Morning Roundup: The Z-word edition

Good morning, Houston. Looks like our freewheeling land-use policies have gotten some national attention: The Wall Street Journal has a story focusing on the proposed residential tower at Bissonnet and Ashby. "The condo-tower dustup is just the latest in a string of odd situations allowed by Houston's lenient land-use rules," the article explains. "Rowdy cantinas, rock-crushing operations and commercial dumps sometimes pop up in residential neighborhoods. Condo towers sprout next to schools. A pay-by-the-hour motel operates less than a block from a Baptist church." A no-tell motel near a church? That builds character! The Journal goes through the history of attempts to institute zoning in Houston — failures all — and concludes with a quote from Rice administrator Leslie Miller, who lives in the shadow of the proposed Ashby high-rise: "We need to come up with some coherent way of solving this once and for all," she said. If only it were that easy ...

>> So much for that plan: Like you, Houstonist spends a lot of time dreaming up get-rich-quick schemes. Unfortunately, one of our best — posting fake "no parking" signs at occupied parking spaces, then towing the cars parked there and pocketing the recovery fees — apparently doesn't work quite as well as we would have thought. Just ask Mike Raitano, who was found guilty this week of illegally towing $800,000 worth of cars from a Westheimer Road parking lot. It went like this: Raitano allegedly posted his own "no parking" signs in a parking lot in the 10100 block of Westheimer on March 17, 2006, then proceeded to tow 52 cars that were parked there. "After the occupants [of the cars] were inside someplace, he would post [the signs] in case the police came by," Russel Turbeville of the Harris County DA's office told KPRC. "He would say, 'See, they parked right under my sign.'" Raitano had 16 prior misdemeanor convictions or probations, and Turbeville said he "bragged for 20 years that he was the Teflon wrecker" — no complaints stuck. Until now, of course: Raitano was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

>> Latin Kings members charged in church arson: Members of the Latin Kings street gang have been charged with setting fire to a northwest Harris County church early Tuesday morning — though it's not clear exactly why they did it, investigators say. "We think it was gang activity, but we don't think it was any type of initiation or anything like that," Dustin Deutsch with the Harris County Fire Marshal's Office told the Chronicle. It seems, though, that the suspects — all aged between 17 and 23 — were trying to cover up evidence of a burglary. Officials said they got into the Kinsmen Lutheran Church through a window and took about $100,000 worth of electronics, and they were caught later in the day when someone noticed them carrying a safe into a nearby apartment. Police went to the apartment and found the safe, which was the same one taken from the church, and Deutsch said the suspects were "arrested without incident." He said the fire caused about $65,000 in damage to the church building.

>> Today's weather: If you were paying attention earlier this week, you might remember that we said things should cool down beginning today. Well, just to get it out of the way: We were wrong (or, rather, the meteorologists were — but what else is new?). It's still going to be hot today — a high of 91 this afternoon, to be exact — but the good news is that it looks like it'll be sunny through Saturday night. And speaking of nights, they should be refreshingly cool, with lows hitting in the lower- to mid-60s.

And speaking of refreshing, how about a tall, cold headline or two? Jump with us ...