Rice and the Community

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Rice and the Community

• Greg Marshall
• Office of University Relations

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UR and the V2C
We must become an international
university (Protocol) We mustincrease our
commitment to research (Government) We must
fully engage with the city of Houston (Communi
ty)
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UR Responsibilities

• Community Relations
• 4th largest community in the United States
• Government Relations
• City Council
• Harris County Commissioners Court
• Texas Legislature
• United States Congress
• Protocol
• 3rd largest consular corps in the U.S. (86
  countries)
• A University that is aggressively
  internationalizing

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UR Staff
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University Relations
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Protocol

• Continue to support VIP visits and tours
• Dalai Lama
• China Rice
• Leadership Forum
• Rice Ambassadors
• Advisor to President for Intl Collaboration
  shares responsibility
• Consular Corps liaison

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Government

• Rices first full-time government affairs
  director to be hired fall of 2007
• Takes over Congressional and State Affairs
• Local governmentlinked with community
  relationsremains the responsibility of
  University Relations

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Community

• Maintain our existing commitment to Rices First
  Circle of neighbors
• Increase engagement with the
• broader Houston community

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Houston in 1913

• City Limits
• Shaded Area
• You are here?

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1913 Beyond the paved road
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Today the heart of Houston

• Surrounded by
• Texas Medical Center
• Hermann Park Houston Zoo
• Golf Course
• Miller Outdoor Theatre
• Museum District
• MetroRail
• Dining Night Life
• Theatre Arts District
• Event Sports Venues
• The Village
• Houstons Best Neighborhoods

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University Place

• Houston Super Neighborhood
• (Active Super Neighborhood Council)
• Bounded by
• Main Street
• Highway 59
• Kirby Drive
• Brays Bayou
• Composed of
• Businesses
• Rice Village Alliance
• Holcombe Main St. Merchants
• Institutions
• (Rice, TMC, Museums, Two HISD Elementary Schools,
  Many Houses of Worship)
• Neighborhoods
• 6500 households,
• 14,000 residents

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University Place Priorities

• Parking Traffic
• Sound
• Construction/Density
• Flooding

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Parking Traffic

• A brief history of Rice spillover parking and
• Houstons Resident Parking Permit Ordinance
• 1992 University Relations office is
  established
• and begins receiving parking complaints.
• 2002 Rice begins charging for parking
• 2003 The City of Houston passes its first
  Resident Parking Permit Ordinance (Decal
  Parking). The University Place area
  surrounding the campus is the test area for the
  ordinance which is implemented city-wide
  shortly
• thereafter.

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Parking Traffic

• 2007 Neighborhood concerns over the parking
  planned for proposed graduate apartments on
  Shakespeare cause permit delays and public
  criticism.
• Rice Response
• Reminder of Rice Parking Regulations distributed
• available on-street parking in the
  residential neighborhoods near the Rice campus
  should be reserved for the primary use of the
  residents of these neighborhoods and their
  visitors.  When visiting, residing or working at
  Rice-owned properties, Rice contractors and Rice
  students, staff, faculty and their guests are
  expected to park in university-provided parking
  facilities, not on neighborhood streets.
• Rice pledges to study area parking

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Sound Spill

• Remember the Alamo,
  
• Remember Decal Parking
• Rice complies with all city codes, including
  sound code, but with political pressure, codes
  can change.
• Still receive sound complaints from neighbors
• NOT student parties or Radio Free Sid, but
  rather
• Constructionsporadic
• Loudspeakers at Athletic Venues--ongoing

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Sound Spill

• Rice Response
• Quieter Campus Committee addressed three main
  sources of sound complaints
• Reckling Park
• Track/Soccer Stadium
• Rice Stadium

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Construction / Density

• Houston has no zoning
• (Voted down 3 times in last 50 years)
• Growth continuessignificant increase in density
  inside loop 610
• City has limited power over development
• Parking (Off-Street Parking Ordinance)
• Set-Back (City ROW and Deed Rest.)
• Landscaping (Tree and Shrub Ordinance)

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Construction / Density

• At the macro (city-wide) level, has led to calls
  for urban planning initiatives
• Blueprint Houston
• Urban Corridor Planning
• City of Houston Planning Dept. Helping Lead
• http//www.houstontx.gov/planning/urban_cor.html
• Rice Responses
• Rice Design Alliance
• Rice Building Institute
• CORRUL Houston School of Urban Study

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Construction / Density

• Of current/recent interest in University Place
• Non-Rice Projects
• Medical Clinic of Houston
• Sonoma in the Village
• Wood Partners 28-story Tower on Shakespeare
• Rice Projects
• Collaborative Research Center
• Shakespeare Graduate Apartments
• Rice Child Care facility on Chaucer
• New North Colleges

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Construction / Density

• Medical Clinic of Houston (Sunset at Cherokee)
• Medical office building, privately owned by
  private physicians group.
• 6-8 stories tall. Adjacent parking garage on
  Rice Blvd.
• One floor leased to Methodist Hospital for
  physical therapy and cardiac rehabilitation.
• Opposed by Southampton Civic Club and others

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Construction / Density

• Sonoma in the Village
• Mixed use retail and residential
• Randall Davis and Lamesa Properties
• 7 stories
• Involved the sale of a portion of Bolsover
  approved by city but opposed by many neighbors.

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Construction / Density

• Wood Partners
• 28 Story residential high rise
• Shakespeare St. near corner of Kirby
• Strongly opposed by Morningside Place Civic
  Association
• Plans withdrawn by developer due to opposition

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Construction / Density

• Collaborative Research Center
• Rice Project
• Main at University
• 10 stories
• Pre-design consultation with neighbors led to
  positive outcome

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Construction / Density

• Shakespeare Graduate Apartments
• Same block as Wood Partners development
• Pre-design consultation promising but design and
  later parking concerns surfaced afterward
• City approved 100 parking spaces for 238 bed
  project
• Neighborhood still concerned about building
  material

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Construction / Density

• Rice Child Care Facility
• Chaucer Street between Rice and University
• Day care for 80 children, infant 6 years old
• Neighbors receptive to concept, no design yet
  presented
• No parking concerns expressed by neighbors
• Deconstruction of existing structures ongoing

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Construction / Density

• New North Colleges
• Concerns for trees being relocated and replaced
  resulted in media coverage on television and in
  local newspaper.

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Flooding

• Kirby Drive from Reliant to Highway 59 Flood
  Detention Project
• Army Corps of Engineers Brays Bayou Project
• Rice Responds
• SSPEED Center, Professor Phil Bedient
• Center for Civic Engagement (Willow Water Hole)

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Beyond First Circle

• The Challenge
• Rice University
• 1912 12 faculty, 80 students
• 2007 600 faculty, 5,000 students
• Houston Metro Area
• 1912 20 sqr. miles, 80,000 people
• 2007 550 sqr. miles, 5.5 million people

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Beyond First Circle

• Engaging Houston
• Open Invitations (rice.edu/neighbor)
• Calendar (events.rice.edu)
• Room Reservation (rooms.rice.edu)

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• The roses red upon my neighbor's vine
• Are owned by him, but they are also mine
• They bloom for me and are for me as fair
• As for the man who gives them all his care...
• I know from this that others plant for me,
• And what they own my joy may also be.
• -- A.L. Gruber