Austin Contrarian

If Okies can do it . . .

Oklahoma City plans to re-route an interstate highway away from downtown:

In Oklahoma City, the interstate will be moved five blocks from downtown to an old railroad line. The new 10-lane highway, expected to carry 120,000 vehicles daily, will be placed in a trench so deep that city streets can run atop it, as if the highway weren't there.

The old highway will be converted into a tree-lined boulevard city officials hope will become Oklahoma City's marquee street.

By tearing down the Crosstown Expressway, the city hopes to spur development of 80 city blocks stretching from downtown to the Oklahoma River — an area that contains vacant lots, car repair shops and a few small homes.

"We've always been a good place to live, but we've never had a city we could show off," Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett says. "Moving the expressway makes it possible for a day to come when hundreds or thousands of people will live downtown."

The project will cost $557 million, mostly federal and state funds. The city will pay to spruce up the boulevard, build parks and put a pedestrian bridge over the new below-ground interstate.

If Oklahoma City can do this, why not Austin? 

Sound familiar?

From the Seattle Times:

For every affluent urban area — whether it's San Francisco or New York or Boston — there comes a tipping point at which the people who give the city its character, who help make it so desirable, risk being priced out of their own creation.

Can Seattle really claim to be a livable city when the median home value is half a million dollars and so many who live here feel they may not be able to anymore?

"We live in the same place as the richest person in the world, and that's pretty unique," says Cone, 35. But with the area's wealth comes a trade-off for anyone whose name is not Bill Gates.

"I'm just glad I was able to buy a house," Cone says. "I feel like I just kind of squeaked in."

WHETHER SEATTLE has reached a tipping point is an open question, but for people like Cone it's a burning one.

A Seattle native and the child of artists, he grew up in the thick of things, hanging out at Pike Place Market, catching $1.50 movies at the old Coliseum Theater on Fifth Avenue.

Cone would go on to co-own World Pizza on Lenora Street between Second and Third avenues, a cult favorite with the same hipster clientele that made nearby establishments like the Crocodile Café popular stops on the then-burgeoning Belltown nightlife circuit in the early 1990s.

People who were fretting about the city's high cost of living in those days — as many who were watching districts like Belltown and Capitol Hill begin their rise to hipness did — surely had no idea how good they had it.

Today the old World Pizza location is a Starbucks, the Coliseum is a Banana Republic, the Crocodile has closed and Cone has fled the city center.

Cone and his former girlfriend, Alyssa Stevens, started an antiques business specializing in estate-sale items eight years ago. They opened in Pioneer Square, but moved the business to the industry-fringed Georgetown neighborhood last year to escape the district's parking woes and high rents.

Entrepreneurs like Cone, creative types and everyday workers are all hoping to make a stand on the cheaper fringes of the city to prevent being pushed out altogether. For some, that tipping point is dangerously close.

When asked about affordability in Seattle, the first thing Georgetown Records saleswoman Tina Forbes says is the story of so many who are disoriented and frustrated by the fast pace of change here: "I'm getting ready to leave — Portland, man!"

"We just keep getting pushed farther and farther south," Forbes says of people like her who've dealt with rising rents and apartments going condo, which has happened to her twice already.

"Seattle's gonna lose all of its cool people," Forbes says. "Developers need to slow... the heck ... down."

Things aren't quite this bad in Austin . . . yet.  I'd give us two, maybe three, years (assuming our economy holds together).   

But maybe I'm looking at things backward.  New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle are ultra-hip places.  There's really no evidence that running off low-income households, or forcing them into crowded housing, has made these cities any less desireable.  Perhaps we Austinites should be trying to emulate their success, rather than wringing our hands over rising home prices. 

Here's the agenda I'd propose for propelling Austin into the "Superstar City" pantheon:  (1) discourage the construction of traditionally affordable housing like garage apartments and duplexes; (2) restrict the amount of land available for multi-family housing; (3) strictly limit multi-family density; (4) limit the construction of upscale condos and townhomes in order to force affluent homebuyers to compete for the scarce supply of close-in housing; (5) ban small-lot and "urban home" zoning; (6) require property owners/developers who build dense developments to shoulder the financial burden for things like affordable housing, parks and infrastructure; and (7) impose onerous design standards to increase the cost of new construction.

We can call it the "progressive" agenda.  We'll be in the superstar ranks in no time.

Swamped

Really, really swamped.

It's frustrating because the Residential Development Standards Task Force is recommending some blog-worthy amendments (pdf) to the McMansion ordinance.

