April 15, 2008
Better Know a Candidate: Allen Demling
1. The Austin Music Commission is considering reducing the decibel limit under the city noise ordinance. Do you think that the noise ordinance should be changed?
No, reducing the decibel requirement from 85 to 75 means the noise level will be cut in half. This is ridiculous for the Live Music Capital of the World to even be considering. In fact, we need to be expanding our “Entertainment District” to represent the current needs by including Red River and 7th St. This will ensure that clubs on these streets will not be at a disadvantage when it comes to noise violations.
2. Has the McMansion ordinance been successful? What do you think of City Council's recent decision to reject OCEAN's request to further restrict home sizes on small lots in East Austin?
No, I do not think the McMansion ordinance has been successful. I think there are too many loop-holes that developers are using in order to get around the ordinance. In addition, enforcement is not strong enough to prevent developers from breaking code. We need to make sure we close up all the loop-holes, stop allowing so many grandfathered developments, and strictly enforce the ordinance. The fact that City Council had rejected OCEAN’s request to restrict home sizes on small lots in East Austin shows that it is not receptive to the public’s input. We need to protect the neighborhoods and the people living in them, not the developers.
3. Some neighborhood groups have attempted to opt-out of the vertical-mixed-use program for most or all eligible properties in their neighborhood. Would you vote to approve or reject those decisions?
I would, in general, vote to approve those decisions, but I would first have a discussion with the neighborhood to determine why they are opting out. If we want to have affordable housing in the city, we need density. Many neighborhood groups are opposed to destroying the character of the neighborhoods and the presumption is that a VMU would do just that. In my opinion, VMU’s can be a good thing for neighborhoods as long as they fit into the character of the neighborhood, provide shops that neighbors would use (such as small groceries, pharmacies, and other local businesses) and are placed on arterial roads. While I think limited use of the opt-out clause is justifiable, we also need to make sure that the decisions are pragmatic and not reactive. I think it is also important to note that most neighborhoods have either not exercised their opt-out rights or done so on a limited basis.
4. What should the city government do to promote or discourage suburban development? What about condo/apartment development downtown? What about condo/apartment development in other parts of the city?
I think the city should not promote suburban development because it leads to increased traffic, decreased air and water quality as well as causing the development of our remaining natural areas. Instead, we should be encouraging densification in the downtown area and along the major transit corridors. The city is moving in this direction with the VMU ordinance. Condo and apartment development downtown should be encouraged, as long as they are affordable for the average Austinite. Dense development in these areas only makes sense for Austin if we also develop a logical, efficient and affordable mass transit system. This would include a more efficient bus system, increased cycling infrastructure and both light and commuter rail systems. The city also must ensure that the inter-modal transportation system is likewise efficient.
Once you get off of the major transit corridors and out of downtown, we need to be encouraging and developing sustainable communities while protecting the character of the neighborhoods. These are the walkable, bikable communities with affordable housing and localized shopping, parks and easy access to public transportation. This will reduce congestion and pollution and increase quality of life.
5. Homes near downtown are generally more expensive than homes in the suburbs. Should the city do anything to change that? What?
One reason that homes near downtown are expensive is because they are in short supply (land scarcity). Living downtown is desirable for many reasons—access to the night life, proximity to work, access to Town Lake and Zilker park to name a few. It is not up to the city to control the price of the homes in this region. The city can- and should- give property tax relief to long-term residents whose homes are being threatened due to the skyrocketing property taxes that come with expensive homes. One way to do this is to freeze the property tax increase for those who have lived in the area for a set period of time- 15 to 20 years or more. This will allow the owners homes to increase in value, a by-product of gentrification, while allowing them to stay in the homes they have lived in all their lives.
