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Oh please - you point to one project unopposed by an NA and killed by the economy and then try to extrapolate that the NAs do not oppose hundreds of other projects all over the city and have effectively corralled them so most never even get off the initial idea phase because attempting to do so would be futile.
Of course economy derails projects - we should add to that difficulty developers face every day by imposing a ridiculously complex and uncertain regulatory process that takes years to get through in many cases and makes many more so expensive it is impossible to develop in the first place.
no one builds basements here because its prohibitively expensive. And, even if they could - McMansion makes it impossible since basement space counts against FAR.
You really think that's the only example? Crestview Station is years behind where originally stated. West Campus is really one of the only areas where construction of any scale continued through the recession.
Here's a graph it didn't take me long to find:
Those are huge drops. McMansion was already in effect in 2007, so if it was so onerous, it would have caused the drop then.... not a year later. I don't disagree that McMansion can and should be improved, and that the city should remove barriers, especially the backlog in permits they've got right now. But the shortage now was primarily caused by the recession.
Also, if you can build a swimming pool, you can dig a basement. It's not cost prohibitive at all, especially if you turn some of that space into a money maker like a small apartment. They're just not necessary here because of where the frost line is.
My impression of McMansion was that it was trying to encourage basements by not counting space that didn't stick up more than a few feet from the ground. I've lived in basement apartments where the windows were wide but not very tall, and it's completely liveable. When you consider how many people move here from basement'ed areas and would love to have on here, it's shocking that developers aren't trying to fill that need.
To continue with your restaurant analogy, my point is not that we need to make Congress affordable for all, but that we need to quit moving toward a situation where restaurants like Congress are the *only* option and everyone who can't afford it has to rifle through the dumpster behind Congress.
But.....they're not. There are PLENTY of restaurants, but not all as good as Congress! Everyone wants to eat at Congress, because it's delicious. You could eat at Subway, it's nutritious and all, but it's not Congress.
Now, you could live in Highland (around St. John's St. and Highland Mall, in Central Austin) or you could live in Tarrytown. Most people would choose Tarrytown over Highland. The houses are bigger and nicer, it's quieter, and the schools are more highly rated. It's closer to Town Lake/UT/downtown. Ok. According to Trulia, Austin Home Prices and Home Values in TX - Zillow Local Info, the average home value for Old West Austin (includes Tarrytown) is $365,000; for Highland, it's $172,500. So.....where should that affordable housing be- Old West Austin? Why? Highland seems pretty affordable. Montopolis is $102,400.
What I don't understand is WHERE this "affordable housing" is supposed to go. Pemberton? Northwest Hills? There already IS affordable housing- it may just not be where people most want to live.
Look at the beautiful streetcar suburbs of our great cities - completely illegal in Austin under current zoning and environmental regs. Why? To protect the likes of you who fear that behind every new development is a greedy developer just itching to destroy the "character" of the neighborhood. We are protecting a very small class of generally quite wealthy at the expense of everyone else. This is insanity.
The developers I know, and I know a lot of them, who have an interest in the central city LOVE the central city neighborhoods. They want to be part of that evolution as Austin goes from being a smallish backwater to a city on the map. They make it possible for Austin to grow up and not out. The true enemies of a gracious city that Austin can and should be are the NIMBY's and the Sprawlites.
Lets be perfectly clear - If you are a center city dweller and you are against increasing density in the center city you are both a NIMBY and a proponent of sprawl, a fan of Kyle and Hutto and Cedar Park, Carls Junior, Bed Bath and Beyond and all that other crap that goes hand in hand with sprawl.
We can have a gracious beautiful dense urban core - it's not that scary folks. Go travel - see something of the world's great cities and you'll realize that it can be done wonderfully, graciously, harmonically - but only if you stop opposing every project and begin to allow the city to evolve.