I can only muster the energy to quote.  My favorite recommendation will close that loophole for "massive" carports:

ISSUE

Parking area open on two or more sides:  Currently, if an applicant is proposing to construct a carport, they are allowed to take up to 450 sq ft from the FAR [floor-to-area ratio] calculation.  A carport is defined as a parking area that iS open on two or more sides, but the definition does not specifically state of [sic] how large the opening may be.  Many proposed carports have only partial openings which contribute mass to the structure.

TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATION

Give a specific measurement (percentage) of the opening of the carport.  The ordinance should state that in order to get the carport/parking exemption, the open sides of a carport must be clear and unobstructed by any materials for a minimum of 80% of the area measured below the top of the top wall plate to the finished floor of the carport.  RDCC can waive up to 25% of the required opening (80% can go to 60%).  (Section 2.8.1)

Want to put up a tasteful lattice on the side of that carport?  Nope, not even the RDCC can authorize it.  Get a bigger lot or build a smaller home.  We Austinites evidently prefer clear and unobstructed views of the neighbor's 1977 Gremlin to a little "mass" (a/k/a "a screen"). 

Street View of the Hyde Park "no walk-or-bike" tract

For the curious, here are shots of the Hyde Park tract that will be gated and locked to keep pedestrians and cyclists from using 50th St. (clipped from Google's Street View).  First, the overhead shot of the 50th St. entrance to the tract (the tract is on the left):

View Larger Map

Next, the street-level view of the 50th St. entrance (sorry, just a jpeg -- you can get to the Google street view using the link immediately above):

50th Street, of course, is a public right-of-way.  As you can see, there is already connectivity for cars as well as for walkers and bikers.   The neighborhood plan, presumably, will require the developer to replace the chain-link fence with a lockable gate  capable of blocking foot and bike traffic.

Seriously, don't blame last weekend's parking fiasco on neighborhoods

I'm frequently critical of Austin's neighborhood associations, but even I don't blame the Bouldin Creek neighborhood for last weekend's parking fiasco, when simultaneous events (Carmen at the Long Center, a convention at Palmer, and the Reggae Festival at Auditorium Shores) snarled traffic for hours and caused patrons to miss their events.

The City's line is, "Hey, we wanted to put more parking there but the neighborhood associations objected."

Even doubling the Palmer parking garage's 1,200 spaces would not have dented the demand for parking last weekend.  Regardless, the City cannot, and should not, build the parking necessary to accommodate the "perfect storm."  That's a horribly inefficient use of money and space.  And, frankly, who wants to line one of our premiere parks with 5-6 story parking garages?

It's not even clear to me that the neighborhoods were acting selfishly.  Neighborhood associations usually demand more parking than is necessary because the spillover ends up on neighborhood streets.  I'm sure Bouldin Creek knew at the time that less parking on site would mean more parking in the neighborhood streets.

Austin Lyric Opera's patrons and others who use Long Center, Palmer and Auditorium Shores need to know they can get to their events.  (I'm sure the opera lost subscribers last weekend.)  The solution is better traffic management, more shuttles, more buses on Cap Metro's regular routes, and better publicity of alternative parking.  We can't build our way out of messes like last weekend's. 

Saving Hyde Park from pedestrians and bicyclists

Neighborhoods impose conditions on new development all the time.  Some of the conditions are sensible.  Some are strange.  Some are merely mildly irritating.  But a "no pedestrian/bicyclist" provision?

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wants to sell off a tract abutting the UT Intramural Fields (the Game Warden Academy site).  The tract borders Hyde Park, with 51st Street running along the northern border and Rowena Street along the eastern border.  50th Street dead-ends in the center of the tract's eastern boundary (blue arrow):

The land is currently unzoned because it was owned by the state.  The developer wants to put low-density multi-family (possibly detached single family) on a narrow strip immediately to the west of Rowena, and denser multi-family on the remainder of the property.  Presumably, the thin tract will serve to buffer the single-family homes on Rowena.

It's triggered a predictable zoning fight, with some neighbors complaining about the increased density and traffic and campaigning to turn the property into a park.  Garden-variety stuff.

What is noteworthy is the agreement the developer reached with the neighborhood.  (See p. 43 of the staff report.) 

It's not particularly noteworthy that the agreement requires the units to be listed for sale; we explicitly discriminate against rental housing all the time in Austin.  (Remember this one, though, the next time Hyde Park leaders lecture the rest of us about the shortage of affordable rental housing.)   

Nor is it noteworthy that the agreement bars vehicle access to the property via 50th Street.  That's understandable.  The neighbors on Rowena and streets to the east don't want a surge in traffic on their streets.  Cars will have to use 51st Street to get in and out of the development. 

