The McMansion ordinance as an anti-gentrification tool

The Organization for Central East Austin Neighborhoods (OCEAN) wants to drop the McMansion ordinance's guaranteed minimum home size of 2,300 sq. ft. for Central East Austin lots:

Over the years, Rudolph Williams has watched house sizes grow in Central East Austin. More and more, two- and three-story houses are replacing the one-story, 1,500-square-foot houses typical of the area.

Although the city clamped down on home sizes in proportion to lot sizes last year, he has been working to tighten the rules even more for the smaller lots in his area — those less than 5,750 square feet — as a way to protect the area's character, culture, diversity and history.

. . .

Currently, the rules say that on lots of all sizes, a property owner can build a residential structure that is 2,300 square feet or has a floor area that is 40 percent of the area of the lot, whichever is greater.

The neighborhoods organization wants to remove the 2,300 square feet allowance for lots less than 5,750 square feet. So on a lot that's 5,000 square feet, the biggest house could be 2,000 square feet.

The article implies that OCEAN's main concern is gentrification:

Limiting the size of houses on smaller lots would help reduce tear-downs of rental units, the primary affordable housing option for low-income people in Central East Austin neighborhoods, and force developers to build smaller, Williams said.

However, the change wouldn't be effective alone, Williams said. It must come with other protections from local government and school authorities, such as tax relief for renters and increased homestead protection for poor homeowners, he said.

"We're at a tipping point right now. Can we create a neighborhood where rich and poor can live together?" Williams asked. "Or will this be another gentrification story? Another Clarksville?"

Gentrification is a complex issue.  I don't want to tackle it here.  But if you think you need to adopt anti-gentrification measures, I question whether you should start by stripping equity from the small lot owners.

Given the prices in Central East Austin, the loss of 300 buildable square feet would probably be worth $10,000-$20,000 to the small-lot owners (lots with around 5,000 sq. ft.).  Eliminating the McMansion minimum would hurt them and no one else.  It would not penalize the owners of lots that have already been redeveloped -- i.e., the yuppies living in spanking new $300,000 homes.   

I haven't been to a single OCEAN neighborhood association meeting.  Perhaps the people who would be adversely affected by this uniformly support it (in the hope of lower taxes, for example).  But I'm always skeptical of plans that would put all of the burden on a small minority, particularly a minority that had the least to begin with.  Neighborhood groups aren't as homogeneous as they sometimes claim to be.  The City Council should do its due diligence this time:  Before ordering small-lot owners to fight gentrification on behalf of everyone else, it should make sure they are volunteers rather than conscripts. 

Note:  I inadvertently published an earlier, very rough draft below the fold.  (There wasn't supposed to be a "fold.")  Sorry for the gibberish.

Comments

[Don Johnson]

I agree with you, but the argument of decreased land value didn't work the first time around.

You should give us your thoughts some day about the "legal lot status" scenario going on at One Texas Center as part of all permitting requests. I bought a 50yr old house and when I submitted my remodel and addition application they told me the lot was illegal! I'm talking about a house that had been lived in and taxes paid for a half century and no title insurance problems when I got my loan. I even dug up previous remodel permits which meant it was legal enough at one time for city permits. Ofcourse the county recognized it all along. But legal lot status has huge grandfathering rammifications with the city since the day you pay them $200 to fix the error (on the spot by the way) is the day your lot became legal in the city's eyes. Basically what happenned was my lot consisted of "35ft of lot 1 & 35ft of lot 2" in the legal description and I guess the half lot shift that occurred 50yrs ago never got signed off on. It seemed like splitting hairs to me. I still want my $200 back and one of those keep austin weird t-shirts for my trouble.

East austin gets it even worse. East austin has a bunch of subdivision scenarios that the city doesn't recognize. I guess during the east austin depression people needed space to build modest houses, and other people were willing to offer up their unused yard for consideration. I don't think city council was concerned with the practice at the time. You could get utilities and proceed with life as usual. The deeds and title records of the re-configured lots are traceable in the county records, but the city has some very specific things you need to prove before they grant legal status. I did this exercise one time. A seller had inherited a piece of property that consisted of three of these previously subdivided lots. By the time it came to the market there was just one knock down house. I checked with the city and sure enough it did not have legal status. I went through the deed records and traced the lady as she bought the house, sold parts off, bought her cemetery plot, then died with $300 in the bank. I remember thinking "finally this lady has something valuable to pass on to her heirs", but the city has seriously devalued it by not recognizing it. I'm sure the heir had to leave some money on the table. East Austin got screwed then, and they're getting screwed now.

[Chop Chop]

I don't know Rudy Williams well, but as a resident of East Austin, I've been to enough neighborhood meetings to know that Rudy is a strong voice for the residents of OCEAN and you should speak carefully before suggesting that he or any of his supporters is a 'conscript'.

It may be true that Rudy speaks more for residents who have made a life in the neighborhood and doesn't always support the interest of absentee landlords and those wanting to flip a 'tear down', but he clearly is speaking to the most important issue facing long term residents of East Austin today.

