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Back in August of last year a room full of developers met at the Houston-Galveston Area Council offices to bid on shaping a plan for the Washington Avenue Corridor to make it a more livable and walkable center. That meeting was step one.
Step two begins tonight when local businesses and the public are invited to bring their ideas to the table for the area that covers downtown to Memorial Park. H-GAC’s Jeff Taebel says there’s a number of ways that people can get involved.
“They can sign themselves up for a variety of different working groups that can participate during different phases of the project. There are also going to be some maps and information about the study area and people will have a chance to comment on things that they like very well and things that they think could use some fixing.”
The Washington Avenue Corridor is the 17th and for now due to funding, final Livable Center study the H-GAC is conducting. A few earlier examples of studies have been done on Midtown, Upper Kirby and Waller, Texas. Areas which Taebel knows vary greatly in their ideas of what livable means to them. This is why he says public input is absolutely integral to this latest plan.
“Obviously Waller, Texas, Energy Corridor, Washington Avenue there’s a lot of different factors going in and what the citizens want in those areas is going to be very different. So I want to stress this is not a one size fits all, certainly there are things that are common elements, as far as sidewalks and pedestrian safety but the overall plans are to be shaped by the community and our partners.”
Anyone interested in shaping this Livable Center should go to 1902 Washington Avenue, the corner of Washington and Silver between 4 and 7pm tonight.