One thing that the city can do to slow the increase in home prices is to encourage more affordable homes in or near downtown. Densification is a step in the right direction- Austin desperately needs density downtown. However, the city is not doing nearly enough to ensure that the housing is affordable for the majority of the residents. According to the Downtown Austin Plan, only 7% of the population can afford one of these condos. The city needs to get that number up to 40 or 50%. Texas state law prohibits the city from forcing developers to include affordable housing in their developments, so the logical solution is for the city to provide affordable housing on city owned land.
6. Austinites love cars (80% of us drive to work by ourselves), but hate traffic. What would you do to get Austinites to commute differently and/or reduce traffic? How often do you get to work by some method other than driving? What is your alternative method?
The key to getting people out of their cars is to provide convenient and efficient options to driving. We can do this by using commuter and light rail, express busses and improving our bicycle infrastructure. Rail is great because it can move large numbers of people quickly, but it is limited in where it can go. Our commuter rail system that will be open later this fall is a good start, but we need to expand the number of rail lines across the city, and do so quickly. Busses are good because they can go anywhere there are roads, but they are slow and can’t transport as many people as commuter rail. We need to use the strengths of both these methods in concert, ie using rail to transport large numbers of people to and from activity centers, and then busses to get people from their rail stop to their final destination.
In addition to mass transportation, we need to update our bicycle infrastructure to make it safer and quicker to get around town on bike. This means more bike lanes and dedicated bicycle corridors along major roads and highways. Cycling is the cleanest and least expensive form of transportation, the more commuter cyclists our city has, the more problems we can solve.
Cycling is my alternative means of getting to work, and I only do that a couple of times a month. The fact that a person who enjoys cycling as much as I do only commutes to work a handful of times each month is proof that our cycling infrastructure needs to be improved. I would also like to mention that once the commuter rail line opens I will be using that as my primary method of getting to work.
7. Austin has the potential to be a great biking city and a lot of people bike recreationally, but it is difficult for most people to bike to work. What should the city do to improve the opportunity to bike-commute? Do you own a bike? How often do you ride it to work?
This is a major issue of my campaign, and something that I am personally invested in. I want to see Austin become the most bike friendly city in the country. There are several reasons people don’t bike to work: it takes too long, there aren’t adequate facilities to clean up once people arrive at work, and it can often be dangerous. We can address the first by providing more bike “corridors” such as the Lance Armstrong Bikeway, which allow cyclist to travel long distances on a single bike route. This prevents them from having to find circuitous routes through neighborhoods, which add to travel time. We also need to provide shower and bike storage facilities in major activity centers (such as UT, downtown, Mueller Airport Redevelopment, etc) so that people can shower and dress after they have biked to their destination. Additionally, providing safe bike lanes, and stiff penalties for people who endanger cyclists are starting points to addressing the safety issue.
I personally own three bicycles and commute the 14 miles from my home to work about 3 or 4 times a month.
8. Are you happy with the apparent resolution of the Las Manitas/Marriott controversy? If not, how do you think it should have been handled differently?
I am happy that it was settled without having to go to court. I don’t like the way the Council handled the matter, however. The whole affair was pretty detailed but was essentially a property dispute. The city wanted Marriot to change their plans and the Perez sisters did not want to capitulate to Marriot. The whole thing really speaks to a broken process. The city should have included all the stakeholders early in the process. The Perez sisters could have voiced their concerns to the city and Marriot prior to the planning phase. This may not have changed the outcome, but would have been a much better way to reach a deal. It’s great that Las Manitas does not have to close down and the city is not footing the bill.
9. Do you think Austin is better now than it was 10 years ago? Do you think it will be better 10 years from now than it is now?
I think that Austin has changed greatly over the past 10 years. Housing was more affordable, our air quality was better, traffic was less congested and our economy was stronger. But I think we are taking steps in the right direction to correct some of the problems occurring in our city. For example, we are starting to address the traffic problem, water conservation efforts have increased, we are making progress towards a zero-waste program and single stream recycling, we are investing in green technologies and energy solutions, etc. I believe that because of this we have the opportunity to make Austin better in 10 years than it is today. But in order to do this we need to make sure we get council members who are dedicated to making sure we tackle all of these issues as soon as possible.
