Why South Lamar neighborhood groups prefer used car lots to office space

The South Austin neighborhoods are agitating for a new zoning classification:  "Mixed use -- retail and residential only."  (See the SLNA minutes.)  Apparently, they're worried that South Lamar will be overdeveloped with commercial and office space.

Why?

The South Austin neighborhoods are agitating for a new zoning classification:  "Mixed use -- retail and residential only."  (See the SLNA minutes.)  Apparently, they're worried that South Lamar will be overdeveloped with commercial and office space.

Why?

New construction is hardly a problem on South Lamar.  I've lived just off South Lamar for five years, and have driven it almost daily for seven years.  During that period, just a handful of new structures have been built along South Lamar between Barton Springs and Panther Trail (just north of Brodie Oaks).  A used car dealership.  The Walgreen's/Taco Xpress/condos at Bluebonnet (under construction).  A gas station.  That's about it.  A couple of other projects have been proposed for South Lamar; we'll have to see whether they materialize.

Several buildings have been renovated recently.  But the renovated buildings have been put to use as retail -- e.g., the Alamo Drafthouse off Treadwell.  We're hardly being overrun with new office construction.

I would have thought the neighborhood associations would be gung-ho for redevelopment on South Lamar.  We have one of the densest concentrations of used car lots and automobile repair shops in the city.  By my count, the 2.5-mile stretch of South Lamar between Barton Springs and Brodie Oaks has at least ten used car lots and at least fifteen car repair shops. 

Requiring mixed use residential to be paired with retail means that, in all probability, some mixed use projects won't be built.  Although residential property values along South Lamar have increased, demand for new retail probably has been relatively flat.  There haven't been many new local customers.  The four neighborhoods running along South Lamar (Bouldin, Zilker, South Lamar, and Barton Hills) had 28,916 residents in 2000 and 30,538 residents in 2005 -- an increase of just 5.6%, or annual growth of roughly 1% per year.  Traffic counts actually declined on South Lamar between 2000 and 2004:  39,000/day in 2000 (between Manchaca and Oltorf); 41,000/day in 2001; 39,000/day in 2002; 38,000/day in 2003; and 36,000/day in 2004.  There's only a finite amount of demand for new retail.

The lack of new construction tells us it's at best only marginally profitable to tear down one of the car lots or strip malls and build a mixed use project.  Maybe that's not surprising, since the new  building has to earn more than the old building plus enough to cover the cost of the demolition and new construction.

If there's more demand for office than retail, pairing mixed use residential with office might be the only way some projects get built.  The neighborhood activists' proposed "down-zoning," if adopted, probably wouldn't result in more retail; it'd just leave us stuck with the same used car lots and car repair shops. 

That brings me back to my original question. Why do the South Austin neighborhood associations oppose mixed use residential and office?  I can't believe they prefer used car lots or car repair shops to office uses. 

If it's not the office use they object to, then it must be the residential.  In other words, the neighborhood groups oppose new mixed use residential (even on a transit corridor designated for more high-density development) unless there' s something in it for them, like new places to shop.  Put differently:  the neighborhood groups prefer used car lots to new residential development.   

Comments

[ccosart]

I don’t have any problem in principle with the local neighborhood being a stake holder, it’s their insistence that the NA=public good that is dangerous. Your previous post is an excellent example. The NAs may very well prevent the Town Lake trail from being extended. If the developer chooses to just refurbish the existing building, a chance to connect the trail with the trail further east is lost for probably at least a couple decades. How is that good for Austin?

Yet, the ANC rhetoric is always about the interests of “neighborhoods” adding up to the public good, which is fallacious. It’s more like logrolling of pork barrel projects in congress – “I’ll vote for your bridge to nowhere if you vote for my chicken feather museum”.

Or alternatively, when NAs rail against “special interests” – how are a small group of homeowners who own very expensive homes not a special interest?

[ccosart]

The other problem with NAs is that they aren’t necessarily representative. It tends to be the same small group of people rotating through the offices. In some sense, that’s a classic problem of democracy. That small group is willing to invest hours and hours, and until a large group gets motivated to unseat them it’s hard to do anything about it. The current BCNA elections are all uncontested, for example. I could re-run for my former sector rep position, but 1) I’d lose and 2) even if I won, I’d spend a lot of time tilting at windmills in meetings. It wouldn’t really be worth it unless I had a slate of similar minded people running. I’m really not sure what the answer is...