Category: Editorial

Reconstruction after Harvey: Flood Development Permits & Grandfathered Structures in Houston

Posted on by ginger

BY OMAR IZFAR, ATTORNEY

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, I’ve been receiving questions about how to reconstruct damaged structures, both those in flood zones and not, especially those that don’t meet current codes. Some development regulations and policies that affect reconstruction are pretty simple and straightforward, while others are complicated, vague, and sometimes not even written down anywhere. While Houston may not have a formal zoning code that covers the entire city, it does have quite a few development regulations, all of which would normally be found in a zoning code. Noncompliance can result in denial of building permits, stop-work orders, even revocation of certificates of occupancy. Fortunately, there is a path forward for most projects. It’s important for property owners to know what to expect and what their options are in different situations.

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Property Tax Reductions Through SB1 & Hurricane Harvey Loss Documentation

Posted on by ginger

The Texas Senate endorsed Senate Bill 1, a bill allowing for property tax rate elections if county property tax revenues exceeded 4% of what was taken in the year before. The House & The Senate met in a special session on July 26th to vote on the rollback. 

REDNews spoke with Senator Paul Bettencourt about the reason for then failure to pass Senate Bill 1, the tax relief bill, that would decrease the rollback rate from 8% to 4%, which was passed by the Texas Senate during the Texas Legislative Special Session.

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Ray Talks With Dennis Murphree

Posted on by ginger

By Ray Hankamer

RN: Dennis, you come from a prominent commercial construction family and you served on the Board of your father’s company at a young age. How did this educate you as a young man and get you started in developing real estate?

DM: I am a Houston native. I went to work during the summer at age 12 doing construction labor for my dad’s company and it taught me the value of hard work and how buildings actually come together. Ten summers in the hot sun taught me about manual labor and trying to use my brain, rather than my back, to earn money in the future. I got into commercial real estate at age 24 and went on Dad’s company board two years later. That was a real learning experience. All the other directors were at least 30 years older than I was, so all I had to do was shut up, listen and learn.

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Hurricane Harvey: Where Do We Go From Here?

Posted on by ginger

BY MICHAEL PAVIA

Hurricane Harvey resulted in extensive flooding and massive home damage to the Houston region. “We’ve got probably 30,000 to 40,000 homes that have been destroyed,” said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett. Damage estimates surpass $20 billion. 

While the region recovers from the damage, the community is asking what can be done to avoid this type of devastation going forward? Here we consider some potential courses of action.But before discussing solutions there are several points to consider

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Roundabouts: Why we don’t see them yet in Houston and Texas?

Posted on by ginger

(The case for more traffic roundabouts)

From Priceonomics: “The roughly 3,700 circular traffic intersections in the U.S. are feared, avoided, and even loathed…Australia has more than 10,000. France features 32,000. The U.K. boasts 25,000, the most in the world as a proportion of total road space.

In every single metric, roundabouts outperformed intersections in terms of efficiency. Average delays were cut by 65%; no more than one-third of vehicles were not in motion at any given time, and the circle never went over 22% of its full capacity.”

From Discover: “The roundabout is the single most important device ever created to help control traffic safely and smoothly.”

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O’Connor Land Forecast Luncheon: Simmi Jaggi – Jones Lang LaSalle

Posted on by ginger

BY RAY HANKAMER
rhankamer@gmail.com

Takeaway: Demand for retail and industrial sites remains strong, and multi-family is having some activity, but no demand exists for office sites. There is a healthy demand for
residential both in infill and in the far suburbs. There are some transactions for land for medical development, but now that the large 20 acre satellite hospitals are mostly in place
around the far suburbs, future development should be on smaller sites.

 

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