Brewster Proposes New Commercial Building Design Regs

"Punky" Brewster McCracken gave a press conference yesterday to discuss the newly proposed commercial design standards for the city's "Core Transit Corridors" (think South Congress, South First, Lamar, etc.). Lots of interesting stuff:

1. 15 foot wide sidewalks - 8 feet of trees or furniture adjacent to the street and 7 feet between that and the building. Trees generally required every 30 feet. Love it.

2. Utility lines must be buried or behind the building "to the maximum extent practicable." Hope they enforce this strictly. Overhead utility lines are stupid. Why not bury them all the time?

3. 75% of the edge of the building must come up to the edge of the sidewalk. Love it. There are some exceptions that are a little scary (especially the exceptions for lots over five acres and "pad buildings").

4. 50% of the sidewalks, including the building entrance, must be shaded by something extending from the building. Awesome. Direct sunlight sucks!

"Urban Roadways" (pretty much everything inside the loop consisting of 183, MoPac and 71) that are not zoned residential get surprisingly similar treatment - 12 foot sidewalks (7 feet of trees, 5 feet clear), the same buried utility line requirement, 40% of the building on the sidewalk's edge.

"Suburban Roadways" get ... eh.

Plus, there is a section reducing the parking requirements! Love the provision reducing the requirement by one space "for each shower facility with three or more lockers provided for employees in a nonresidential building." Awesome.

The "points" section isn't "comprehensible," but it looks like their heart was in the right place: EIFS is bad, green roofs are good. The only problem is that they give preferences for limestone encrustation. Boo! Limestone is stupid. Have you ever had a conversation with limestone? It's friggin' idiotic. Other than that, the new regs are awesome. Nice work, Punky!

* Image from the City of Austin *

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By Shawn Shillington in News on August 10, 2006 10:18 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

william schroeder

limestone is such a "texan" thang. i don't get it.

Samir Heyward

Single Gene Could Lead to Long Life, Better Mental Function..

M1EK

"electrical guy" - the life of pole-hung cables has been spectacularly unimpressive in this area recently. Also, my folks' neighborhood in South Florida probably has a few cautionary tales as well.

electrical guy

Burying electrical lines is generally a poor choice because:

1) it costs about 75% more to do, if conditions are perfect.

2) the service life of the buried cable is about 4 times less than the service life of a poll-hung cable.

So, if you've got the money upfront to bury the cable, and are willing to pay that much (and more) frequently, then go for it...

Tim

Hooray! Now if we can only get this in place for around where I live (South of 71). Also it would be nice if they could retroactively include my place of employment. This crazy place has sidewalks that end in 5 foot brick walls and sidewalks that end 2 inches before the curb. 2 inches! What did the price of concrete suddenly skyrocket that day?

allen

Chicago enacted a similar requirement for building along their riverway, and the result looks amazing.

Shando

Yes! Maybe despite the heat, Austin can be come something of a walkable city.

adamr

I hope Punky moves to rid the city of all those abandoned refridgerators. Those can be dangerous.

Anon

Awesome. Hopefully this will help curb the bland square building designs that are being developed now and make it look a little better than a concrete lego city. I'm assuming this doesn't apply to all of the projects that have been approved already?

adamr

Hoo-ray for shade! I also like the mandatory "2' nubbin on every building" provision. I've griped about this before, but the sidewalks in this Cititown really fuckin' suck, it's about time.