(East) Riverside Development

[ashbeeigh]

There is an affordable housing program called SMART housing that most students should qualify for, income wise. But the number of properties that have units is small. When I was looking at my first place here in 2015, I checked on in the domain but they said that I had to sign in that moment and that it was going to that day. I’m actually glad I didn’t sign there. The place I landed was trash, but I loved the location and where I was.

[ashbeeigh]

Originally Posted by txtea

So are they going to tear down the baseball fields too?
Of course they leave the golf course, but tear down people's homes?
There must be 8-10 apartment complexes within those boundaries ! Where are all those people supposed to go? They don't look so "run down" to justify tearing them down.
There is a nice chunk of undeveloped land on the other side of 183 along Thompson and Hergotz lane, if being close to the river is so important. Ashbeeigh's suggestion too....it's not that far away from the proposed site.
And what exactly is "affordable" housing? Affordable to whom?

I bet they keep Krieg field as part of the master plan. What I’d love to see if a dedicated trail to connect krieg to Guerrero park. Can I submit a request?

[ScoPro]

Originally Posted by verybadgnome

High land cost = unaffordable to some people

Land costs are dictated by supply and demand which of course assumes there are forces that affect those two factors, e.g. zoning.

That boat has set sail and left the harbor. If you could find a way to drive the tech companies out of Austin you might have the affordability you cherish, but that's not happening any time soon.

Would be interesting to see what percent of students live in West Campus.

When my parents bought their new house on Elmhurst drive in early 1959, their builder (Van Spinks) was negotiating with a landowner to buy 40 or so unimproved “pasture” acres at the corner of Parker Lane (A gravel road then) and Riverside Drive. The land owner wouldn’t budge below $700/acre, so the dickering fell through. Spinks thought the fellow was just plain greedy.

There was almost nothing out past Parker Lane except the Austin Country Club, which was fixing to move to its new location off 35th & Balcones in West Austin.
Several years later some apartment complexes had sprung up almost overnight in the Arena Place area on the north side of Riverside, and Parker Lane had finally been paved.
.

[verybadgnome]

Originally Posted by txtea

So are they going to tear down the baseball fields too?
Of course they leave the golf course, but tear down people's homes?
There must be 8-10 apartment complexes within those boundaries ! Where are all those people supposed to go? They don't look so "run down" to justify tearing them down.
There is a nice chunk of undeveloped land on the other side of 183 along Thompson and Hergotz lane, if being close to the river is so important. Ashbeeigh's suggestion too....it's not that far away from the proposed site.
And what exactly is "affordable" housing? Affordable to whom?

The baseball fields are part of the park so no.

I don't think there should be golf courses in Central Austin but most of them have been there generations. It is a public facility so the mayor and council could eventually dedicate it to another use if they so choose.

1,300 units are being torn down to make way for 6,000, i.e. 360% more. I believe they are on the order of 40 years old which is a lot of wear and tear for an apartment.

I'm don't know about the Thompson/Hergotz, but there could be numerous reasons why it isn't being developed: owner doesn't want to sell, zoning, brownfield status, floodplains, slopes, lack of transportation connections, etc. Best not to pin Austin housing affordability on one piece of land.

It will be affordable to the 6,000 applicants who are approved. That may not be ideal but the only alternative I see are massive housing bonds that will push out the Austin residents not receiving subsidies and who are not in the top 30-40%. No one should be forced to move so someone else can receive a subsidy so they can stay.

[ashbeeigh]

No golf courses in central Austin? Hahaha. They tried to float that idea at Hancock golf course and the feedback was so large they had to cap the zoom meetings. There are signs in every other lawn in Tarrytown saying “Save Muni!” The lion’s club municipal golf course. Good luck taking golf away from Austin.

[VAF84]

Originally Posted by Austin97

increasing the total number of units is the only way to get "affordable" housing. As the total units increases, the oldest least desirable units become the affordable ones.

I put affordable in quotes because one official definition of affordable is less than 30% of income spent by people with median income or below. Low income housing is affordable to those making less than 80% of the median.

If you increase units enough eventually even luxury units become "affordable". In a city like austin there will definitely be induced demand. As you build units to satisfy current residents, you start to attract residents from higher cost areas. Still demand isnt infinite so if you build enough eventually prices will drop. One caveat is that builders stop building if they start to detect an oversupply. So what typically happens is you get into a bubble with everyone jumping on board to build projects and too many people build projects. Then you get an economic retraction, prices drop and building stops. Builders nursing their wounds are slow to start building again so demand outpaces supply and prices rise.

If you look at cities like chicago, they have plenty of supply so the median price is about $325K even with a much higher population. Creating more units is the answer and one way to do that is density another is sprawl (e.g. atlanta - median price 302K, houston - 250k)

Affordable housing will always be the older less well kept stock. As new units are built and are not able to be rented due to oversupply, their prices will drop. That puts downward pressure on rents of not as nice properties.

You are seeing this in san francisco right now. Demand has dropped so rents are falling.

Mandating that some houses are affordable will *never* solve the problem, but will make people feel good.

So succinct. Always enjoy reading your contributions.