Opinionist: Respect the Heights, Please

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In a city that favors tearing down and rebuilding rather than refurbishing and reusing, the Houston Heights has always stood as a community with a lot of old school flavor. Though less than five miles from downtown, the Heights feels like its own little town (actually, the Heights was its own municipality until 1919). We have a wide, tree-lined boulevard! We are 23 feet higher than downtown Houston! We are a Starbucks-free zone! We have a farmer's market on Saturdays! We have art cars! We have the largest concentration of historic homes in Houston!

What we don't have is protection for the neighborhood's integrity. The things that make the Heights a distinctive place to live are beginning to disappear. Gentrification has arrived, and it brought a bulldozer. Old bungalows are being torn down and replaced with faux-Victorian monstrosities and condominiums that are spreading like architectural STDs. Century-old pecan trees are making way for thick, wrought iron fences with electronic gates wide enough to accommodate the largest SUV. New homes feature porches, but no one sits on them.

Sure, most of the Heights' 80- or 100-year-old cottages are two-bedroom, one-bath structures, and many of today's home buyers like to have a house that's big enough to not have to actually see the other people who live there. You know, the kids have their own wing, complete with a kitchenette and alarm system. Those people used to buy homes in the suburbs, and everyone was happy. Not anymore. Not content to sit in traffic for one hour each way (and, frankly, who would be), the suburbanites are marching into town. That's understandable. What isn't understandable is the attempt to turn our funky old neighborhood into just another suburban blahborhood.

Those of us who have been living in the Heights for decades, and some of the folks who've moved here recently, were drawn by the distinctiveness of the community and the beauty of its homes. You can drive down almost any street and see a front yard decorated with funky sculptures living peacefully next to a beautifully renovated Craftsman bungalow. Streets such as Bayland Avenue feature a tree canopy that looks more like the entrance to a magical forest than a thoroughfare for Metro buses. But as the homes and the trees and the old businesses are destroyed, so too is the Heights. When all the historic homes are gone, when all of the artists have moved to other parts of town because it's just too expensive to stay here, when everyone has matching houses and professionally manicured lawns, the soul of the neighborhood will depart for the great preservationist heaven in the sky.

There is a way for the Heights to grow without losing its soul. Look at the White Oak area. The success of businesses such as Onion Creek have helped revitalize the lower end of the Heights. You can literally go from a chi-chi market to a skate shop to a live music venue within just a few blocks. This street typifies what is great about the Heights. Diversity. Adaptability. Reuse of existing buildings. Respect for history while embracing the now. This area should be the blueprint for the rest of the Heights.

Photo: flickr user Houstonian.

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