Many neighborhoods throughout Houston, Texas and the United States have shocking language in documents restricting how the land can be used. “None of the lots… shall be used, owned or occupied by any person other than of the Caucasian Race," reads one example, the deed restrictions of Oak Forest.

Making it easier to remove racist language from deed restrictions has been one of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s legislative priorities. It passed unanimously in the state Senate in a rare display of bipartisan support. But the bill has yet to be voted on in the House, and time is running out.

Residents of Oak Forest, a Houston neighborhood working through the labor-intensive process of removing the language, are watching nervously — whether the bill passes will determine how they’ll spend their next two years before the next legislative session has a chance to examine the issue again.

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READ: 'It's so damn offensive': More Houston neighborhoods push to remove racist deed language
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Neighborhoods are pushing to remove racist deed language. They hope the state will make the process easier

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Office buildings in the South can be notoriously cold in the summer months – or at least that’s what a majority of women would say who jokingly refer to offices in the summer as “women’s winter.” This year as more companies return to the office amid record heatwaves and requests by ERCOT for Texans to reduce electricity usage, we ask why office buildings temperatures can feel out of line with the outside temperatures. We talk to Stefano Schiavon, professor at UC Berkley’s Center for the Built Environment, about his research into gender disparities in thermal comfort in the office and what can be done to make more employees feel comfortable. Later in the episode interview John Myers of the real estate firm JLL who oversees a property management platform in Dallas about what Texas building owners do to try to balance tenant and employee comfort while reducing energy use. 

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More reading:
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Texas summers, women’s winters

A group of volunteers that, for nearly two decades, has offered free meals four evenings a week outside Central Library has recently started getting fined for breaking city law. The 2012 law, which limits giving free meals to those in need, has been deeply controversial and had gone largely unenforced for over a decade. Food Not Bombs volunteers say the ordinance goes against their morals and hope it will be deemed unconstitutional in federal courts. Mayor Sylvester Turner says giving free meals outside Central Library is problematic because it leads to those without homes lingering outside, which he believes deters other members of the public from using the resource.
 
Marissa Luck and R.A. Schuetz discuss the history of the group, the law, and the area where the battle is taking place. They also take a look at how the cases are unfolding in court and what might happen after a new mayor is elected this November.
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Breaking down Houston's battle over feeding the homeless

Description: The recent demolition of a $24 million historic home by Astros owner Jim Crane renewed conversations about the preservation of the iconic River Oaks neighborhood. Since its founding in the 1920s, the high-income Houston enclave became a quiet retreat from the rest of the city where the wealthy invested in building beautiful, architecturally significant homes. One by one though, many of these historic mansions are getting demolished and replaced with more modern designs. A handful of owners have renovated and preserved some vintage houses, but at great cost and effort. In this episode of Looped In, co-hosts Marissa Luck and Rebecca Schuetz talk with architectural reporter Diane Cowen about Crane’s home, another $13.5 million mansion previously owned by billionaire Fayez Sarofim and why some preservationists are wary about changes underway in River Oaks.

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History of Houston’s iconic River Oaks is disappearing with tear downs
Astros owner Jim Crane demolishes $24 million historic River Oaks homes
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Could Turner's plan for conservation districts give residents more say in a city famous for no zoning?
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Is River Oaks losing its history as homes are razed?

After much political wrangling and not one, but two special legislative sessions, the Texas legislature has finally agreed on a property tax relief bill. It has something in it for all property owners -- not only homeowners, but also investors and businesses -- and legislators argue that it will trickle down to renters. Austin bureau reporter Jasper Scherer unpacks the bill and what comes next to Marissa Luck and R.A. Schuetz.
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Texas' new property tax relief explained

Master-planned communities are playing an increasingly important role in housing families priced out of urban cores. How do designers and developers go about planning the future of these massive mini cities to respond to the growing risk of climate change and housing affordability concerns – while also making these communities pleasant places to live?
In this episode of Looped In, host Marissa Luck interviewed John Saxon of Howard Hughes, Robert Acuña -Pilgrim of TBG Partners and Nate Cherry of Gensler at the National Association of Real Estate (NAREE) conference in Las Vegas in June 2023. Experts discussed major demographic shifts and migration are driving changes in these communities, how remote work patterns are altering how residents interact with these communities and even how a herd of goats is helping with trail management in a development near Dallas.

Related stories:
Houston’s top-selling master-planned communities https://www.houstonchronicle.com/projects/2022/houston-top-selling-master-planned-2022/
Mass timber office, H-E-B planned in Bridgeland https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/Cypress-project-will-have-new-H-E-B-store-and-one-17538557.php
Gensler marks 50 years of making Houston architecture more ‘human’ https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/gensler-architecture-design-houston-anniversary-17729027.php
New Houston master-planned community to have ‘car free’ zones https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/agrihood-indigo-17804425.php

More about NAREE:
NAREE Las Vegas 2023 video recordings: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLijDb4rxgzdMOznJt_Oe9ZwHTpvlc1puQ
National Association of Real Estate Editors https://www.naree.org/
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Neighborhoods are pushing to remove racist deed language. They hope the state will make the process easier

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