OK. I just got blindsided by this story.
The Austin Chronicle has just published one of the most balanced and insightful articles about Downtown Austin condos I’ve ever read. Below are a handful of quotes taken from our beloved local-leftist-zealously-liberal rag(?)
“…Austin has a reputation nationally as being a pain-in-the-ass city in which to get a project done. (Thank demanding city regulations and laborious processes, environmental protections, and our activist neighborhood associations and citizens.) Our reputation actually helped stabilize the Austin market, discouraging overbuilding and a Miami-like volume of investor-driven projects.”
Benefits to the city:
“As Mayor Wynn points out, on average, 80 percent of all taxes generated Downtown go to provide services outside of Downtown, in effect subsidizing other areas of town”
Benefits of high density:
“High-rise development also contains city costs, in comparison to the suburban model. “If 178 families live on 1-acre lots, the city is charged with maintaining four to five miles of streets, water lines, wastewater lines, drainage pipes,” and so forth, said Mitchell, as well as city services to 200-plus acres. “The Austonian abuts 334 linear feet of streets, water and wastewater pipes, and drainage pipes and consumes less than an acre of land. That makes it far more sustainable, and less expensive to the city, than a sprawling subdivision of similarly priced homes.“
Yes, that’s what I hear also. I think most environmentalists understand that higher density is better. It’s the impression that downtown is becoming a “playground for the rich” that’s more of a concern. And the notion that since the city is encouraging these high-end developments that people in the far-flung ‘burbs are subsidizing them. Of course, the truth is the opposite, but that’s the impression.
It’s actually pretty easy to understand if you talk to them. Judging from my longtime native Austin friends, they are more against the fact that these condos are being built and marketed as “luxury/high-end” product that is only affordable to people who are generally going to use it as a weekend pad — not to people who actually live and work in downtown austin.
Amen! I don’t understand it either. Try as I might, it’s difficult to convince an environmentalist that density is good for the environment and they should support development in the urban core.
I don’t understand how zealous liberalism got together with anti-urban-core. I expect it from the West Austin Democrats who don’t want anything to change. I don’t understand why otherwise smart, liberal people think that the development of downtown means yuppie and boring. Liberal and City & Density all go together. 78704 should all be four stories high, and Downtown should be a place where people live and work without having to get in a car and sit in traffic for an hour.