Gentrification is hitting OCEAN like no other area in town. If Rudy and his team throw every argument possible at the city in hope that it will slow things down just enough to come up with some real solutions, it should just serve as an SOS beacon that a neighborhood that is on the verge of becoming another "Clarksville".

[don johnson]

Chop Chop,

I suspect that to a degree the east austin residents are confusing gentrification with price increases that have happenned everywhere central. East austin is certainly not the only neighborhood experiencing replacement of the old with the new because of rising land cost. Hell, it is happenning in Terri Town. Is it still gentrification if every central neighborhood has doubled and tripled in value?

Freezing old, out of code, inefficient homes in place by virtue of more stringent code as a path to affordibility is flawed. It seems unfair and class oriented to define an affordable east austin that way. In the end, stricter codes always lead to more expensive property so east austin may want to be careful.

I think AC is all for smart planning and codification that allows for natural affordable options as central land becomes more valuable. I think he's for neighborhoods were rich and poor can coexist. He seems to be a proponent of things like smaller minimum lot sizes for example. Why that is never an option on the table I don't know. This OCEAN proposal makes small lots less and less viable and they are working away from their goal of affordibility in that regard.

AC, on a lot much smaller than 5000sf the limiting factor is the envelope and impervious cover anyway. I think this minor bad tweak to a very bad code to start with is a drop in the bucket..... Even the east austin residents of days past knew if they cut their lots in half it was more affordable to put a roof over their head as I mentioned in my first post. Why we fight that I don't know.

[AC]

Chop Chop, I wasn't referring to Rudy Williams with the "volunteer or conscript" tag -- just the small-lot owners who would be impacted. They may support this plan, I don't know. I think the City Council should ask for some evidence of how they feel about it. If the small-lot owners support it, great; if a large percentage opposes it, then City Council will understand the trade offs it's being asked to make.

Gentrification is a tough issue. I understand Rudy Williams' concerns, and don't have all the answers on this one . . .

Don, thanks for the interesting info on illegal lots. And you make good points about small lots -- eliminating the McMansion ordinance minimum discourages the subdivision of bigger lots, probably the opposite of what we ought to be doing.

I know the 5,000-6,000 sf lots over there are already very small, but my neighborhood has lots from 3,300 sf to 4400 sf, and we do just fine. Of course, dropping the lot size minimum would trigger more tear downs and more (albeit affordable) redevelopment; I imagine OCEAN opposes any rule change that would encourage more tear downs.

[don johnson]

It is called "land status determination" in the city permitting process. Presumably it is to avoid issuing permits to bogus property. But the city doesn't seem to recognize many resubs that the county appraisal district and title companies recognize. Just scroll through an east austin plat on traviscad.org and the resubs will jump out at you. A couple good examples are 83 and 93 san saba sreet. Since the resubs show up on the county plat, obviously there was some sort of legality to the resub, but the city doesn't recognize these resubs. Luckily, those are solvable with proof of utility bills, but grandfathering is still out the window.

An example of where that wouldn't work is 803 San saba. That was three lots with one house. Since utilities only ran to the house, the other two lots that were fenced in couldn't be proven legal. They were just lost to time. However, I traced one lot to the county courthouse steps where it was auctioned off in tax foreclosure. The city has to recognize property the court system recognizes. It was a really fun exercise. I never figured out how to make the third lot legal, but if the new house footprint didn't cross that lot line then it wouldn't matter, it could just be the yard. Someone is developing it now and I wonder how they approached it. I'm sure knowing how to butter people up comes into play. I don't think the answer to something so goofy is written in our code anywhere.

[An East Austin]

I moved to East Austin two years ago with my wife because it was the only place we could afford that was central. I live on a 3,200 square foot lot in a 1,900 square foot house. After a recent, dismal visit to the burbs (like Circle C, Round Rock, Lakeway)with my now-pregant wife,we've decided to stay in East Austin--we love the culture, the vibrancy, our neighbors, the location that's close to everything we love. But we plan to expand our family even further, and 1900 square feet is going to be tight. Coincidentally, we wanted to add on to our property another measley 300 square feet--just under the 2,300 sq foot max. Now, looks like we're going to be stripped of this right, and we're a little pissed. We LOVE our house. Now we'll be forced to move in the next few years when our family grows. What sucks is in a few years, we'll be priced out of this area if we wanted to buy a bigger house, and we'll have to move to white bread Austin. Bleck. Yes, I live in a what is supposedly considered a "McMansion." Yes, I'm white and middle class. Yes, I own and don't rent. All this being said, we love it here and are willing to contribute to this community in good ways, and wanted to stay here the rest of our lives. Ironically, the developers who built our property, our...uh...McMansion, are one of OCEAN's biggest sponsors. It's obvious that OCEAN has no problem accepting money from developers that are building the kind of properties they are trying to stop. It makes me sick. This is clearly more political than OCEAN trying to stop overdevelopment of small lots. It's more about keeping white people from coming into a black neighborhood A LA reverse discrimination. Whatever.

[AC]

Thanks for the comment, East Austin. I'd love to hear how some of your neighbors, particularly small lot owners, feel about this.