Residents speak up on state of Bellaire

Survey reveals satisfaction with residential areas; downtown not so good

Bellaire’s residential development is looking good, but its downtown area is lagging behind, say more than 1,000 residents to a survey launched in October at beautifulbellaire.com.

It asked a series of 17 questions and sought information on what symbols and themes best represent Bellaire, what areas are considered the most attractive and unattractive, along with strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for improving the city’s appearance. Weaknesses respondents identified included “an ugly downtown area,” few plants and flowers in city property, no city gateways, insufficient sidewalks and lack of an overall theme for the city’s appearance.

Respondents believe improvements can be made by adding green space and more esplanades and parks, better planning and higher development standards for the retail community and downtown area, better street lighting and by replacing low-end retail. The Metropolitan Transit Authority bus depot on Bellaire Boulevard was noted in the survey as needing improvement.

Regarding strengths of Bellaire’s current appearance,

trees and landscaping, the appearance of residences and their private landscaping, the esplanade at Bellaire Boulevard and the city’s facilities and parks topped the list.

Citizens for a Beautiful Bellaire member Christopher Butler, who is a professional city planner, designed and launched the survey, which closed in January.

Former Bellaire city councilman John Monday chairs the Citizens group.

He came to the council in August last year promising to bring the city council a list of proposed beautification improvements and photos every 90 days.

The council subsequently created a $300,000 budget line item for beautification.

The Citizens presented $230,000 worth of suggestions on November, which included a sundry list of general maintenance and landscaping recommendations and upon which the city has taken action.

Butler previously told the council the survey was intended to take a long range view of things and gather information which will help inform zoning changes, subdivision regulations, logo development, marketing the city and even improving the appearance of city facilities.

Butler noted April 4 in a written report to council that goals evolved to include gathering information to “help writing consultant and contractor project scopes.”

Monday said the group is checking out different consultants it thinks might be good to help the city develop a beautification master plan. Those firms include Terrain Studios, a landscape, architecture and urban design firm (terrain-studio.com) and CDS – Community Development Strategies (cdsmr.com), which conducts market and economic research.