First impressions

I’ve always thought of Houston as Los Angeles with all the fun taken out of it.

Like L.A., Houston has the smog, the crowded freeways and it’s spread out all over the place. Unlike L.A., it doesn’t have the scenic mountains, a Disneyland, Universal or, as far as I know, even one movie studio. The closest beach is 50 miles away, twice that if you live on the northern fringes of the city. As you can probably tell, I don’t care that much for Houston and I actually graduated from high school there.

My feelings toward Houston are not helped by the first impressions I had of the city. It was back in the first half of the 1950s. I was not that far away from entering my teen years and my family was moving from Lakeland, Fla., to the northern San Francisco Bay area of California. This was way before interstate highways crisscrossed the land and the main road across the United States was U.S. Highway 90 and U.S. Highway 90 took us right through the heart of Houston. It took us along the northern edges of Houston’s ship channel, passing what seemed to a young boy like an endless string of ugly, dirty, ramshackle warehouses with no visible signs of life and a bunch of frame houses propped up by cinder blocks on each of the four corners that were just this side of condemnation. I thought the worst thing that could befall any human being would be to have to live in Houston, which if you judged solely by what you saw from U.S. Highway 90 was the ugliest city on the face of the earth.

Fair or not, like it or not, the first and most likely the lasting impression most folks will have of Kyle is what they see out their car windows as they drive along Interstate 35. Fortunately for the city, that is a largely unpainted canvas.

I bring this up because at last night’s City Council meeting, a situation that could have led to a less-than-favorable first impression visitors might have of Kyle was averted. Owners of three parcels of land between Kyle Crossing and the southbound frontage road of I-35 south of Kohler’s Crossing wished to have the zoning of those parcels changed from agricultural to warehouse so they could build one of those self-storage units on the property. A week ago, the Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously to approve the change without any debate. The only question that arose involved access to the property and who would be responsible for providing that access and whether that access should originate

from Kyle Crossing (which would make it the city’s responsibility) or the I-35 frontage road (where it becomes TxDOT’s problem).

Look, I have no problems with these self-storage units. I can look out my back window and see one under construction and it’s in a perfect location, on the western side of the Santa Fe tracks hidden from Kyle Parkway by the overpass over those tracks. And they have to be cash cows. I mean you build the units, people rent them to store their junk and you sit back and just collect the monthly rents. There’s practically no upkeep on the dang things.

However, I don’t think self-storage units should be the first impression people driving through Kyle have of our community. And I have the feeling that officials at the very top of the city’s command chain feel exactly the same way.

The item to change the zoning was tabled at last night’s meeting. The official word was that the owners of the property saw the light — they thought better of the idea of constructing self storage units on the property and withdrew their zoning request. The problem is these two decisions are not connected. The owners could decide not to build those units there, but still have wanted the zoning change. Once the change is made, the owners have the right to do whatever they want to do with the property. However, whatever they decided to do under the warehouse zoning was probably not what city officials wanted for that property. You see, it’s all about those first impressions.

I have absolutely no way to substantiate this, but I’ve got this idea swimming around in my head that a top-level staff decision was made to the send a couple of representatives (representatives who are, perhaps, distant relatives of the Soprano family [just kidding {barely}]) to talk to the owners to let them know in no uncertain terms it might not be in their best interests to keep pursuing this zoning change.

And the upshot is, it wasn’t in their best interests. There are far better (read that more lucrative) options for that land. Think mixed-use developments with botique hotels, some retail, perhaps even residential. Look, the city didn’t increase the height limit on buildings in Kyle in order to build 12-story self-storage units along I-35.

Here’s a recommendation for the city: Form an I-35 Corridor Task Force comprised of business leaders, property owners, and homeowners and give them six months to develop a vision and provide recommendations in order to guide future policy and public investment along the I-35 corridor. The study should examine future possible land development scenarios and their potential impact to the transportation network.

Or to put it more succinctly: Determine what the first impression of Kyle will be for those driving through the city.