Back in December, Swamplot reported that Weingarten’s new project at the site of the old River Oaks Shopping Center had run into a little problem: Apparently some of the new construction violated certain setback provisions.
Rather than tearing down the offending construction and reworking it, Weingarten announced plans to seek a variance (after the fact), even as neighbors organized against what they deemed a noisy potential new nuisance.
Fast forwarding a month, Swamplot reports that Weingarten managed to win approval for its (retroactive) variance request after satisfying some demands of the complaining neighbors. And as quoted by Swamplot and originally reported by Miya Shay for KTRK-13, Weingarten secured what was surely a helpful assist from two councilmembers:
Despite the anger of some neighbors, Weingarten at the end of the day got what it wanted: It got the variance. It doesn’t have to tear down the structure that initially was against city code. And it still has the support of several council members, many of whom have received campaign donations from some of the management at Weingarten.
In a comment on Swamplot, the Stop Shepherd Noise group indicates it is pleased with the outcome.
As for Weingarten — it’s certainly helpful to have the city’s pols on your side in such matters. Why the company didn’t abide by Houston’s existing development regulations in the first place remains unclear, but perhaps that’s just not The Houston Way.
