SHOULD THERE BE A BAN ON UTILITY POLES IN FRONT OF HOMES AND BUSINESSES?
Houston City Council member Peter Brown is on a mission to clean up Houston's scenic view. He says the city has been littered with overhead power poles that only taint Houston's beauty. Brown says power companies like CenterPoint Energy should look at burying their cables or installing their untility poles on easements behind properties instead of locating them directly in front of homes and businesses. Brown says Houston is one of the few cities in the country that allow power companies to locate power poles wherever they want. CenterPoint spokesperson Alicia Dixon tells The Insite their company is more than willing to work with the council member and the community. She says however underground utility lines are 15 times more expensive than overhead. She says the extra expense would be passed on to the consumer and or the developer. Dixon says they're hoping to meet with the council member to hash out differences. In the meantime, council member Brown is hoping to draft an ordinance that would allow the city to control where utility poles are located in your community.
(As First Seen on FOX 26 News Morning Show)
6 comments:
Agree with CM Brown. I never buy property dwarfed by these eyesores. It is a shame that the value of all the redevelopment happening in the city is greatly diminished by allowing these poles to remain above ground.
It is a shame that the value of all the redevelopment happening in the city is greatly diminished by allowing these poles to remain above ground.
The value of commercial property is determined by the rental income it can generate.
Let's say you own a business. Barber shop, insurance agency, Jiffy Lube, or whatever. Would you really pay more rent to have underground utilities?
And how would you justify the higher rent and utilities bills? Do you think your customers would pay more for a haircut, a homeowners' policy or an oil change because the business doesn't have poles in front of it?
I could not agree more with Matt.
My mom is a secretary for a company that is a member of the Greater Houston Association of Builders.
In my humble layman’s opinion, it appears that Peter Brown takes frequent tokes from Pollyanna’s pipe while he lounges in paisley Nehru jackets, wearing rose-colored glasses, with his head firmly buried in the sand.
It is a simple economic reality that if the developer/builder has to pay more, the buyer, renter or lessee will receive the cost transference.
I would have expected an architect such as Peter Brown to understand such simple a simple principle but I have been wrong before.
You will recall, he and, I believe Councilperson Jarvis Johnson, voted to delay an Item on the Council Agenda in August of 2006 for similar reasons.
Brown sought to substantially increase the costs to a single-family development company named Woodmere Development company and somehow believed that those additional costs would not get folded into the buyer’s cost.
Former councilperson Carroll Gallaway wrote the following op/ed piece that was featured in the August Forward Times addressing her outrage.
I think it warrants republishing.
Houston Forward Times Newspaper
Opinion/Editorial
August 16-22, 2006
Carol Mims Galloway
Former Houston City Council Member District B
1999-2005
More Homes Bring Better Schools
On Wednesday, August 2, 2006 an item appeared on the Council Agenda that would begin the process for the development and construction of 1600 new single-family homes to the Northeast community of District B. The developer/builder is Woodmere Development Incorporated. The Subdivision is to be called Wayside Village. As the current district Council Member indicated, this process began on my watch.
It has been said that great pride and attendant care come with home ownership.
Infrastructure and Single-Family Home development have always been of great importance to me - before, during and after my tenure of office as Houston City Council Member District B.
As a Houston City Council Member, I constantly encouraged high-quality single-family home development and construction because I recognize the quantifiable and unquantifiable socio/economic benefits that home-ownership has on the overall quality of life of an area/district/city.
Conversely, I also stridently protested developments the community and I thought to not be sustainable – for example lease-to-purchase single-family projects and poorly designed multi-family developments met with opposition and failure during my watch.
Developers and the community will attest to my practice as a Council Member.
I required that the developer present their development to the affected community prior to the developer’s presentation to council committee (whether single-family or multi-family developments).
I also understand and understood that the market dictates the home size in a development and the cost of that home.
