Ellerbee supports OSW protections

Over at the Chronicle's City Hall blog, Mike Snyder notes that veteran television newswoman Linda Ellerbee has taken a stand in the controversy over proposed special protections for the Old Sixth Ward. Ellerbee grew up in Houston and is planning to move back here from New York City; she's scouting out houses in the Sixth Ward and said she's been keeping up with discussions about protecting the neighborhood. Among the proposals from Mayor Bill White is an outright ban on demolishing historical homes in the neighborhood, one of Houston's most intact 19th century districts. That hasn't sat well with property rights advocates, but Ellerbee said she supports the protection:

The Old Sixth Ward gives all of us who love Houston an opportunity to view progress in a new way — as something more than continually replacing the old with the new — or the phony. The OSW isn’t a replica or a museum. It is the real deal: a living, breathing piece of who we were, who we are — and who (and what) we intend to be. Neighborhoods like this can be part of our history and a part of our future. They already are.

That came from a letter Ellerbee sent to the city's Planning Commission (read the whole letter here, thanks to the Chron) in which she brought up the case of Singapore. As Ellerbee noted, Singapore — like Houston — has experienced fantastic growth in the last 100 years. The city kept developing itself until, as Ellerbee wrote, "one day Singapore noticed that it had entirely paved over its past." Its response: building a replica of early Singapore on an island. "Today you must pay to take a tram to an island in order to experience even a phony version what Singapore forgot to save, which was its own rich, multi-layered, colorful soul," Ellerbee wrote. A replica of a city's past on an island, you say? Hmm ...

FYI, the Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the Sixth Ward proposals at 2:30 p.m. today in the City Hall Annex, 900 Bagby St.