Some East Austin Groups Hesitant About VMU

BrinK, I think it's just because your shop has a lot of character. Nobody said your house/shop looked shitty.

And while I'm on a lark, welcome to America, BrinK, where anyone can take a photo of whatever they want to take and post it on a website as long as all the naked parties are over 18.

BrinK, as it says in the post, the photo was tagged austinist_stock on flickr.com. I'm a blogger. I don't do anything myself if I can avoid it.

ol'pappy....

my place is the photo without the condos...

Shilli....or, To whom it may concern....

Still no answer on why my place pertains to this article? Is it because someone thinks it looks shitty or "east austin weird"....or maybe it is because it was one of 2 photos of east austin on a half assed photo sharing web site.

Keep your zones off me!

DO IT YOURSELF!

I am glad you said something cause I was just about to take a walk in front of a bus if home prices had increased that much over the course of a month.

Ignore the values on zillow. They're bubble cheerleaders - but they're a good source for data on square footage, and they have nice photography.

What's crazy is that site you linked to in your blog - zillow.com. They show how much property values have increased over the last month and even the houses in far east Austin that I cannot afford, but they're the cheapest, have jumped about 5 to $10,000 in the past month. That is messed up. Not as bad as the 10 to $20,000 in your neighborhood but still crazy considering that what I'm looking at might as well be in Manor.

"If all the available houses are $600k McMansions, that actually pushes people out."

That reminds me of one of my favorite Yogi Berra-isms: "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded."

Obviously, there are plenty of people willing to bid up the price of large houses to $600,000; the fact that large home prices continue to rise shows that supply still does not match demand. Odds are, the buyers willing to pay a premium for extra space are larger households.

Yes, there are families willing to pay $400,000 for a medium-size house in central Austin. But as prices rise, these families will be forced to pay the same amount for smaller and smaller houses. Unless you believe that large families are indifferent to having extra space, more will choose the larger houses in the suburbs. The smaller houses will go to singles/couples who put a lower value on extra space.

By the way, white flight does not explain the dearth of families in neighborhoods like Bouldin Creek. Hispanic households tend to be larger and younger than non-hispanic white households. White flight should have caused both average household size and the number of families with children to increase.

http://mdahmus.monkeysystems.com/blog/archives/000311.html

has the full scoop on the Big Three. Chris Allen's mostly a good guy - unlike the other two - and I maintain more hope he'll come around in the end than I did when I wrote this. He's not personally a hypocrite here - he actually lives in the kind of small house that the large lot owners have forced us small lot guys to shrink down to.

The other one I never wrote about was Danette Chimenti - primary force from South Austin - who, if I remember correctly, lives on a gigantic-for-the-neighborhood spread in Travis Heights.

All of this is public record, BTW. TravisCAD is your friend - but currently way overloaded due to appraisal season.

My next-door neighbors are househunting again, and this time it looks like they're goners - and now that the best economic use of the property has shifted much further towards "rent to students", I don't think another family's going to move in. Thanks for keeping Central Austin safe for families, guys!

Karen McGraw = one of the big forces behind McMansion. Lives on a corner lot in Hyde Park with 2800 sqft of building. Not the only one like that, either; the task force's non-developer contingent boiled down to about 50% childless couples with a ton of money and 50% people who have large lots (either have a ton of money or bought a very very long time ago).

How can anyone support the McMansion ordinance? So I curerntly have a 1500 sq. ft. house. I want to have children - my solution and only option is to add 150 more sq. ft. as is I'm allowed? How in the world does that prevent me from spending $300K in the burbs for a 3000 sq. ft. home with a pool and land? I'm staying in my area, but even after watching my house appreciate so much in a short time made me realize that if I buy an existing house in the same neighborhood I'm going to pay more than I did for my original for a house that's in worse shape and needs more work put into it to even compare to my current home.

Simply stated, I'm looking at $700K for a 2000 sq. ft. home that will need another $100K in work when I could have just spent $150K adding on to my existing home.

Hmmm, I wonder why some people move out of central Austin?

Who is Karen McGraw?

SolMan,

You're ignoring the possibility that somebody buys a small $300K house and then hopes to save up another $150K (or finance it) five years later to put on a second floor. Only to find out that the fuckers with big lots screwed you with this new FAR requirement.

Which is what happened to me. Oops.

(6000 sqft. lot, wanted to put a 400 sqft garage apartment on top of existing garage + nearly full second floor on roughly 1250 sqft footprint of existing house - all stuff that fits exactly with the current development in this neighborhood and the one to the north where Karen McGraw sleeps on a big pile of money in her 2800+ square foot house).

ol'pappy - It's actually 2.95 kids. Hopefully upgraded to 3.0 sometime in the next few days.