Click here to see the responses from other candidates. We haven't heard from Jennifer Gale, Sam Osemene or Ken Vasseau. If you talk to them or see them around, tell them to send us an email!
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"We need to use the strengths of both these methods in concert, ie using rail to transport large numbers of people to and from activity centers, and then busses to get people from their rail stop to their final destination."
Anybody who says this is immediately disqualified from being a serious candidate on transportation issues. Sad to say, my cycling friends, but people who drive today will never switch to transit if it involves a drive to a train station, a train ride, a bus ride, and a walk to their office. No, not even if gas is ten bucks a gallon - the time penalties with the transfer and the bus are just that large.
Which is why, of course, we need light rail and NOT commuter rail - but, unfortunately, we're not only getting commuter rail, but it's lying like a big shitty beast right on top of the same right-of-way a light rail line needs to be successful enough to justify taking away traffic lanes in its urban section.
I'm right there with you on the need for light rail, Mike. I wish those SoCo businesses like Uncommon Objects wouldn't have campaigned so hard against it in the 2000 election.
Seth
when i look at this man, i think: rabbinical scholar
this is appealing to voters
Mike, have you had the opportunity to live in a larger city with a decent mass trans. system like New York or Chicago? I lived in Chicago and walked to the El, took it into the loop and caught a bus to work. I wasn't the only one that did it either. The reason it is hard for most Austinites to fathom doing that is because they've never had the opportunity. People are actually wasting more time driving to work because you can't multi-task (such as checking email, doing work, napping, etc) like you can on a train or bus. So the "time penalty" argument is a false paradigm. Also, I already know people who have switched to public trans because of the cost of gas, and it's barely at $3.50. Maybe the people you know make a lot more than me and my friends, but $3.50 a gallon is a lot of money to me.
councilman, we are NOT those cities - and I'm a guy who DOES take the bus quite frequently. It's still a tremendous cost to spend an extra hour or two to save half a gallon of gas - nobody who can afford a car is going to spend that much time to save $1.75. If your friends do that, they are dumb. They could be earning a lot more money in the time they're wasting, and most of our bus routes are too jerky to get much done on anyways (barring the express buses, which are actually quite nice).
The reason, BTW, so many people do it in Chicago is that it costs so much more to park there - and, of course, traffic is a lot worse, so even with the transfer penalty and the fact that the last leg (the bus) is stuck in traffic, the transit trip is still more competitive proportionally than it will be here. The cost of daily parking in Austin, on the other hand, is fairly low today and only headed lower, since new construction has resulted in a net _increase_ in parking-per-head over the last 5-10 years.
Light rail straight to the major downtown destinations from the suburban park-and-rides, running through urban residential areas to pick up walk-up traffic, was the only thing we could have built that would have been competitive enough with the car to pull in 'choice commuters'. That's what all our peer cities that have succeeded have done (other mid-sized cities which have a lot of downtown employment but not a critical mass of same like the bigger cities). NOBODY has succeeded doing what we're about to do, and what you proposed, unless they started with that huge critical mass of transit-dependent commuters and several times larger business districts. You can't get there from here, not even at $6/gallon.
I've been writing about this stuff for 5 years, and talking about it for a lot longer than that, though, including those 5 years I spent on the UTC, when I got to be one of the three folks who got the first unveiling of the 2004 commuter rail bag of doo-doo. And in 2000, I was one of a couple of guys holding up pro-light-rail signs at 6th and Congress on election day.
Check out the crackplog if you really want to know more.
I should have stated, though, that the express buses cost more (on the order of $1.00 per day if you plan ahead, $2/day if you don't); so the "savings" on the bus if you use a half-gallon/day driving your car to/from work range from about $1.25 on the high-end (local bus, plan ahead) to actually costing $0.25 more on the low end (express bus, pay as you board).
