


"In any event we'll be sending out a notice to everyone probably more
than once. The technical issues of presenting the proposals to the
neighborhood have to be worked out."


Protecting the historic quality of the neighborhood, Tiller said, is the
main goal of the restriction documents. As such, it coincides with a
similar effort to seek historic district status from the city of
Houston, an effort that still hasn't yet gotten off the ground in the
Houston Heights despite the awarding of the status to the neighboring
community of Norhill to the east. Tiller acknowledged the similarities
in goals, but noted that the deed restrictions have a much tighter
focus.


"The deed restrictions really apply to new construction rather than
preserving what's already on the ground," he said. "We could have
extended it to preserving issues as well, but we did not want to
overload this particular issue of stopping townhouse construction with
the preservation issue as well. It will be a similar process, building a
consensus and going to the homeowners to do that. Here initially we have
a much more limited group we have to address though, which is the
qualified property owners."


The Houston Heights Association board of directors will focus on this
issue at its next meeting, to be held at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 16, at the Fire
Station at the corner of West 12th and Yale.


For additional comment or more information about the deed restrictions,
check out a copy of the current document online at the Heights
Association's Web site at www.houstonheights.org/deedrestrictions.htm
<http://www.houstonheights.org/deedrestrictions.htm>. Also on the site
is a list of all deed restricted properties in the Heights. For more
information through non-computer means, call the Houston Heights
Association's main telephone number at 713-861-4002.






______________________________________________________________
Gordon Hagendorf
Kvaerner E&C
gordon.hagendorf@kvaerner.com

713 270-2450 Phone
713 270-2990 Fax