M1EK - I won't get into a dueling anecdote discussion with you, because it's not relevant to a policy discussion. We need to look at this at some kind of statistically valid scale. What is the actual effect on property values, demographics and density in Central Austin with the ordinance being enforced over reasonable period of time? We won't have that for at least another year, that's assuming the city is actually looking at this from a serious planning perspective. An interesting counter-example on the BC mailing list today: somebody's building 4 houses on a 3/4 acre property with a 50' frontage on Bouldin.

AC - Maybe I don't understand your point wrt McMansion and the apparent dearth of families in Central Austin. First of all, I'm unconvinced that the ordinance has that effect. And I'm not sure that the demographics are trending as you presume.

Let's say I've got $400k to spend. Actually, I can't afford a 3,000 sq. ft. McMansion in Central Austin because I'm paying at least $200k for the lot. I either have to face my fate as a Leanderthal or Budaist or live in a smaller, say 1,500 sq. ft house. I don't see how McMansion preventing a 3,000 sq. ft. house from being built effects this at all. But, like I said, maybe I'm just dense on this point.

Regarding the census data. I think what you're seeing in the 2000 census numbers is the tail end of the white flight that happened after desegregation in the 70s. The preference these days, for many folks, is to not select the $400k huge house in Leander and instead select the $400k medium house in Central Austin. That was the choice that my family made and many others would make that choice if given a chance. (If all the available houses are $600k McMansions, that actually pushes people out.) Obviously, this only applies to the families with the luxury of having $400k to spend. I see a lot of strollers in my 'hood. It'd be interesting to see current numbers. And, it may take a bit of convincing to get my yuppie brethren to send their spawn to a mostly non-white school, even a great school like Becker.

SolMan-ATX:

No, 4- or 5-member families don't "have to" have large houses. They don't "have to" have 1500 sf houses, either -- there are lots of families living in Meadowbrook with much less.

It's a matter of preference. 4+ member families that can afford a $400,000 house (the going rate for a 1500 sf house in Bouldin Creek) have a choice between that and a much larger house in the suburbs. Most will pick the larger house because they put a premium on space.

The McMansion ordinance forces homebuyers to pay a higher price -- measured by foregone home space -- to live in central Austin. Predictably, fewer families will make this choice. Families were already clearing out of central Austin before this. (http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/cen... This will only get worse.

You can say these families "don't have to" make this decision. That's true but beside the point. In 5 or 10 years, when everyone's wringing their hands over all the school closings in central Austin, it will be little comfort that all those suburbanites could have made a different choice.

BrinK, I think it's because your house looks the unhappiest out of all the houses sitting next to giant condos.

Why the DIY?

Damn, you need to learn how to take an opinion, SolMan. Someone disagreeing with you does not equate them holding a gun to your 2.3 babys' heads and threatening to pull the trigger. So touchy.

Personally, I think you're right on, Austin Snob.

"Austin Snob - You are a troll, so I shouldn't bite but I can't help myself so . . . fuck you. I've got 2 going on 3 kids and we all love our 1500 sq. ft., 3 bedroom in Bouldin Creek. I'm so sick of idiots like you saying that families have to live in the suburbs. And the McMansion ordinance really doesn't impact density, at least not in BC. It's just kept the new $500k houses a bit less gigantic. They weren't building granny flats or duplexes here."

Broad brush.

My next-door neighbors are house-shopping, partly because they've got 3 kids and live in 1050 square feet, and McMansion has made it virtually impossible for them to expand their house (we both have 6000 sqft lots, and they already have a big garage apartment in the back which counts towards the FAR total).

Geez . . . Where to start . . .

Shilli - Good idea with the property tax break concept. Complex to implement, though. Most of the property taxes go to the school district. The school district, however, is "rich" because of the high property values and so has to give it's money to a poorer district. So, they can't really afford to lose the property tax money coming in. Rep. Rodriquez's Homestead Preservation District is probably a better idea (google it). That's been held up due to legal issues with the original legislation. The corrections have passed the House and should make it through the Senate (bug Sen. Watson about that, everybody).

Mark, et. al - The parking problem on South Congress (and around Polvo's on S. 1st) is serious. VMU will probably make it worse. There are plenty of sidewalks, but it's unsafe to drive through the area because most of our visitors don't know how to park/drive on narrow city streets. And, as Mark mentioned, emergency vehicles can't get through.

The idea of accelerating resident parking only adjacent to VMU makes sense in that it makes it harder for folks to go to these areas in their cars. I don't think that this had the effect of pitting the merchants/commercial property owners against the neighbors, that dynamic has been there for a long time. Eventually, I expect Bouldin Creek will be like Lincoln Park in Chicago - residential parking only in the whole neighborhood. The merchants will have to build structured parking if they want to survive long term. Maybe the neighbors and the merchants can work out something to hold that off, but that's where we're going.