Here's an old article on the subject of 'transportation microeconomics. My estimate was that it would take $10/gallon to make SUV-driving suburbanites really shift away from their vehicle - and they'd probably shift instead to a Prius.
Wow. Think of the time his “dumb” friends are wasting on public transportation when they can be one-issue cranks sending out hostile missives on a handful of local websites.
I think you should be applauded for how vigorously you've worked (and bitched and moaned) for a logical transit system. But in the end, I know you don't want it to come about, not that badly. Why? Well, I don't think you honestly believe hostile blogging is the most effective way to get the job done. Maybe you should...oh, I don't know—run for council?
In addition, I watched my dad take a combination of bus and train to work for over 10 years, and he definitely didn't have to. Ultimately, if you can't make good use of your time on a bus commute, the job you're commuting to probably isn't that important. Because it's yours. You, the guy who couldn't get work done or even prepare for work because the ride was too bumpy.
I agree that light rail would have been better than the commuter rail, but this is what we have now, and it makes more sense to work with it and try to improve upon it than throw up our hands and complain about everything. I really appreciate your service on the UTC, but during those 5 years, how far has our Urban Transportation in Austin come? Maybe we need more people who are willing to work with others rather than instinctively attack everything.
He may be a one-issue crank, but his one issue is a pretty damn good one. We've lost almost a decade of progress on a real light rail system that would actually improve transportation for a large chunk of Austinites, rather than the couple of thousand that the commuter rail will optimistically serve. A real light rail line would have also spurred the kind of walkable development that so many people claim to desire, rather than a few projects where people will still be driving for all of their non-work trips, and even their work trips once they get tired of planning their life around infrequent trains and shuttle buses. You can criticize people who can't be productive on a bus, but that's not going to get them out of their cars. An effective transportation system would get these tragically flawed individuals out of their cars.
A decade wasted. You only get around seven or eight of those, and if Demling's flawed understanding of what makes an effective transportation system ends up influencing what Austin does in the future, we could lose more decades.
Also, I assume OCEAN's request for restricting house sizes was just a way to reduce property values (not being able to build what newcomers want would reduce demand) so their property taxes wouldn't go up as much. That's a very reasonable thing to do. Someone needs to fix the way we do property taxes so neighborhood improvements and rising property values, which are normally good things, don't end up being viewed as bad things because of the corresponding tax hike. Demling's property tax freeze proposal would do that, but it also severely affects the housing market as a whole, as you can see in states with similar policies, like California and Massachusetts. Frozen property tax rates are a huge disincentive to sell, because once you sell, you have to buy a new house with a higher property tax rate, which will be even higher to compensate for the reduced revenue from older homeowners. When this happens, housing prices will go up even faster than they already do.
Such property tax freezes are usually politically popular, because they function as a tax on new homeowners, who are predominantly younger, while decreasing taxes for older people. Older people vote.
I don't know what the right solution to the property tax problem is, but one possibility I've been thinking about is taxing properties based on the percentile of prices they fall in when they are purchased. People wouldn't be punished when their neighborhoods improve, and if they move out to realize the gain on their property, they'll pay the same tax if they buy a house of the same quality in a lower value area. I don't know how improvements on properties would work, but I'm sure there's a reasonable way to deal with that.
Would. Coulda. Shoulda.
But why only go back a decade? If we're going to play this game, why not start with slavery?
As the city moves forward, at some point you have to realize—even if it does indeed mean accepting that some very good ideas were lost and golden opportunities missed—that you're not championing an alternative, but constantly harping on what you perceive to be the errors of others. Who wants to be that guy? Who wants to be around that guy?
Speaking of slavery, I’ve read mdahmus’ comments for months, including his guest piece—if he or anyone is too preoccupied with missed opportunities to make an existing or emerging system workable, then they're not only working against progress, they're enslaved to the idea that the only functional alternatives are nonexistent, and thus the game’s not worth playing and a huge folly for the suckers who try to participate. …and it must be oh-so bittersweet to have to be so patronizing, just to establish how you right you are.