I understand and understood that ultimately, the buyer of a home should be the sole party responsible for the amenities added to that home, as they are the sole party responsible for paying for that amenity and the home, ultimately.
So when market studies determine that buyers want homes within the range of 90,000 and 150,000 dollars, how can the developer empirically justify, to the lending institution, who loaned him the money, that building homes (as one council member suggested) in the 250,000-dollar range will result in the sale of those homes?
The developer/builder cannot very well justify to the bank the expenditure of the funds to construct by saying I am building outside of market range "because council members told me they will sell."
Benefits of New Single-family Home Ownership
Buyer
The buyer of a new single-family home benefits from the safety and well being of a sound quality roof over their family's head. The buyer also benefits from the pride in ownership; the credit building power of sustained timely mortgage payments and the growing equity that comes from every payment of principal.
The Community/Council District
The community/council district benefits because for every single-family home that is built, a vacant lot is removed. They also gain a new community of proud home-owning, law-abiding neighbors.
The City
The City benefits from the taxes of .645 cents per 100-dollar valuation on each home.
The School District
The North Forest Independent School District benefits from the taxes of $1.712 per 100-dollar valuation - more homes mean more students - more students can mean lower taxes.
Commercial Developers
Commercial developers conduct their own market studies to determine potentially benefit from the new community's buying power, potential spending habits and consumer interests, which can result in sustainable commercial enterprises such as but not limited to grocery stores, dry cleaners, video rental establishments hardware stores and restaurants.
Double Taxation
The double taxation argument is specious because the residents of the Wayside Village subdivision will not pay a City of Houston Water/Sewer fee, Instead they will pay a MUD tax. They will not pay both.
In this particular instance the Municipal Utility District is merely a financing mechanism that will assist the developer/builder in reducing costs associated with the construction of infrastructure. Theoretically, this will result in cost reductions to the buyer of the homes. All of this is done to lure single-family developers/builders from developing/building outside the incorporated city limits where the county is all too happy to provide incentives.
While I am thankful for the item’s unanimous passage, the Woodmere Development Company and the Wayside Village subdivision will forever be shrouded by an unfairly imposed cloud of misperceived impropriety even though they operated within the law, within the market and in comportment with the restrictive covenants of the surrounding neighborhood.
In the Houston Chronicle, Sunday, August 13, 2006 edition, the council member who represents District B is quoted as saying, "We can't get people to move back in this neighborhood because they say, "those schools are horrible.” Yet, when developers seek to locate in District B neighborhoods, in spite of the unusually high school tax rate and the lack of adequate infrastructure, the developer meets with protests, delays and in some cases denial.
This is no way to build Northforest School District back up to acceptable accreditation levels. This is no way to ensure that minority families have adequate and safe housing and it is no way to reduce the unacceptably high number of vacant lots in District B.
Elected officials at all levels must always remember to avoid taking the tranquilizing pill of ignorance. Let us strive to inform ourselves and our constituents with all of the information, such that we can make qualitative decisions based on all of the facts, thereby opening our people’s eyes to the wonderfully liberating and enlightening sheen of truth.
If it's so expensive to bury them, then the utility companies might try some modern redesign for the overhead poles/lines. It is the same 100-year old basic design. I'm sure even an industrial design student could come up with an improved 21st century version of these things!
Brown is a raging hyprocrit,,,ran ad naseum till he get elected...and remember all those BROWN Brown signs littering up the city? Explain THAT Mr. Environut!!
And the builders guy who wrote...cmon...identify YOUR business...why are you hiding behind your comments?
Centerpoint and many others who have written hate filled post here feel Brown's ideas are rediculously expensive, while at the same time, I guess, they feel it is not expensive to have the city business closed for 2 weeks, have families and businesses leave town and get hotels to live in and/or conduct their business; and to bring in hundreds of crew members to fix all of the damaged lines and equipment (thats real cheap). Instead of getting mad, why dont you help brianstorm ideas.
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