Urban is Core - Austin Super Forum: Josiah James Ingalls

City Life

2. What is the city's role in creating jobs?

Attracting new businesses while helping small businesses succeed.

3. What should the city do to address conflicts between music lovers and neighborhood residents? Should the city implement any recommendations of the Live Music Task Force that have not already been implemented?

I feel that the City should not have noise ordinances from I-35 to Lamar and from the Capital to Town Lake to encourage live music to be downtown instead of in primarily residential areas.

4. What role do you think public art plays in the creation of the built environment? Do you consider public art an important part of urban development? If so, what are some ways to include and finance art in development?

I think that public art educates and reminds people of historical and cultural differences. Yes, I do consider public art an important part of urban development. I think that the City should encourage people to donate their art to their community, but I don’t think that the City should be funding art projects as long as we have a massive homeless problem, under funded educational system or any other human resource departments or programs that are under funded.

5. Sixth Street is arguably Austin's best-known brand, a National Registered Historic District, and the gateway between the Waller Creek District and the heart of downtown. Sixth Street is also primarily a nightlife district - crowded most nights, but quiet during the day. Are those in conflict? How should Sixth Street change?

Sixth Street should not change, because if you change Sixth Street then you begin to do away with Austin being the live music capital of the world and you do away with the millions of dollars of tax revenue that goes to the City to support other City needs.

6. The Waller Creek revitalization project could dramatically improve a sizable portion of downtown. As it stands today, which aspects of the plan are you for and which are you against?

I am against the planning as it stands now because it will displace residents from their neighborhoods and it does not offer protection for older and possibly historic structures.

Transportation

7. Access to downtown is difficult, and bound to become more difficult, due to congestion on our highways and arterial streets. What strategies would you support to make it easier for people to get downtown? How should those strategies be funded?

I feel that the City should start planning to put an upper deck and a lower deck on I-35 from one end of the City limits to the other end of the City limits. This can be funded with revenues that are already coming to the City if the City stops wasting money and begins to have proper management of road construction and City projects.

8. Part of the Envision Central Texas "Vision"; is more transportation choices, including transit options such as commuter rail, light rail, and rapid bus. Will you support planning for and implementing transportation choices, both as connectors of towns and activity centers and as a tool to guide future land-use? Do you support the streetcar system proposed as part of the Downtown Plan?

Yes, I would support planning for and implementing transportation choices. I do not support the streetcar system as part of the Downtown Plan because it will only add more financial burden to those people who rely on public transportation.

9. Bicycles are a cheap, effective way to meet many of our transportation, environmental and fitness goals. What are three things the City should do to encourage biking? Are you a cyclist? If so, how do you use your bike?

We should build and maintain bicycle lanes throughout the City, instruct the Police Department to keep cars from parking in bike lanes and to provide more bike parking. I am a cyclist and I use my bike for everyday transportation.

10. Most Austin residents pay about $5 a month for a transportation user fee on their utility bill to support transportation projects, but automobile projects get far more funding than bicycle projects. Would you support allowing bicyclists to opt for their user fee to go toward bike projects?

No.

11. The Great Streets program has shown promise on many streets downtown, but other streets have not seen any improvements years after implementation of the program. How should we speed up progress improving the walkability of Austin's streets?

Working to make the current sidewalks wheelchair accessible, doing a better job in making sure that our cross walk signals actually work properly, to instruct the Police department in pedestrian rights and right of way in order to start holding reckless drivers responsible instead of our current unspoken, unwritten policy of the driver is usually right in the event of an accident.

Parks

12. What are the elements of great urban parks? How should the City, or the City and private-sector partners, create and maintain quality parks and open space downtown and around transit centers?

A few of the elements of great urban parks are using native landscaping, safe playgrounds, pet clean up stations with ample supplies, plenty of trash cans and recycling bins and fencing around the park to protect children and animals from running into traffic. The City should invest in creating more parks, but it should not do so at the expense of further neglecting our homeless population, mental health crisis, and under funded educational systems.

13. In light of tight budgets, how can the City conserve, restore, and improve our parks and fulfill long-standing objectives like the Boardwalk Trail at Lady Bird Lake?

Stop wasting money.

Crime

14. Do you think Art Acevedo has done a good job so far as Police Chief? What changes do you think should be made to the ways Austin deals with crime?

No I do not think Art Acevedo has done a good job so far as Police Chief. The Police department should actually respond to all calls instead of only responding to what they consider to be serious crimes.

15. Many downtown businesses and visitors complain about panhandling. Should steps be taken to curb panhandling? Would you support adjusting current panhandling ordinances?

No. Instead we should focus on fixing the problems that cause homelessness which will fix the panhandling problem.

Urban Development

16. Will Wynn estimated that 80% of the taxes generated by downtown are used to subsidize city services and maintenance in other parts of the city. Should more of the property taxes generated downtown be used to help downtown? How would you improve city services and maintenance services downtown?

No, more of the property taxes generated downtown should not be used solely to help downtown. To improve services downtown we need to have proper management for road construction and city projects as well as preventing wasteful spending.

17. If you agree that sprawl is not a desirable development pattern and that a strong core is necessary for a strong city, what are some ways you would discourage sprawl, but encourage urban density and good urban design?

I do support urban density over sprawl development. I feel that the best way to help prevent sprawl development is to give stronger grandfather clauses to existing farmland and forest areas, as well as reducing the red tape and bureaucracy within our local government to make it easier for urban density development.

18. There have been problems implementing some neighborhood plans. What will you do to ensure consistent and fair implementation of the comprehensive plan? How would you engage the public in the development of a comprehensive plan?

I would ensure that the neighborhood plans are the foundation for the comprehensive plan in a way that is fair to all neighborhoods instead of benefiting some neighborhoods more than other neighborhoods.

19. Most social services in Austin are concentrated downtown. How are the social service providers, their clients, downtown businesses, our community and visitors affected by the location of these services downtown? Would you change the existing conditions?

Most City services need to be located downtown in order to make fair and equal access to these services. Yes, I would change the existing conditions by forcing our social services to work together instead of our current system of each social service working independently.

20. Are you committed to the concept of nodal (also referred to as activity centers) growth, as an alternative to sprawl development, as found in the Envision Central Texas "Vision"; and the CAMPO 2035 Draft Growth Concept?

I do not support any rail cars downtown because our current downtown development and roads do not support rail cars in a way that will still allow buses and automobiles to have equal and fair access to the downtown streets, also because it will make public transportation more costly to citizens that are lower income.

21. Do you think tearing down an existing 100-unit apartment complex and replacing it with a 200-unit complex increases or decreases overall housing costs? What other relevant effects does this type of redevelopment have?

It increases housing costs because the new structure is more valuable so therefore the owners of the property can charge more, plus it increases the values of surrounding properties thereby increasing the cost of housing for the surrounding neighborhood.

22. Do you think Austin is better now than it was 10 years ago? Do you think it will be better in 10 years than it is now?

I think some aspects of Austin are better than it was 10 years ago and other aspects of Austin are worse than it was 10 years ago. I also feel that the same will be true in 10 years from now.