Look At All The People...

Austinist has heard some fuss lately about "infill" in South Austin, so we decided to do a little research and find out what the hell it means why everyone seems so upset about it.

We found some interesting little factoids about our hometown. Austin is growing up:

Recent years have brought unprecedented growth to Central Texas communities. In fact, our collective population in Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis and Williamson Counties now surpasses 1.4 million. And it's not going to stop there. Within the next 20 to 40 years, this figure is expected to exceed 2.5 million.
Envision Central Texas

And, because recent generations figured out that living in the suburbs isn't all that much fun, a lot of that growth will be in Travis County. City planners are well aware of this impending influx. Hence infill, which is a land use term that refers to rezoning existing land to to accommodate a denser population.

You might be saying "So?".

We were at first, but then we realized: wait, this is Austin! This is a city that's going to grow up and might just have enough... um.... Austin-ness to not turn into a sprawling, poorly planned metropolis with dire environmental and transportation problems like most cities in this country.

Then we got excited about being involved in the process, even if it does mean our property taxes are probably going to go up in the short-term.

What does infill really mean to us? It means that the rules about development are going to change. In some cases, that can be executed poorly. This happened in Hyde Park, and people living in single family homes suddenly found themselves living next to Super-Duplexes. And, as the South Austin residents in the Dawson neighborhood found out:

...the adoption of these ordinances constituted re-zoning, which gave the appraisal district the opportunity to raise taxes by more than the 10% per year limit. In contesting the tax increases, Dawson residents found notes in their files reading “Property values increased due to neighborhood zoning change”.From the SRCC Neighborhood Association

Even if you are a renter in Austin this is something to think about because as property taxes increase, so will your rent.

So now you may see why some Austinites are in an uproar about.

BUT, Austinist is here to tell you that you live in a cool place. What all this really means is that people are figuring that out and want to live here too. There are organizations in place to help Austin grow consciously and intelligently.

We don't know about you, but one day living in a city with 2.4 million people that can boast a kick-ass quality of life because we were involved in the planning process sounds pretty good. We recommend showing up at your next neighborhood association meeting to find out what's up in your neck of Austin.

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