Light rail may or may not have helped the situation, since the plan would've wiped out a lot of the existing on street parking on S. Congress - that's why the merchants opposed it. I agree though, that was short sighted.

Austin Snob - You are a troll, so I shouldn't bite but I can't help myself so . . . fuck you. I've got 2 going on 3 kids and we all love our 1500 sq. ft., 3 bedroom in Bouldin Creek. I'm so sick of idiots like you saying that families have to live in the suburbs. And the McMansion ordinance really doesn't impact density, at least not in BC. It's just kept the new $500k houses a bit less gigantic. They weren't building granny flats or duplexes here.

Sudo - Very interesting RE: PODER. I remember when they advocated shutting down the Holly Street Power plant. I told my friends and colleagues at that time "hmm, leafy green streets, close to the river, close to downtown, fairly low crime, mostly owner occupied . . . when they shut down the Holly Street plant, all these neighborhood people won't be able to afford their property taxes." It looks like that's exactly what is happening.

Can someone explain to me why there is a picture of my house/shop in this article? DIY

I love it that people on this website actually think East Austinites know anything about the VMU besides the neighborhood activists nearly in the rockers and gentrifiers liking their lips at a "white" near-eastside? Goodbye History, Welcome to The Final Solution...yo, peoples, R.I.P.

Thanks for the comment, Sudo. I certainly didn't mean to imply that everyone in East Austin, or even East Austin in general, was opposed to VMU. I modified the title of the post - I think the remainder was ok.

I actually don't understand how this part of the process works - who does City Council listen to when determining whether an area opts in or out? Does ANC have the power to opt out for East Austin?

Actually, this letter is not about how East Austin feels. Many East Austin neighborhood associations want to Opt-In to VMU. This letter is a single organization, PODER, pulling their usual trick of going under different names to appear to have more support than they actually do.

Let's take a look at the names of the people who signed:

•Eastern sector, Austin Neighborhoods Council,

Daniel Llanes, PODER board member

•Rosewood Neighborhood Association,

Jane Rivera, husband was a founding member of PODER

•People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources, PODER

•Vargas Neighborhood Association,

Librado Almanza, PODER board member

•Govalle/Johnston Terrace neighborhood planning team,

Daniel Llanes, PODER Board member

•Gardens Neighborhood Association,

Janie Rangel, PODER Board member

That's 6 out of 10 signatures directly associated with just one group. And since Austin Neighborhoods Council probably just signed on in support of the letter drafted by its PODER controlled ANC East Sector, that makes 7 out of 10.

So PLEASE, direct your comments where they belong, PODER (once again using the "Royal We" with misleading phrases like "our community", etc.) and not to East Austin in general.

East Austin is welcoming VMU with a same mixture of excitement and trepidation as the rest of the city.

repeal the mcmansion ordinance so that families can stay here. then you can build all the scooter and gelato shops you want.

Look, you can't stop growth, but why not focus on single family dwellings more, instead of these massive yuppy apartments?

Uh, duh? Are they manufacturing more central Austin land? When a city grows up, it can either have a downtown with no additional development, like most cities, and thus die the typical American donut-hole-city death; or it can grow up, and some families live in apartments. Either way, there aren't going to be MORE single-family dwellings close in than there are right now.

I love this site, but its unending push for more and more of these VMU projects is getting old. I was just in Dallas for the weekend and these things are all over. The endless retail and apartment mix is pretty gross. They are even doing it in Plano. How many more silly boutiques, best buys, linens and things, chain sandwich shops, houston cafe's etc. do we want in this town?

Look, you can't stop growth, but why not focus on single family dwellings more, instead of these massive yuppy apartments?

seriously hipsters, what happens when you finally start getting laid on a regular basis and decide to marry and start a family? if you don't make a combined income of 200k a year you are gonna have to move to buda when your little hipster is born.

you can put all the punkrock t-shirts you want on your kid, but you will just be another suburban asshole then.

think about it. the beauty bar won't be cool forever.

Mark, here's the short version:

Your neighborhood (more precisely - a few folks in your neighborhood and a bunch of short-sighted business interests) fought light rail, among many other small constituencies. Had any one of those groups not been so irresponsible, it would have passed, and trains would be rolling by now. Imagine if First Thursday was reachable by train.

Now, we'll never have it. Commuter rail precludes light rail from ever happening, and Rapid Bus is receding farther into the future every day.

Rat, ahh yes, easy to jump to judgement. Travel to Europe, thats a laugh I'm English and only just moved here. And I'm very well travelled thank you.

That was exactly WHY I moved where I did, so I get access to all the fabulous shops, restaurants and other features the neighborhood has to offer, by foot, and I'm paying a high price for it, my taxes doubled this year.(queue rant from Rat on McMansions, mine isn't one of them...)