No, the unusual provision is this:  The agreement bans pedestrian and bicycle access to 50th Street.  Pedestrians and bicyclists will be barred from accessing a public right-of-way that dead-ends at their property's boundary.  The neighbors just east of the development not only want to keep out the new cars, they want to keep out the new residents themselves -- whether they're on foot or on bike.  Residents who naturally would like to stroll through their new neighborhood will instead be forced onto 51st Street.

Maybe they'll take the hint and stay on it.

It gets worse.  The fire department might require access to the new development via 50th Street.  The agreement recognizes this possibility and specifies that the 50th-street entrance be gated with emergency vehicle access only.  In other words, even if AFD requires that 50th Street be extended into the development, the developer must put up a gate to keep the peds and bicyclists from wandering into Hyde Park proper.

The Planning Commission, to its credit, not only approved the zoning, but recommended that the Council require pedestrian and bicyle access.

Thus it came before Council Thursday night.  There was no debate.  There was no discussion . . . except for Councilmember Cole's motion to adopt the ban on bicycle and pedestrian access to 50th Street.  To which the other council members meekly acquiesced.

Oh, by the way, here was item 63 on Thursday's agenda:

Approve a resolution supporting efforts to upgrade the City of Austin’s bicycle network by establishing the city’s intent to become the first Texas city to attain Gold level bike-friendly status from the League of American Bicyclists; supporting the work of the Street Smarts Task Force January 2008; and directing the City Manager to study and report back to Council with recommendations for inclusion of the Street Smarts Task Force findings into the Austin Bicycle Master Plan. (Mayor Will Wynn Council Member Brewster McCracken Council Member Sheryl Cole)

"Bike friendly" indeed.

Correction:  I screwed up the orientation of the tract in the first draft.  (I had 51st on the east rather than the north.  Dumb.)  Since there were so many references to north, south, etc., I didn't note changes with strike-throughs because it was too distracting.

Baby steps toward new urbanism

The City Council has shown that it will spend money on new urbanist projects.  It is about to commit itself to investing millions of dollars to the Seaholm redevelopment.  It's spent who knows how much just planning for transit-oriented development around Cap Metro's commuter rail stations; it will take millions in infrastructure investment to spur the development the city wants.  Then there are Mueller and the Domain.  New urbanism can be expensive, but Council is willing to spend the dough.

Let me suggest my own new urbanist project (again).  It might not be as glitzy as the ones listed above, but I think it will yield a good return on investment (and I'm pretty sure that Andres Duany would approve):

Break up the super-blocks on South Congress and South Lamar.

Neither street may appear to have many super-blocks if you go solely by nominal block length.  The nominal block lengths are misleading, though.  When a street carries 38,000+ cars a day (S. Lamar) or 30,000+ cars a day (S. Congress), it is almost impossible to walk across it without a traffic light or signaled cross-walk.  The effective block length is the distance between street lights.  (And, no, the pedestrian "islands" on S. Congress made of giant tinker-toys don't count.)

Here are three of the South Lamar super-blocks:

• Lamar Square to Hether/W. Mary:  0.45 miles
• Oltorf to Bluebonnet:  0.45 miles
• Barton Skyway to Panther Trail:  0.54 miles

If you want to cross the street from the middle of one of these super-blocks, you have three choices:  (1) walk at least 0.4 miles out of your way to cross at a light; (2) dash into the center turn lane and hope you aren't run over before the traffic slows to a trickle; or (3) don't cross the street.

These aren't suburban frontage roads; these are South Austin's core streets and the gateways to downtown.  It is absurd for the city to treat them simply as commuter arterials. 

I'm not arguing that the City should interfere with rush-hour traffic; these are important commuter arterials.  Feel free to synchronize the new lights to maintain traffic flow.  But it's time to recognize that these streets serve not only commuters, they serve -- or ought to serve -- pedestrians as well.  Let's pick some of the low-hanging fruit.

Let Texadelphia worry about food-miles

I certainly don't care if someone wants to eats locally grown food.  If you prefer local food because it is fresher or tastier, great.  If you enjoy shopping at the farmer's market, swell.  Prefer local varieties?  Happy hunting. 

The "eat local" crowd does a fair amount of moralizing, though.  They frequently suggest that we all ought to be buying locally-grown food.  How far our food travels evidently has become a moral issue.  By reducing our food-miles, the argument goes, we will reduce our fuel consumption.

But "food-miles" is the wrong metric.  The correct metric is the amount of fuel used to transport a pound of food (or some other given amount).  We don't care how far our tomato traveled; we care how much fuel it took to get it from there to here.

