Now the City is hoping its latest effort will provide more effective tools for incentivizing and prioritizing walkability. The recently established Walkable Places Committee has been tasked with reevaluating the city code to dive deeper into the issue of walkability in Houston. The committee is currently focused on creating an application-based process to establish specific “walkable place” areas. Under this new system, any neighborhood could voluntarily apply to become a “walkable place” and in doing so establish their own set of self-defined unique rules for development to encourage walkability. These rules would include specific regulations covering the building setback, design of the pedestrian realm, landscaping, pedestrian friendly building design, and parking (a separate subcommittee has been formed exclusively to deal with parking).

But once adopted, unlike the Transit Corridor Ordinance, neighborhood- and site-specific building rules would be required, not optional, for all new development. Though still in the early planning stages – adoption of a new ordinance is targeted for 2019 – the proposal certainly faces challenges. How will a neighborhood come to consensus on new guidelines? What are the incentives to apply to become a “walkable place?” What will trigger the application of the new guidelines to existing development? Are historic structures exempt? And perhaps most importantly, what about the spaces between and connecting to the specific neighborhoods?

Details aside, this approach embraces one of the core concepts promoted by Jeff Speck, leading writer on walkability and the author of “Walkable City,” that each city must “pick your winners.” Not every street or neighborhood is going to be walkable and the city must make a conscious choice about where to allocate energy and resources. The application based process would encourage neighborhoods with a high potential for walkability to work together to maximize that ability.

The plan, though, entirely neglects the issue of access and connectivity to and between the new walkable neighborhoods, which is why many on the committee also support modifying the code city-wide. Could parking requirements be minimized, or even eliminated, allowing the market to dictate how much parking to provide? Could minimum building setback requirements be decreased overall? Though such sweeping changes seem unlikely at this point, hopefully these designated walkable places could be testing ground for new requirements, which could be adopted city-wide in the future.

In lieu of such changes, several developers have taken advantage of the existing incentives in notable projects around town. But, despite incorporating laudable design elements, these projects also reveal the limitations inherent in the city’s current scheme.

Radom Capital’s Heights Mercantile, designed by Michael Hsu Office of Architecture, is a complex of renovated existing and new buildings in the Heights housing restaurants, retail, and office lofts. Located off Yale Street, though not a Transit Corridor, it is designated a Major Thoroughfare which allows a 5-foot building set back for retail centers if certain requirements are met, including maximizing the building frontage along the street and moving parking to the back. Additionally, two of the buildings are within the Heights South Historic District and therefore qualify for the 40 percent reduction in parking requirements. Located at the intersection of the Heights Boulevard linear park and the Heights Hike and Bike Trail, the project is inherently accessible and walkable within the already largely walkable neighborhood of the Heights. This project has the built in advantage of a pre-existing walkable context which likely helped inspire the development itself.