We can have housing at a lot of different price points in the central city - but we can't do so if we oppose town houses, duplexes, four-plexes, multi-family mid-rise, granny flats, and virtually every other conceivable structure except SF homes that fit on 40% of a lot (so long as it fits within a specified envelope) and never to exceed two stories high, and god forbid you should ever have a non-articulating wall - could not have that.
Oh - and I'm one of those fortunate few who own a home centrally.
I see you ignored my offer to build a new homeless shelter in your nice central neighborhood.
We DO have housing at many different price points in the city. It's like you have a solution in search of a problem.
Neighborhoods- and the citizens who live in them- have every right to approve, or reject, the zoning that affects their home.
I see you ignored my offer to build a new homeless shelter in your nice central neighborhood.
We DO have housing at many different price points in the city. It's like you have a solution in search of a problem.
Neighborhoods- and the citizens who live in them- have every right to approve, or reject, the zoning that affects their home.
I'm already on record as being opposed to government subsidized housing, need a I repeat myself endlessly?
The central city is quickly becoming an enclave of the rich and entrenched...deny this all you want. But the fact is its increasingly hard to find anything central for reasonable money, the result of this is Hutto, Manor, Kyle...if you want more of that, the present course is the one to stay on.
You really think that's the only example? Crestview Station is years behind where originally stated. West Campus is really one of the only areas where construction of any scale continued through the recession.
Here's a graph it didn't take me long to find:
Those are huge drops. McMansion was already in effect in 2007, so if it was so onerous, it would have caused the drop then.... not a year later. I don't disagree that McMansion can and should be improved, and that the city should remove barriers, especially the backlog in permits they've got right now. But the shortage now was primarily caused by the recession.
Also, if you can build a swimming pool, you can dig a basement. It's not cost prohibitive at all, especially if you turn some of that space into a money maker like a small apartment. They're just not necessary here because of where the frost line is.
My impression of McMansion was that it was trying to encourage basements by not counting space that didn't stick up more than a few feet from the ground. I've lived in basement apartments where the windows were wide but not very tall, and it's completely liveable. When you consider how many people move here from basement'ed areas and would love to have on here, it's shocking that developers aren't trying to fill that need.
Again, that markets cycle is a truism...golly really? Thanks professor.
The question is why do we make it so much more difficult for projects to occur, in good times and in bad. If you are for affordability you should be with me.
I'm already on record as being opposed to government subsidized housing, need a I repeat myself endlessly?
The central city is quickly becoming an enclave of the rich and entrenched...deny this all you want. But the fact is its increasingly hard to find anything central for reasonable money, the result of this is Hutto, Manor, Kyle...if you want more of that, the present course is the one to stay on.
We can, we should do better.
I'm not talking about government subsidized housing. I'm talking about a privately funded housing for the homeless. How does that work for you? If your city government decided that the lot next to you would be zoned for it, it would be OK for that halfway house/homeless shelter to be right next door?
I don't deny for one moment that the central city is becoming an enclave of the rich and entrenched. It is nearly impossible for anyone who makes less than $250,000/year to buy there. I say: SO WHAT??? Again, a solution in search of a problem. The central city exists for the same reasons that Ferraris, custom made suits, and $500/bottle wines do. Some things are just priced out of an average person's salary.
I'm not talking about government subsidized housing. I'm talking about a privately funded housing for the homeless. How does that work for you? It's ok to put that next door to your house?
I don't deny for one moment that the central city is becoming an enclave of the rich and entrenched. It is nearly impossible for anyone who makes less than $250,000/year to buy there. I say: SO WHAT??? Again, a solution in search of a problem. The central city exists for the same reasons that Ferraris, custom made suits, and $500/bottle wines do. Some things are just priced out of an average person's salary.
Thank you for going on record. Everyone, please pay attention. THIS is the NIMBY goal...a city that caters to well-heeled blue bloods and techionnaires...the artists, the service industry, need not apply!!! Want to live urban? Move on, please. We have ours, thank you very much...now go away.