To go on about how the unbuilt ship is already sunk because one design was favored over another is utterly pretentious and facile. Part of the pretension is that the city will never change, or that if does we’ll be unable to adjust.
Although, on the upside, it’ll be only a few short years until we get our “I told you so” moment from him. Man, I can hardly wait.
I'm not saying that he has chosen the most effective way to go about getting what he wants, since as you say, he hasn't really championed an alternative, but I don't think pointing out huge the consequences of poor decisions in the past have been. "Those who can't learn from the past" and all. His comments have been by far a net positive in my opinion, though I don't think his methods are as productive as they could be. His comments on this article in particular were spot on, and necessitated bringing up past mistakes because the article itself makes it seem like Demling doesn't think those were mistakes.
The unbuilt ship is sunk, and we won't get anything as good as that ship for decades. I agree with you that the real question is, "what's the best ship we can build going forward?"
Looking good, Shilli. Keep it up!
The unstoppable City Hall Hustle will be breaking down the Place 3 race this Thursday at the Chronicle's website.
Thanks, Wells. I enjoyed the Place 1 video. You're getting all technological over there, and here I am still typing words with my fingers like a sucker.
Benj, I spent 5 years on the Urban Transportation Commission - which is about all the investment I can make while still holding down a day job (and I'd obviously never get elected to city council, nor could I afford the pay cut). And, by the way, since no other rail advocates were willing to pipe the hell up in 2004, I threw it away so that somebody, at least, would have gone on the record as saying "this is wrong, and it's not going to work".
Championing an alternative at this point is truly limited to making sure people understand that this is a dead end - you don't keep plowing ahead when you find yourself in a dead end; you don't get out and start building the road even further down that dead end; you BACK THE FUCK UP AND GO THE RIGHT WAY.
There is no way to make this system workable. None. The parking spaces downtown aren't going to evaporate; which is what it would take to make the three-leg suburban commute remotely competitive (i.e. make it as expensive to drive as it is in Chicago, because the transit trip will always be 3 legs compared to 1 for the car). There's literally nothing else that can be done; other than a half-assed completely separate sort-of-light-rail line which I _do_ support, because it, at least, can serve people in urban Austin, although again, without being able to go out to the suburbs, it'll never have the political support for taking away a traffic lane where it really _needs_ to run (Guadalupe).
Oh, and Benj, I'm at the bare minimum a two-issue crank. You sell me awfully short by ignoring my crankery about VMU/density.
Finally, the El DOES come straight into downtown Chicago - plenty of people who ride it DO walk straight to work. Likewise, the LIRR DOES go straight into Manhattan - plenty of people who ride it DO walk straight to work. And even in Manhattan, where it's astronomically difficult to drive/park even compared to Chicago, and where the transfer from commuter rail is most likely to the subway - i.e. another fast, reserved-guideway (grade-seperated, even) train, the transfer penalty exists and is an issue (that's why they're wanting to spend gigabucks to bring the LIRR farther in).
Nearly zero of the 2000-max riders of our commuter rail line will be able to walk to work (ref the 1/4 mile walk rule). I suppose if the concierge at the Hilton wants to, he can. That's about it.
A voice in my head which sounds kinda like a coworker of mine who has spent a lot more time in Chicago than me told me it's very unusual to have to take a bus from the El in Chicago; that as long as you're inside the loop, you would essentially always be within walking distance of an El station.
