It's not pedestrians that Hyde Park really hates, it's simply change of any kind. So I have an idea for Hyde Park: Let's build a giant wall around the neighborhood with no entrance or exit. They can fend for themselves and we can forget about them and get on with making a future for Austin.

I can't believe the level to which these neighborhood associations and incumbent landowners have this city by the balls. Does Hyde Park have photos of some secret city council drug and sex orgy?

The funny thing is that Hyde Park used to define itself with 45th street as its northern border. Above 45th was 'Highland Addition.' Looks like a power-grab to me.... And I live in this neighborhood.

Seth

When I had friends living in Hyde Park there was this one lady who would go knocking on the front door of any house where a car in the driveway was blocking the sidewalk, thereby forcing the parade of baby strollers and retirement walkers to break their stride.

It came off as overly 'pedestrian friendly' to me.

My guess is that Hyde Park's neighborhood association doesn't want it to be pedestrian friendly for anyone OUTSIDE of Hyde Park.

51st Street west of Airport shouldn't be considered Hyde Park. As far as I'm concerned, that's North Loop.

HPNA co-opted the Highland Addition after the Airport moved. Convenient, eh? All these Granola Mafiosos need to saddle up with Jeff Jack and get the hell out of town by sundown. They can go create their little hippie utopias in Brenham or some other unsuspecting burg.

I tell you what, they had no problem signing off on trashing the ugly and CHEAP little duplexes on 51st where Area 51 is now at 4 or 5 years ago.

Dear Austin Neighborhood Associations,

We are smart, and no longer buying what you are selling:

http://austinzoning.typepad.com/austincontrarian/2008/04/this-is-pretty.html#comment-112246152

We can say we're not buying it all we want - but you'd better be letting your city council know you're not buying it, because Karen McGraw's band of NIMBY warriors has nothing but time to spend on this stuff. All they hear, in other words, is from those guys.

Thanks for including that link, Seth. I just sent the mayor and council a letter letting them know what I think.

Okay, I emailed city council. I probably rambled and overdid it, but at least I tried:

Mayor and City Council,

Please allow me a few moments to register my displeasure with the current decision to block pedestrian and bicycle access to 50th street, in relation to the development plans for the Game Warden Academy site.

I am no longer buying what the Hyde Park Neighborhood Association is selling. They claim the development needs more parking for visitors, as Rowena Street is too narrow. Today it is a parking issue (again). Tomorrow it may be drainage, blocked views, or neighborhood character preservation. Call it what they will, but it smells to me like routine NA obstructionist tactics and da facto blackmail, designed to extract concessions from the developers and the city. Yet another dishonest argument, hiding people's true motives. If Rowena Street is too narrow for on-street parking, then post signage disallowing on-street parking for everyone, including the residents of Rowena Street.

I live in a neighborhood in central Austin. Down on the corner is a church. On Sundays, they don't have enough parking and people park all along the nearby streets, including right in front of my house. Sometimes it's a little hard to navigate my car through the narrow lanes. Also, visitors to the nearby retirement home often park in front of my house. None of this bothers me, because I realize it's all part of living in a dynamic community. The church and the retirement home are part of my city and their users and visitors are part of Austin. This is what it means to live in a real neighborhood. We are connected.

Do not allow a selfish, vocal minority (many of whom simply placed a check mark beside "I oppose this development" on a pre-printed form) to continue holding our city hostage out of fear of change.

Please consider how these decisions impact the overall character and accessibility of Austin, beyond just the adjacent incumbent landowners. Please consider re-opening the public hearing on this issue.

Thank you.

w7cook, thank you for your comment. My understanding from the city council meeting transcript is that there was an agreement between the Hyde Park Neighborhood Association and the developer that the HPNA would support the zoning request if there was no bike or pedestrian access between the development and the neighborhood. If that is not accurate, please let me know.

I think you are right that this is a global vs. local issue. The people with local interests (the neighbors and the developer) came to an agreement that worked for them, but hurt everyone else. People aren't going to show up at a city council hearing to represent these diffuse global interests - that is what city council is supposed to do. The point of my post was to inform those people with global interests that in this case they were not well represented.

The reason the post is about this specific incident is that this happened yesterday. That said, I hope that some global change comes about because of it. New developments go up all over the city all the time. Next time, I hope everyone involved will push harder to extend the grid and embrace those new developments instead of cutting them off and forcing everyone into cars.

Ooops.. I had said on another blog that I didn't agree with the decision. I'm a bicyclist myself, and i'm in favor of open access. Unfortunately this is a fairly local issue, because this property is already boxed in on two sides: UT fields to the west and some kind of UT archery parcdel to the south. So its unlikely that anybody outside the development will be able to ride through it to get anywhere, even if it were open to Rowena. I think that if it were truly connected on all sides, that Rowena residents wouldn't be worried about it. As it stands, we are talking about a very large development that would only have to entrances: one on a main street, and the other right into a very narrow neighborhood street. I can understand why they don't want to be the only other "pressure valve" for this development. But we can't yell at UT for being closed, so we yell at the neighbors. Ideally it would be open on at all four sides. But, its not an ideal situation, so I'm not sure what the right answer is.

