It's been a month since the Wizard published something on his blog. This was not on purpose, but it was due to the fact that some important documentation arrived on a policy matter that has required study. I am actually still working rather feverishly on that issue, but there was the matter that some have talked about the American Dream Coalition conference which was held here in Houston the weekend of May 16-18, 2008.
I was credited with being a sponsor of the conference, given that I paid for a substantial portion of the bus tour that the Antiplanner has written about on his blog, both here and here. It turned out that there were 75 people who opted to take the bus tour, which necessitated that we rent out two buses. That in turn required that there be two tour guides.
The story on where we decided to take these out - of - towners is a story in itself. The Wizard, along with a few others, received an email some 3 months ago requesting that we help make financial contributions towards the conference and that we would plan for the bus tour. The Wizard, along with Barry Klein, and Dave Hutzelman, went round and round in circles trying to work out a schedule that would be able to fit in everything that we would want to show people. Discussions dragged on for days and emails flew back and forth. Dave wanted desperately to show off the downtown tunnels, while Barry wanted to show off historical aspects including the Houston Ship Channel. Talk raged about whether we should tour the refineries, to discuss policy aspects of Houston being the place where the oil and gas are processed. Incredibly, Barry even wanted to go all the way out to see the San Jacinto Monument! Meanwhile, the Wizard shook his head and wondered how in the hell we were actually going to get all this done.
The first shoe fell when Kathleen told us point blank that we needed to be back at the hotel by 4:00pm sharp. This was for the benefit on conference attendees who would be desiring to shower up and get ready for the evening forum on land use and light rail. So, given that we would realistically have 8 hours with which to conduct a tour, and that we would need to plan for lunch, we then narrowed down our ambitions, which was what I had been telling Barry we needed to do anyway.
Barry and Dave still were trying to push for their agendas when the Antiplanner himself stepped into the debate. He wanted to see a city which had (and still has) an aggressive road construction program in place, coupled with loose land use policies. If we could talk about what it is like and show off features of a City with no zoning, that would be great. He also greatly desired to see a privately planned Master planned community. The reason for seeing the latter was that there were almost certainly going to be people on the tour who had never seen such communities before and he wanted for conference attendees to see them.
And so now the gauntlet had been thrown down. The debate had been focused. With that, the Wizard went to work. We briefly discussed showing off the Woodlands, but the Woodlands had been started with federal money, so my thoughts turned elsewhere. There were a number of master planned communities we could have chosen from, however one idea I wanted to discuss is our use of toll roads, ergo I wanted to talk about toll road policy. That led me to Sienna Plantation, with its newly constructed Fort Bend Parkway nearby.
With these ideas in mind, we hammered out a route which would include the following:
1) Houston as a non-zoned city. We would discuss features of Houston's non-zoned environment including deed restrictions. We would tour the Heights, a part of town that was originally built around the streetcar and which had turned into a backwater before being revived over the past 25 years. We would tour Washington Avenue, an area that is undergoing redevelopment under market pressures. We would travel briefly along Braeswood and talk about the property rights battle stemming from the Floodway Ordinance. We would also show off a city which is experiencing a monstrous boom in development.
2) We would show off current controversies, including Ashby Highrise and Metro's light rail lines. At the same time, I decided to start off the tour by going down San Felipe, where tour attendees would see Inwood Manor and the Huntingdon, as a backdrop to the Ashby controversy.
3) We would go through some of Houston's gritty neighborhoods and its wealthy ones.
4) I succeeded in shoe horning in the I-10 / Katy Freeway expansion. Barry knew of a restaurant in the area that would seat over 300 people. We would eat there.
5) We would then go out to Sienna Plantation in the afternoon via the Southwest Freeway. This would show off Houston's massive freeway system. This was the long way there, but we would come back via the Fort Bend Parkway on the way back. We would spend some 60-90 minutes at Sienna.
I drove the route and had it all figured out in my head. I made contact with the Johnston development people, got names and numbers, and potential speakers. All was well....
Or it was until the Antiplanner started insisting that we have a boxed lunch just 10 days or so before the tour. The Wizard however sidestepped that problem by simply not finding out where we could get such a large order on short notice. It didn't help that I have a full time job. I can't go spending all my time chasing this stuff down.
The second wrench occurred just one day before the bus tour. Since we were having two bus loads of passengers, that necessitated that I drive the route with Barry. All was well until we hit the Main Street rail line near Fannin and Rice University (circling around after touring Ashby). My original route, made with Barry's own input, called for us to tour the light rail line towards downtown to show off distressed areas of the alignment. Instead Barry insisted that we travel south to show off the Texas Medical Center, then the Astrodome. We would then circle back and travel along Harrisburg, the Ship Channel, circle around 610 Loop, and so on. In effect, he was trashing his own original plan.
Sigh... The joys of local activism.
I tried to tell Barry this would not work. Remember, we were under a deadline! I had already done this once before and I had it already worked out! My arguments, as always, fell on deaf ears. We drove through everything Barry wanted to see and the trip took 6 hours in my car. The buses, I reasoned, would be 50 percent slower. So reluctantly he gave in and cut out the downtown tour, along with the Ship Channel, Broadway, and 610 portions of the tour. Instead, we simply traveled south along the rail line, hit 610, then traveled east to M.L.K., then tour the proposed rail lines, including showing off signage from those opposing the alignments.
With that, all was well until the tour started. About 20 people did not get out to the buses on time. We waited at the hotel until 8:15am before starting. We started down San Felipe (showing off the condemned pocket park near Ed Wulfe's development at San Felipe and Post Oak), before stopping again! This time, the Antiplanner told us to wait until some 10 more people were ferried to the buses from the hotel via taxis. This made many of the tour attendees angry, so they proceeded to take out their anger on - you guessed it - their tour guide! That ended up causing the tour to not get off until past 8:30am and we were some 20 minutes late getting back, but once we got going the tour turned out great.
And yes, the Wizard did serve as tour guide. Wendell Cox was on my tour bus and the Antiplanner joined for the afternoon portion of the tour. I received compliments 14 times during the conference from people who were on my bus. They particularly liked how I went into historical aspects of the City and background as to what was going on. They absolutely lapped it all up.
And so it was. It made me feel like a million dollars. The next blog posting will be on what I thought was good about the conference.
Wizard
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at May 26, 2008 10:44 AM