So there's that.
people just won't stop driving until it's easier to take public transportation (or bike) than to drive. i drove to work every day when i lived in austin (it would've taken about two hours and three buses for me to get to work--no joke). i live in boston now and i take the subway or bike not because i really care about the world, but because a) traffic is awful b) the city is impossible to navigate and c) parking is ungodly expensive. additionally, i have bike lanes and
until traffic/parking/something gets truly difficult in austin, people will keep driving. it makes me kinda sad to say it, but if i moved back to texas i'd probably be merging on to mopac every day. it's all about convenience.
kerry, there's a continuum - at the present time almost nobody who owns a car will leave it at home (just oddballs like me, from time to time); but there's a middle spot in between where good light rail like 2000's plan would have made it almost as quick to take the train for lots of people and more reliable for everybody. And unlike the bus, people will and can work on the train -- if it doesn't take an extra hour or two per day, that is.
But as soon as you get into this nonsense about not serving central Austin at all, and requiring suburbanites to transfer to a shuttle bus at the end, well, anybody who has any experience at a real workplace with people who drive can tell you how attractive that'll be.
Mike,
I agree with Benj and the others who have commented that your tactics are counterproductive to your agenda. You're attacking the candidate who offers you the best chance of being listened to. Instead of attacking Demling, why don't you remind people who opposed light rail in the 2000 election.
Seth
Seth,
I'll be doing the same attack on anybody who expresses a belief that continued investment in commuter rail which will never and can never serve Austinites is a good idea. I expect to need to do the same for other candidates as well.
But, yes, I attack Mike Krusee all the time; even though the rest of the establishment here has apparently forgotten who it was who wrote the bill that forced Cap Metro to go to the polls before they were even half ready because he's now willing to say he supports urban development. Too late, Mike.
Well, be my guest, but the net effect of your campaign is that you've joined the anti-rail forces who scuttled the initiative in 2000.
"Costs too much, does too litle" wasn't that the sign I saw in the windows of shops on South Congress such as Uncommon Objects back in 2000? You've aligned yourself with such Light Rail foes as Max Nofziger, Texas Monthly publisher Mike Levy, and Gerald Daugherty. They were bolstered by skewed 'research' produced by the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Before he died of being overweight, the TPPF's director was Tex Lezar, who was married to Merrie Spaeth. Astute observers of political smear campaigns may remember her as the mastermind of 2004's 'Swift Boating' of John Kerry.
Those are the heads that deserve to hang on our pikes.
Seth
Seth,
Actually, the people who voted "yes" in 2004 are the best allies of those 2000 "no" guys. Because, as in South Florida, once the service opens and it becomes clear to choice commuters what they face to actually ride it, they _won't_, and the public perception will be "rail doesn't work".
That is, if I can't get enough people to understand that the real problem was that we built a shitty rail line that would never have worked no matter what - and that there ARE rail solutions that DO work. It's pretty damn hard being the only guy in this town who is carrying this load. Help is welcome. By the way, making these same points only AFTER the train starts running doesn't work - it plays right into the hands of the Daughertys who will gladly trumpet that you're just making excuses after the fact.
This, by the way, is why relatively few of that "no" crowd opposed commuter rail in 2004, in case you were wondering. Strategically, passing it might be the best thing that ever happened to them. Suburban voters with little experience with transit see light rail success stories as in Dallas and Houston and Minneapolis and elsewhere and vote for expansion. Suburban voters who see media coverage of a train that nobody but bums and students ride, like Tri-Rail, end up learning a lesson that's very hard to un-learn.
I wish more people would die from being overweight.
Well, not people actually. Just egos.
city hall hustle (part 1)
...too...many...comments...
I just want to add what really DIDN'T sell me on Demling was his little speech at the Misprint Beard and Mustache competition. The MC practically had to had to coax him into talking about running for city council, and to paraphrase, he had this to say about his campaign: "You know, I'm for sustainable growth, blah blah blah." The "blah blah blah" part is a direct quote. It's nice to see him actually discussing the issues here.
Please please please don't vote for Meeker!! The more I hear him, the more apparent it is he is a con man! Plus, he flat-out lied at the Real Estate forum. If you can't or won't vote for anyone currently on the council (and I can't) then give your vote to Demling. At least he is sincere.
vote for the beard! vote for demling!