The Montrose TIRZ board, with its new chairman and three other new board members, will be meeting for the first time this coming Monday, July 22 at 6:30pm at the St Stephen's Church Havens Center on 1827 W Alabama St.   Or register to attend by Zoom at https://tinyurl.com/fuayte8w

Please sign up to speak when you come to the meeting, or raise your hand on Zoom, to help us make the following points:

• We look forward to having a board that will listen and incorporate feedback from all residents and stakeholders. We encourage the new board members to read all of the comments the TIRZ received after they presented the project plan to the public on Sept 2023.  89% of the comments received, as they posted on their own website, were strongly opposed moving forward with a design that took down so many trees.  And yet the old board and Abbie Kamin continued to claim that "most" residents supported the original plan to take down every tree on both sides on Montrose. 
• We hope this newly configured board will be able to work with the city and present a new design so that the project can move forward, as we have seen happen quickly with the Shepherd Durham project, the Montrose library etc.  What has been holding back the Montrose project is the Montrose TIRZ.  The old board was stuck at an impasse because they were completely unwilling to propose any changes to their existing design.  We need a new mindset and willingness to rethink the project’s goals and design.  
• We are NOT against sidewalk and drainage improvements but we ARE opposed to designs that devastate our mature tree canopy and add lots more impermeable concrete to our urban environment. Per the April 2024 Kinder Institute study, Montrose has lost 36% of it canopy over the last 10 years.  The effects to both ambient temperature and flood mitigation are substantial. We need green space and trees!
• For the money being spent, we think ALL of the sidewalks on Montrose (from Allen Parkway to the 59 bridge) could be replaced - and the ENTIRE street, including all curbs and drains could be repaired and repaved, doing much more to improve both drainage and accessibility.  This would be a much better use of taxpayer dollars vs. the overly complex and concrete-intensive project that was proposed for Phase 1 which would only address Allen Pkwy to Clay.  But to achieve this greater good, the board must let go of its insistence on a 10’ sidewalk and the expensive drainage plan which offers minimal incremental water retention.  We encourage new and more creative thought.  If Gauge Engineering can’t figure it out, maybe someone else should be consulted.  

Post-Beryl update:   We were glad to see that almost all of the mature trees along Montrose Blvd withstood the hurricane force and tornados winds of Beryl.  

All 57 of the mature trees that the Montrose TIRZ planned to take down in phase 1, withstood the storm - except for one.  Unfortunately, it was one of the Texas Historic “Three sisters” post oak trees which fell over, and one of the other post oaks lost a branch. You might see the pro-project people posting jubilant videos online and celebrating this loss.  Kevin Strickland (a Heights civic club "leader") is even questioning whether the tree was as old as the Texas Historic Tree Commission certified it to be.  Why?  I dunno.  What can I say?  Some people just hate trees.  Some people are happy to wipe out historic Houston landmarks if it will get them another bike lane.  Some people are just hateful, period.

Also blown over by the hurricane were many (almost all) of the young trees that had been planted in the last couple of years in front of newly constructed buildings on Montrose.   The same devastation of young trees could be seen all around town.

Mature trees, especially Southern live oaks with their root systems designed by nature to withstand our environment, simply cannot be sufficiently replaced by 60 or 100 gallon baby trees from the nursery.  We should be planting new trees as long-term supplements to our shade canopy, not as replacements for established mature trees that get cut down because they’ were planted 20 or 30 years ago where we now decide that we want a big sidewalk.  We must treat our green infrastructure like the long-term, irreplaceable investment that it is.  

Hope to see and hear from many of you on Monday. 

Jonna