Appeals board upholds denial of Certificate of Appropriateness for 247 West 16th Street addition

The Houston Historic Preservation Appeals Board on July 14, 2025, voted unanimously to uphold the Historic and Architectural Commission’s (HHC) decision to deny a Certificate of Appropriateness for a proposed two-story rear addition and garage at 247 West 16th Street in the Houston Heights West subdivision.

The project applicant proposed a two-story rear addition and a garage with conditioned space above. Staff described the proposal as a first-floor addition of about 750 square feet, a second-floor addition of about 1,215 square feet and a 501-square-foot garage; staff calculated the total conditioned area as roughly 3,483 square feet and concluded the proposal exceeded allowable floor-area-ratio (FAR) when the garage was treated as attached.

The central dispute before the appeals board was whether the garage was “detached” because it is separated from the historic house at first-floor level by a breezeway, or whether the garage is effectively attached because the addition’s second floor connects the two masses. Terrence Jackson, a staff member with the Houston Planning and Development Department, told the board that staff treated the garage as attached and that “you get a 528 square foot bonus if you detach, actually fully detach a garage apartment or a garage,” explaining why treating the garage as attached changed FAR calculations.

Agent Aliyah Deanda and owner Tracy Boulware argued the breezeway should make the garage detached. Boulware said the distinction also matters for real-estate disclosures: “I legally cannot say it is attached. And I would be in the seller’s disclosure, quote unquote, committing fraud by saying that,” she told the board, citing how the property would be listed to buyers.

Members of the board and staff debated technical points about how covered breezeways and conditioned space above porches should be treated in FAR calculations. Staff said that during the COVID period several projects had larger-than-typical rear porches with conditioned space above, and that staff policy had evolved to include conditioned space above unusually large porches in FAR calculations to preserve the historic building’s subordinate massing.

Several commissioners said the design guidelines lack a clear definition of “detached garage,” and urged staff to adopt and publish an explicit definition to avoid recurring disputes. “I would challenge staff to come up with an actual accepted definition for a detached garage so that we can not have this issue as easily come before us again,” the board chair said during deliberations.

The board motioned to uphold the HHC denial. The motion was seconded and carried unanimously.

After the vote, commissioners and staff discussed process improvements: clearer staff reports with explicit calculations, published deadlines for supplemental materials, and whether previously approved projects with superficially similar details should be cited as precedent. Staff members said some supplemental documents had been submitted at the HHC hearing and were available in the file but could not be added to the posted staff report after it was finalized.

No change to the HHC decision was made; the denial of the Certificate of Appropriateness for 247 West 16th Street stands pending any further lawful action by the applicant.