Why Woodside Village? - Part 1

As my first post(s) here I thought it would be appropriate to go into a little more detail regarding two topics:

1) Why this blog
2) Why "Woodside Village"

To keep this simple, I am going to divide this topic into 2 parts so people can comment on either separately.

Part 1
As a resident of Willow Meadows and having lived in this part of town for over seven years, I have grown very impressed by the continued success related to our area in Houston. I love the convenience and locale of our neighborhoods related to the city coupled with the fact that they feel like true communities similar to those you find in the suburbs.

Of all the communities in this area, no one's success has impressed me more than Braeswood Place. Many are quick to point out the fact that the flooding from Allison spurred much of their growth, but I think this sells the residents and leaders in this community short. It was only though hard work, fundraising, coordinated events, and a strong home owner's association that they have gotten to the place where they are today. Strong schools, revamped parks, removal/renovation of decaying property, tight security, and an abundance of youth should all be credited to this community working together to achieve common objectives. To this point, one of the first items the leaders in this community had to overcome was the fact that they had many civic clubs independently trying to accomplish the same goals. This lead to the realization that they are stronger as a whole as opposed to 8 separate communities working independent of each other. To this end, Braeswood Place now operates under one homeowners association with a subdivision theme for the previous independent communities. With this model, they have been able to carve out a niche community that has standards across the neighborhood. This also lead to their ability to accomplish the before-mentioned items. With this, I ask how can we the residents of the communities within Woodside Village mimic and improve on the work accomplished by Braeswood Place?

For our area I don't necessarily have the answer, but I do know results when I see them. To that end, I am trying to take some disparate communities that I believe are committed to the betterment of their neighborhoods and bring them together for the greater good. I am not a city planner or civic expert, but my gut tells me that bringing a larger group together is in all of our best interests. Ideas include simple coordination across civic clubs, creating a new overarching neighborhood association, or something new all together which I am not smart enough to ponder. I leave that as a point of discussion and general theme for this blog. Again, I don't have the answer but I think it is time to start the discussion. If not, by mere extension of the "renovation of in town Houston" we will have the standards dictated to us and we may not like the results. As a final note to this point, I will leave you with a quick write up on Braeswood Place and the Stella Link Redevelopment Association as examples of success I think we should be shooting for:

"Keegan, president of the Braeswood Place Homeowners Association, likes the cooperative spirit among her neighbors. The association includes residents of Ayrshire, Braes Heights and several other neighborhoods.

Residents raised almost $350,000 to renovate Karl Young Park. The project, which will be finished in June, will include new playground equipment, drainage and landscaping. Fund-raising included home tours and selling paver stones that will form a pathway in the park.

The same type of grass-roots effort led to the Stella Link Main Campus, which will include Helen's Park, a Sheltering Arms Senior Service Center, a public library and a YMCA.

The Stella Link Redevelopment Association has raised about $10 million for land and development costs. The total project is valued at $49 million."