Hi,

I live in Hyde Park and I have to represent the overwhelming majority of this neighborhood who DOES NOT support this nonsense. We also think the VMU is a good idea, among other things. I am very sad. This is not why I moved here.

There is actually just a HANDFUL of people on the neighborhood association, in non term limited positions who see themselves as the ultimate arbiters of taste. They are NOT acting according to the wishes of the vast majority of residents in Hyde Park. They are folks who like their little slice of power and are actually quite impossible and condescending when residents even question their supreme and perfect notion of planning.

I'm tired of just reading the listserv and shaking my head. If you're a resident of Hyde Park and want to change things, email me at savehydepark@gmail.com. I think this will only work if we try and match their organization.

Vigilance!

Seth,

They have owned their houses for decades enjoying the big quiet field behind them.

Exactly. You've made my point for me. This is not really about parking, it's about long-time incumbents with a sense of entitlement. I do not believe it's reasonable to expect that just because you own a piece of land and have lived somewhere for a long time, you have somehow earned a Get-Out-Of-Development-Free card. Cities, neighborhoods, and streets change over time. That's part of urban living. There is a need for housing (of all types) in central Austin; it's not 1965 any more. If the residents don't agree with choices the city leaders are making, then I encourage them to exercise their right to vote and replace those politicians. But this project-by-project, lot-by-lot battle is not in Austin's best interest.

Also, I find your use of uppercase to paint all developers as untrustworthy to be RIDICULOUS. It only gives away your bias. But of course some developers are untrustworthy, just like some members of all professions and groups. Such as, say, neighborhood associations.

Perhaps when NAs and residents stop raising the perennial bugaboos of "apartments," "condos," and "developers," we will stop assuming those NAs and residents are untrustworthy.

robot,

Trustworthiness is not part of the developer business model. Good will within the community does not land the next contract. The money for developers is in the short term while the community must deal with the long-term consequences. If it weren't for neighborhood associations and zoning, developers would carpet every city with strip malls and townhouses. That gargbage makes developers rich.

You don't think the rowena residents have a right to be concerned that the result of installing condos might fuck up their neighborhood? You don't think they have a right to try to negotiate with the developer? The developer wasn't against blocking off 50th street, btw. It looks like the only protest is from you, me, and mike. Let me point out that the developer doesn't give two shits about the grid or a bike-friendly city. Anything to get the project moving forward.

Sent my email to city council today recommending permit parking.

Seth

I asked the HP newsgruop for some explanation of the issues involved, and here is what I got back:

I asked for some details about what happend in he meetings, and this is what I got back, from someone more closely involved in the issue. Note that the city hasn't done any traffic studies in 51st either:

CIS approached Hyde Park Planning Team last August about buying and developing the TPWD Game Warden Tract. CIS was intent on filing a zoning case and the state was intent on selling the property. The neighbors in the surrounding area were later invited to meet with the developer to voice their concerns, etc.

A little bit of reference:
This planned development by CIS is NOT low density!! The developer wants to zone it Multifamily (MF4 and MF2) and the site plan calls for something like 150 units/487 bedrooms. The main entrance to this development is on 51st street. 51st Street has sidewalks on both sides of the street as well as east and west official bike lanes. The development property is bounded on the South by UT Archery fields, and on the West by Waller Creek and UT Intramural Fields. There is NO access whatsoever to the UT areas except from 51st Street.

The only other access to the proposed development is from "50th Street", which is actually more like a driveway off of Rowena Ave rather than an actual street. The property already has a fence and a locked gate at this location. Rowena is, in fact, a very narrow street with no sidewalks.

During negotiations with the developer, neighbors expressed much concern over the high density of the development and for the parking and traffic problems that it would create. The developer was unwilling to back down on the number of units/bedrooms that they wanted to build and they also did not want to commit to guest parking spaces. (I'm sure someone can give you the exact spaces per bedroom that the developer's design showed)....but the neighbors and the planning team agreed that it was clearly inadequate.

Rowena residents had the additional concern that, because of the density of the development and because there were not sufficient parking spaces designed within the multifamily development and because of the refusal of the developer to commit to guest parking, that Rowena would be used as an alternate parking lot for residents and guests of that development. Because of these concerns, the developer happily agreed to keep the gate on "50th Street" closed to traffic, bikes, and pedestrians so that people would not park-and-walk from Rowena. HPNA agreed. End of issue... or so we thought.

Unfortunately, the issue came up again during the City Planning Commissioners meeting because one of the Commissioners mistakenly thought there was bike/pedestrian access from the CIS property to the University of Texas fields on the West (there is not). And he felt there should be bike/pedestrian access from Rowena all the way to the University Intramural fields through the CIS property. (The University will not allow access to their property, and all the fields are completely fenced.)

