October 30, 2007
Snapshots: Mueller Redevelopment; Dense and Denser
Now that the summer rains are finally over, progress on the new Mueller Redevelopment is proceeding at a swift pace. With the credit crunch from the sub-prime market slowing new home construction in many parts of the country and foreclosures rising rapidly, it remains to be seen whether Austin really is as immune as some analysts predict, or is merely a bubble looking for a pin.
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Are all of the homes as close together as they seem to be in those photos?
I don't think the sub-prime credit crunch will affect Mueller at all. First of all, most of the units there are rentals.
Secondly, in the case of homes, they're being sold on a lottery basis well below market rates (to qualify as "affordable"). So if someone doesn't meet loan specifications, the home will go to the next qualifying bidder. There's an ample supply of willing buyers.
Those photos remind me of that old 1979 Matt Dillon movie "Over The Edge" about the neglected, rebellious kids in suburbia. Half-finished houses, nary a tree in sight...
And yeah, they're as close together as they look. But I don't think the HOUSES are selling for below market rate. Maybe the condos will when they start going in. I looked at the builders' plans for the "garden homes" and I think they started at $290K and went up to $430K. I would like at least one tree for my $430K. Surely they're planning to put some in...
My sources say...yes, there will be plenty of trees at Mueller. Apart from street trees on every street, each house also has landscaping requirements (including trees) using native plant materials.
Yes, they really are that close together. The streets are also pretty narrow, so it looks like a lot of them will be one-ways feeding larger main streets. Keep in mind this is just the tip of iceberg and represents only a fraction of the first phase of construction. I didn't see any of the row houses framed up yet, just what looked like Meritage's home designs.
They're planning on putting lots of trees in. Like a forest full of trees. The only problem is that I'm betting they're not springing for a forest load of 100 year old trees. So it's gonna look like treeless suburbia for quite a while.
As to the housing distance- my new house in the Independence Subdivision looks a lot like Mueller. I think this is the new spacing for urban infill. It looks really close, but it's basically two standard sized fence gates across. Something like 20 feet. You just want to make sure that you don't have a lot of windows on the side of your house. Otherwise, who cares?
None of the "yard houses" or row houses are rentals. About 20% in the first phase are "affordable" and there should be no problem selling those as the list is about 5 times the size as the number of houses. Several builders went through their lottery lists already though, thanks in part to doing a bait and switch - advertising houses as low 200s to 300s and then selling two for 250K (as if that's low 200s) and then everything else at or above 300K, or something similar. So a lot of people who though they "won" the lottery got screwed.
Very few families will be able to buy the affordable houses because the being below 80% MFI AND being able to afford a $170K house and say, two kids is a tough one to pull off. I fear it will be yet another well intentioned program that will only help singles and DINKS.
Also, the "mix" of incomes which was supposed to mean a full spectrum of incomes is a joke. There will be the affordable housing people and there will be the highly affluent, no middle class. (Which at least keeps it in line with the rest of central Austin.) We miss qualifying for the affordable stuff by $11 a month. Literally, $11 stinkin' dollars. So now the cost of a house there goes up like 150K. Don't think 11 bucks will cover that.
My worry is that with a powerful HOA, you could see some real discrimination against the 25% "affordable" minority. It would only take a few @#$#$s for an HOA to run amok.