I'm skeptical that moving food even long distances has to use much fuel per pound.  For example, an 18-wheeler can haul 30,000 pounds of tomatoes 1,500 miles from Florida to Texas at 5 mpg.  That's a hundred pounds per gallon. At $4/gallon of diesel . . . I'll save you the arithmetic:  that works out to just 4 cents to move one pound.  You'll burn more fuel per pound making a separate trip to the grocery store for bread and milk.  You'll probably burn more fuel per pound just backing your car out of the driveway to make a separate trip for bread and milk.

I realize it costs a lot more than 4 cents/pound to move those tomatoes from Florida to Texas.  The trucker has to be paid, the trucking company gets its cut, etc.  But we're worried about fuel.  A pound of food can travel a long way on just a tiny amount of fuel. 

The food-milers make another mistake, perhaps one worse than fixating on the wrong metric.  They ignore the fact that lots of energy is used at every step of the soil-to-plate cycle.  Fertilizer.  Irrigation.  Tilling.  Harvesting.  Storage.  Processing.  Transportation.  Everyone knows that the recent surge in food prices was caused by the sustained surge in fuel prices (aggravated by the government's edict that we fuel our cars with food). 

This is an important reason not to worry about fuel miles.  It's actually very, very tricky to calculate the amount of energy used to get food from the ground to the market.  Growing conditions matter a lot.  Florida growers can grow 2 or 3 times or more tomatoes per acre than Texas growers.  Local growers thus start at a huge energy disadvantage unless they are using radical farming methods that use no energy (also known as "subsistence farming").  It's quite possible that they cannot close the energy gap despite their advantage in transportation costs.   

Because the cost of energy makes up such a large percentage of the cost of food, it makes no sense to minimize just one component of the energy cost.    You'll be apt to maximize something else.  Just look at the price.  It may not be a perfect indicator of your food's energy cost, but it is the most reliable indicator you've got. 

Ed Wendler Jr. on Austin development

Wendler's column in this morning's Statesman had something to irritate (or please) everyone. 

He proposes in jest a charter election to settle all development issues once and for all.  Some of his "ballot propositions" are spot on; some are just perplexing.

Proposition No. 2: Whereas the City of Austin has determined that democracy is the best form of government, and whereas democracy depends on individual participation, and whereas local control, the more localized the better, is democracy at its purest, and whereas neighborhood groups represent localized democracy, therefore, be it resolved that neighborhood groups will hold an election on every zoning case or building permit and it shall take six of seven votes of the City Council to overturn the neighborhood decision. And that includes remodeling permits for every house.

Yep.  Call this the "RG4N philosophy" of development.  All development rights belong to the "community." In practice, this means those with a vested interest in opposing change, since those without a vested interest don't have any incentive to participate.  Bad idea.

Austin's philosophy right now is to specify in advance, in excruciating detail, what's ok and what's not.  It's an inflexible and cumbersome system.   I suppose if Austin's neighborhoods had absolute control over development within their boundaries, the developer could just pay them off at the beginning, and save a lot of time and trouble.  (Seriously, there are some land-use experts who claim that this system would be more efficient.  But since getting neighbors to agree on controversial land-use issues is like herding cats, in practice this would mean no new development ever.)

U.S. farm policy causes high home prices? Really?

I hate U.S. farm policy (particularly distortionary farm subsidies) as much as anyone.  But blaming it for high home prices?  Sharon Astyk says our "economic policies" are not only to blame for cheap food, but are also the root cause of . . . urbanization, which causes higher home prices:

[A]s Norberg-Hodge et. al point out, as the percentage of income spent on food fell, the percentage spent on housing skyrocketed. And these two things are entirely related. As the authors write,

This is a direct consequence of the same economic policy choices that supposedly lowered the cost of food. Those policies have promoted urbanization by sucking jobs out of rural areas and centralizing them in a relative handful of cities and suburbs. In those regions, the price of land skyrockets, taking the cost of homes and rentals with it.

Exactly which "economic policy choices" have promoted urbanization?  Here's a chart showing the growth in U.S. urban population since 1790:

Whatever "policy choices" we made were evidently put in place in 1840, and were enforced with an iron fist for the next 130 years.  Note that there has been only a modest increase in the urban population's percentage of total population since 1970 -- which is roughly when Nixon initiated the "keep food cheap at all cost" policy.

Growth in urban population did plateau briefly between 1930 and 1940.  One guess why.  Since depressions wipe out the economic opportunities available in cities, I suppose our refusal to self-impose depression-inducing economic policies is a "cause" of urbanization.  But who wants to campaign on the slogan, "The Great Depression:  the 'cure' for oppressive urbanization"?

Urbanization has indeed raised the price of land in cities and towns, but the increased opportunity, productivity and innovation created by cities have more than offset that cost.  (And while we are spending more on housing than the hearty yeomen of yesteryear, we may be getting a wee bit more for our money.)