Because Rowena is such a narrow street (in fact, it is one of the narrowest of the avenues), and because it lacks sidewalks, it really does not make an adequate...or safe!!!!...pedestrian/bike access into the heart of Hyde Park. Thankfully, City Council saw the problem and agreed to keep the 50th street access closed, as had been previously agreed to by the developer.

If it had not been for the stupid misunderstanding by the Planning Commissioner concerning access to the University via Rowena, this issue would probably never have come up at the City Council meeting, thus providing fodder for the press and uninformed UTC members to create rabid blogs about the neighborhood being anti-bike and anti-pedestrian. There actually ARE official North-South bike routes through our North Hyde Park neighborhood from 51st to 45th Streets. (I think the official marked bike routes are Ave G or H...I can't remember which ones at the moment.)

spacefeed,

Although not a HP resident, I am encouraged by your comment above. I sure hope you're not a HPNA troll attempting to gather up names of your opponents. Call me paranoid, but this is, after all, the internet.

I've never believed that the majority of HP residents are responsible for this, or any previous nonsense. As is always the way with these things, it is no doubt a small, intolerant, self-sustaining vocal minority. Sadly, people only tend to get passionately involved with groups that oppose things.

I don't know how the HPNA works, but I assume anyone can pay dues and join, and then vote on the NA leadership, correct? If the majority of HP residents do not support the direction of their current NA, then I suggest banding together, joining, and voting out the incumbents. Besides giving an organized voice to the majority, it would certainly go a long way towards changing the attitude some people have towards HP in general.

Good luck.

For the record:

- I am not a developer.
- I am not a relative or friend of any developer.
- I do not own any construction-related business.
- I do not live in Hyde Park.
- I do not own any land in or around Hyde Park.
- I am not a cyclist, and only occasionally a pedestrian.
- I have no particular love of strip malls.
- I am not rich.
- I do use the Hyde Park gym and sometimes eat at various Hyde Park establishments.

But I am growing tired of watching the NAs put the screws to various urban density and transit projects, impacting the overall long-term quality of life for Austin.

I am simply someone who enjoys living in Austin, and would like to see this city grow up in a smart way.

So I guess you could say my interest extends beyond my bank account and the edge of my own property.

First of all, as I said earlier, if the neighborhood is so opposed to high density development, where was the outcry over the District 51 project before it was developed? If everyone's been living on Rowena for decades, it seems like one or two of them might have opposed that project.

Secondly, when I lived on 51st street, there were absolutely NOT sidewalks on the north side of 51st street, running from oh... about DUVAL all the way to LAMAR. You can look at the street view of google maps to see that there are still no sidewalks there which makes me question how well anyone on the HP newsgroup knows the area. I'd venture to say they don't even know about the damn state hospital cemetery sitting across from the tract.

If anyone does check out the googlemaps, look at the state of the "bike lane" as well. That's a joke.

What I'm suggesting is that Rowena, Avenue F, 51st, and whatever the hell else leads to this development should be widened, there should be sidewalks installed on those streets and they should be bike accessible. If CIS is going to build on that tract, and they will if the state is really wanting to sell it or has already sold it to them, then the HP newsgroup needs to start focusing on making the avenues into that space as safe as possible for everyone.

See if they can get a damn bus route to detour through there while they're at it.

Robot,

This is my last post on this topic addressing you.

I can't believe your bullshit complaints about my language and hyperbole when you started this whole thread talking about 'balls,' sex orgy photos, and building a wall around Hyde Park.

Then when I prompt you to admit the connection you have to this issue, you list 8 things that don't pertain to you and then say you exercise at HP Gym. Prior to this zoning discussion your last comment was in 2007 about a music list.

Methinks Angry Robot is a sockpuppet robot controlled by developers. No sentient being would have taken issue with me calling developers "NOTORIOUSLY UNTRUSTWORTHY."

Seth

There are also almost no crosswalks across 51st other than Duval and Guadalupe so if you live on the North Loop NA side and you want to walk down to Austin Books, there's really no safe place to cross the street to use the sidewalk on the Hyde Park NA side. They should add those too.

seth, the ironic thing is that the process which produces the most one-size-fits-all-crap is the strict (suburban) zoning which these neighborhoods cling to. High parking requirements and low height limits are what makes strip malls happen.

spacefeed, please post some stuff on the hydepark group. They tolerate me because I'm nearby (possibly even within the proximity limit to be considered for membership), but many are disinclined to listen because I'm technically in NUNA.

M1EK,

Thanks for pointing out that irony. I tried pointing out a similar irony during the RG4NC debacle. Namely that maybe if residents had supported density in and around their neighborhoods all along, the area wouldn't be stagnating and the NC plot might have looked more desirable to someone other than Wal-Mart.

When are these close-in neighborhoods going to let go of the quaint fantasy that they are still suburbs?

They speak of the unintended consequences of development, yet appear to not understand (or care?) how their own inwardly focused micro-managerial planning decisions have consequences for the rest of the city around them. They act surprised when residents of other neighborhoods take exception to their positions, as if, for example, the rest of us should have no interest in what happens along, say, Guadalupe.

It's not as wide? I'm just guessing though.