The “Improving Houston’s Quality of Life” luncheon series was inspired by remarks made by Gerald Hines at a ULI Houston luncheon a little over a year ago, when he noted that in Houston, “We need more green space and more parks, in order to create a better city, with a better quality of life.” As we all know, pretty much everything will grow in Houston, thus providing us with all the raw materials we need for a lush, green environment. In order for the Houston region to continue to compete successfully for knowledge workers and investment, though, it must make the most of its natural assets, and promote them.
Joining us to address this topic will be Kevin Shanley, Principal at The SWA Group, and Hugh Rice Kelly, Attorney at Law, retired Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Reliant Energy and its predecessor, HL&P, and Board Member and Former President of Trees for Houston. Shanley will discuss how to leverage large public infrastructure projects to get highly effective green space and open space at a very small incremental cost. Meanwhile, Kelly will draw upon his experience to describe how trees and utility lines can peacefully co-exist, and will highlight the many opportunities for tree plantings that exist along various rights-of-way, and the efforts being made to capitalize on these opportunities.

For an April 2005 UrbanLand article about trees in Houston and their many benefits, members please click here.