I never said I was against the parking, I'm a city boy, I don't care. I'd like people to be a bit more civil, but I have no objections to them parking outside my house assuming they don't block the drive.

What I was reacting to was the businesses perspective that its all becuase the residents object to parking. Some residents will have lots reasons why they don't want a 4-story parking garage overlooking their bedroom, their yard etc. and many other reasons why the increased business, restaurants etc. on South Congress are changing their way of life, many have been there for as long as many of the businesses... it isn't about new people moving in. So I wasn't ranting on my own behalf.

What was unfortunate was that the VMU forced this sore to open up again, which really shouldn't have been the case. We spent the evening debating parking when we should have spent time talking about the development and opportunities for the neighborhood etc.

As for light rail. No idea, wasn't here, don't know anything about it, certainly didn't vote against it.

Less visceral please, more constructive comment.

Yes, light rail was pretty much the only tool we had to ameliorate the transition from suburban strip-crap development to urban development. Since you guys fought that, you get the fun of having urban development which everybody has to drive to. Cry me a river.

As for all the ills of parking - you're blaming a lot of things on parking which aren't parking's fault itself. Get the city to put in sidewalks. Get them to enforce no-parking where appropriate. Enforce public conduct laws - by all means.

But remember - when people can't drive fast because of parked cars, you're just gotten yourself some free traffic calming.

Shilli- great post

Mark- Exactly, if your ignorant neighborhood associations opted in on light rail, parking

would be less of an issue. Try advocating for

more public transportation because with or without VMUs cars are going to be parking on your street.

And boohoo if people park in your neighborhoods anyway. I didn't know that your property line extended past that concrete curb. I'm sure the rise in your property value will offset any urine in your green overwatered grass.

I suggest that you and those neighborhood associations:

1. get over yourselves and take down those silly no parking signs.

2. try expanding your minds, maybe travel to Europe

3.move back to the gated community you came from

Shilli, thanks for an all too rare dose of sanity in this debate.

Mark, as a former Bouldin resident (though I was often told I was not *really* in Bouldin because I lived in a "non-residential" area, i.e. an apartment) and briefly a member of the BCNA steering committee, I have to say I think the BCNA position on parking is utterly ridiculous. If they want to live next to retail with suburban strip mall level parking, move next to a suburban strip mall. Requiring that level of parking in (what in Austin passes for) an urban area is ridiculous. Perhaps if the BCNA had supported light rail, it would have passed and parking wouldn't be sucha problem.

I've been part of the BCNA Planning team for the last 4-weeks while we debated VMU for S 1st, South Congress and Barton Springs. Entirely new to Austin I only bought my home here last November and moved in, I've been both pleased and horrified by the undignified rush to opt-in to VMU in what are some of Austin’s key streets.

Last night it we met to discuss South Congress, possibly one of the more important streets. A few of the committee did a great job at getting the owners and businesses in from South Congress to a meeting last night.

What transpired though was that VMU in and of itself wasn't such a big deal, although the phrase "incentivise the redevelopment" kept being used. What the rush to VMU Proposal did, was pit the business owners against the residents in an increasingly common way, parking.

If the business owners get VMU, their property can get a reduction in parking requirement, the residents can get RPP easier and more quickly. The residents wanted to opt-out the many of the blocks of South Congress, for many reasons from asthetic, not encouraging redevelopment and also to make sure that some businesses could wiggle free of meeting current parking requirements.

All in all it was agreed that the process was broken, insomuch as this was lose/lose for the residents and businesses, it was really only good for the council(and cheap) and good for change. No matter which way things go, it won’t make any more parking spaces, and possibly less. The business folks saw the parking as something the residents were whinging about, yet the parking is just a most visible symptom of the problem, quality of life. And isn’t that something Austin is big on? I know its one of the main things that bought me here.

Parking problems mean the fire engines can’t get down your street; parking means people walking across your lawns because there are no sidewalks; parking means people dropping trash, emptying thei cigarette ash trays in the gutter; parking garages higher than your first floor allow people to stare into your upstairs rooms; parking means people continuously cruising your block looking for a space and spewing out fumes; and if you live where I do, it means on Friday, Saturday and sometimes Sunday nights people urinating on your mail box before getting in the car often after having long, loud conversations, you’d be surprised how many women laugh like donkeys when they’ve too much to drink! Yep, parking is a problem, but no we don’t want to fight the businesses over it, or put them out of business.

The BCNA Planning team essentially ended up letting all the properties on S 1st, South Congress and Barton Springs opt-in to VMU by default. Certainly not what I'd hoped. Sigh.

The city has affordability standards?!?!??!!?!???!???!?

NO WAY!

I like the house with the Matt Rodriguez sad face on it. His paintings always make me smile even if they're frowning.