Sprawl-a-Thon 2007

With all the hype surrounding high-rise condos and New Urbanism, it is easy to forget that the dominant form of growth in Austin is still 20th century style, car-centric, suburban sprawl. Small developments (like The Shops at Silverado, shown right) or large (like the 425-acre Southpark Meadows, shown above), most new construction in Austin comes in the form of sparse, single-use, single-story sprawl.

Southpark Meadows co-opts the language of New Urbanism as a marketing ploy - "Mixed-Use: Shop, Relax, Dine, Live, Work" - but there is nothing New Urbanist about it (although there is a Wal-Mart and a Target). The primary focus is a strip mall abutting the highway. Apartments are separated from single-family houses. Residential is separated from retail. There is no office space. Apartments and retail are swimming in seas of surface parking. Single family houses are placed on cul-de-sac heavy streets with no access to anything without traveling on traffic laden feeder roads. Everyone going anywhere will be driving.

If we don't like it, we don't have to live there or shop there, right? We don't even have to look at it, because we don't take I-35 on our bike ride to work, right? Why do we even care? Oh well. Whatever. Nevermind.

Images from Dovedale Capital Ventures and Endeavor Real Estate Group.

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By Shawn Shillington in News on April 27, 2007 11:28 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Grape Ape

Is this "P rat" making comments?

rat

Change the zoning codes. I'm all for it.

You might get walkable streets. You might get mixed use communities. You might even get a sense of "place".

But, that cheap, easy, fast developer will still plop down ugly buildings which will need to be replaced in 50 years.

How much did the zoning codes improve the quality of the new Robertson Hill Apartments near downtown? Are these really the kind of buildings

we want in our city?

What's the point of changing codes to limit

parking spaces when everybody drives a damn car!

Improve public transportation and you won't

need those parking lots period. But wait consumers don't demand public transportation. If more people started riding the bus or their

bikes that sea of asphalt would not be built!

Shawn Shillington

Rat, if you think guilt-tripping developers and appealing to their civic duty will be effective, then go for it. Personally, I think changing the zoning laws would be a more effective approach. That said, I agree on the consumer point - I avoid shopping at places that I consider to be repulsive and I certainly don't live there.

rat

"cheapest, easiest, fastest"

should never be the type of development we

want. What kind of culture does this equation

foster? As consumers we should demand more from these developers. Wake up people.

M1EK

shilli,

That gives the market a bit less credit than it deserves - without zoning regulations forcing low-density, we'd get a mix of densities - not all high, not all low, but some of each.

Shawn Shillington

M1EK is a developer, but not like you think.

Zoning codes actually do dictate a large part of the bad designs - setbacks, amount of parking, type of use, etc.

Developers are going to build whatever is easiest and will get them the most money on the smallest investment with the least risk in the least amount of time. It is up to city governments to set up the zoning/permitting system in such a way that the cheapest, easiest, fastest thing to build is the type of development that we want. When that is the case, the developers will build it.

rat

M1EK must be a developer

Yes, the zoning codes need to be changed but

the zoning codes don't dictate the bad

designs that are implemented into these

communities

M1EK

"If people didn't swarm to these shit holes

like flies then they wouldn't get built!"

In most of town, this is all that CAN be built. Zoning code outlaws new versions of Hyde Park and Clarksville. Don't you ever wonder why 99% of development ends up being either single-family or 3-story multi-family pods clustered around internal parking drives? Because those are the two easiest zoning categories to get.

And FU, Ryan.

Patrick

There's such a focus, in both the media and the city government, on downtown -- and having "the most livable downtown in the nation," or whatever -- that I do worry that there's not near enough attention being paid to some of the massive sprawl elsewheres in the city. Most Austinites cannot and will not live downtown or particularly close to it. We need to start approaching the rest of Austin with the same zeal that we routinely approach downtown with.

Another example, though outside of Austin City Limits, is the massive Shops at the Galleria development going up at Highway 71 and Bee Caves. That sucker is replacing serene Hill Country with what's going to be the biggest, most concrete-heavy development anywhere near there. The atmosphere of the Backyard has already been completely compromised, and speaking as someone who grew up in Lakeway, that whole area has lost about 90% of its former charm.

heyzeus

I think I care because that land used to be a nice outdoor concert venue and fields and trees. 425 acres is a lot of land which could have been used for many purposes. Imagine if even 50 acres of parking lots could've been set aside as green space. For every land use, there are many land uses that can now never be made. Even if it's further south than most hipsters care to travel.

Shawn Shillington

I think the these places would be even more popular, and the developers would make even more money, if they used some New Urbanist principles. I think the failure to do so arises mainly from suburban zoning codes that make integrated development more work for the developer. I think cities (most importantly, Austin) should re-write their zoning codes. Of course, Austin has already done this, it just isn't applying them this far out of downtown. I don't see any reason that the new design regs shouldn't be applied throughout the city.