But.....they're not. There are PLENTY of restaurants, but not all as good as Congress! Everyone wants to eat at Congress, because it's delicious. You could eat at Subway, it's nutritious and all, but it's not Congress.
Now, you could live in Highland (around St. John's St. and Highland Mall, in Central Austin) or you could live in Tarrytown. Most people would choose Tarrytown over Highland. The houses are bigger and nicer, it's quieter, and the schools are more highly rated. It's closer to Town Lake/UT/downtown. Ok. According to Trulia, Austin Home Prices and Home Values in TX - Zillow Local Info, the average home value for Old West Austin (includes Tarrytown) is $365,000; for Highland, it's $172,500. So.....where should that affordable housing be- Old West Austin? Why? Highland seems pretty affordable. Montopolis is $102,400.
What I don't understand is WHERE this "affordable housing" is supposed to go. Pemberton? Northwest Hills? There already IS affordable housing- it may just not be where people most want to live.
I'm not talking about putting in "affordable housing" in those neighborhoods. I'm talking about allowing more infill and density in those neighborhoods or where the market wants it. Which will lessen the pressure on the next group of neighborhoods. When my wife and I were grad students here in the early and mid 90s, we lived in Barton Hills, Hyde Park, North University, etc. And so did a lot of middle class families that worked at UT or the capital. Now that we're graduate educated professionals, our family can't dream of buying in the neighborhoods.
I've read that 50% of the housing in Austin has been built in the last 20 years. What if half, or even 25% of that new housing had been reasonable, responsible infill in central neighborhoods? The neighborhoods we lived in as grad students might still have gentrified out of our price range, who knows, but the other neighborhoods that weren't even considered central back then? Allandale, Crestview, 78704 south of Oltorf? That's the problem, there just isn't that much left to gentrify. And you're not talking about replacing like with like. 20 years ago people who worked at UT, the capital, police officers, teachers, etc. could live in those neighborhoods and raise their families there. I'm sorry but telling me or them to live in Highland (or as is the case for my family, 78745) is just not the same thing as they/we would have been able to afford here 20 years ago.
And the great irony is how many of the biggest proponents of anti-market restrictive zoning claim to be "small government" types the rest of the time. Or they claim to be "green" while promoting sprawl.
Now the other half of the equation is making those other areas better too. Why does "progressive" Austin only have one Mueller? Where is the transit? Build a Mueller or Stapleton type development at Slaughter and give me dedicated lane light rail into town and I'll be perfectly happy to live there.
But at some point Austin has to decide whether it's just another city that thinks middle class families are second class citizens.
Thank you for going on record. Everyone, please pay attention. THIS is the NIMBY goal...a city that caters to well-heeled blue bloods and techionnaires...the artists, the service industry, need not apply!!! Want to live urban? Move on, please. We have ours, thank you very much...now go away.
You're reading what you want to see. I'm saying that everything has a price. Try walking into a Ferrari dealer and tell them that you don't think it's FAIR that they cost $150,000. You DESERVE to drive that car. They should sell it to you for $20,000. Wah, wah, wah. Get over yourself. We don't live in a Marxist economy. This is called free enterprise. You work hard, you bust your a$$, and you can afford things that other people can't.
I'm not talking about government subsidized housing. I'm talking about a privately funded housing for the homeless. How does that work for you? If your city government decided that the lot next to you would be zoned for it, it would be OK for that halfway house/homeless shelter to be right next door?
I don't deny for one moment that the central city is becoming an enclave of the rich and entrenched. It is nearly impossible for anyone who makes less than $250,000/year to buy there. I say: SO WHAT??? Again, a solution in search of a problem. The central city exists for the same reasons that Ferraris, custom made suits, and $500/bottle wines do. Some things are just priced out of an average person's salary.
So what? So in your book, teachers, police officers, nurses, etc. can all just rot in hell? These people were all living in these neighborhoods until recently.
Wow. Just wow. I won't waste any more time debating with you.
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