Better Know a Candidate: Jennifer Kim

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?

The McMansion ordinance has been successful in giving single-family residential neighborhoods necessary compatibility standards for new construction. Where it has failed is that city hasn't done its homework for establishing sub-districts in neighborhood planning areas. Not every area within a neighborhood planning area is the same. If we are to customize the ordinance to meet the specifications of individual neighborhoods, we need to do it with real data on home sizes within uniformly establish sub-districts.

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?

While I favor the concepts of VMU, such as mixed-use living and focusing density along the corridors, I understand the concerns of the neighborhood associations. I must support the neighborhood applications. We need to devote more resources to working with residents on individual VMU cases to give them the tools to make the decisions that are right for them. I hope we can continue a dialogue on vertical mixed-use and how we can make it compatible with the neighborhoods.

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?

The best way for the city to discourage the typical sprawl, suburban-type development is to work within the members of CAMPO to establish a regional land-use management policy to foster mixed-use activity centers. At the same time, we need to be focusing on acquiring fiscal resources for a regional mass transit plan to connect these centers to reduce vehicle miles traveled and traffic congestion.

5. Homes near downtown are generally more expensive than homes in the suburbs. Should the city do anything to change that? What?

We need to start thinking of housing as infrastructure, which is why I am working with staff and community leaders on a comprehensive market study to analyze our current housing levels and the gaps in housing need. I believe every neighborhood, whether in downtown or in Oak Hill, needs to have a mix of housing sizes and prices to provide for versatility for families to continue to grow in their communities.

Our city is losing its proportionate share of families. I started the Families and Children taskforce to look at housing size and affordability and make recommendations on policies the city can consider to make sure our homes are large enough to accommodate an averaged-sized family and they can still afford basic necessities like child care.

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?

Austinites do have an addiction to cars, but for many, that's the only way to get to work or go shopping or just serve their basic, daily needs. We must provide adequate alternative methods for transportation, such as light rail, commuter rail, and rapid bus. Inter-modal transportation needs to be worked into our planning efforts to allow flexibility to adjust to how people move and how they connect to the various transit systems. Sidewalks, bikeways, bus routes, arterials, and rail lines all need to be included in the same planning process.

Our land-use decisions need to focus on providing a mix of uses, so that a family could serve all of its daily needs within a quarter-mile radius. This will reduce vehicle miles traveled and traffic congestion across the city.

I am a person who finds it refreshing to walk to the store or a nearby restaurant instead of taking my car to drive. I also look forward to using the commuter rail when it opens later this year when I need to travel north.

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?

I am fully supportive of the efforts to transform Austin into a world-class bicycle city. The Street Smarts Taskforce set a goal to have 8% of our commuters ride bicycles by 2015. To do this, we need to make bicycling safer by investing in significant improvements to our existing bicycle network and provide education to help bicyclists and drivers coexist on the same roadways.

I do own a bike, and I bike once in a while, mostly recreationally.

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?

There are times when I am able to get concessions and am willing to support a measure. I did not support the initial loan terms for Las Manitas as I thought they were too generous. Since the loan seemed to have support from all the other council members, I worked to increase the amount of the loan that would be repayable in exchange for my support. In hindsight, the council should never have pursued this path.

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 in some ways it is better - we have more good paying jobs, we have more local, independent businesses, and we have more parks and cultural and arts facilities. And in some ways it has gotten worse - the traffic, air pollution, the growing wage gap and we are losing middle class families with children to outlying areas.

I am an optimist, and I do not believe in being complacent. I think Austin will be better 10 years from now, but only if we have good national and state leadership, local leaders who are planning ahead and building consensus and creating a positive vision for keeping Austin affordable, livable and economically vibrant. That is why I have dedicated my life to public service for the past decade, and that is why I would like to continue to serve the wonderful people of Austin for another city council term.

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!