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.

Comments

[McChris]

I think you have the cardinality of the map wrong. It looks like 51st would be its northern border, with Rowena on the east. West is up on the map you have displayed.

Thanks for posting this. Decisions like these only show how bad neighborhood NIMBY groups can be for alternative modes of transportation.

[Scooby]

Are you F&&*(^ing kidding me? I guess HP doesn't want "those" people wandering thru their streets.

[DSK]

An interesting and unsurprising development.

At one of the early public meetings between citizens and Lincoln properties, I suggested that Lincoln should, as part of their remediation, improve the dirt path between my block and the bus center/post office/northcross. It's dirt next to COA drainage easement, but really ought to be a cyclist and ped friendly throughway (it'd be especially useful for crosstown cyclists).

During that meeting Susan Moffat piously intoned that the bus users and WalMart customers would include "child molesters" (and she lives in Hyde Park, doesn't she?). This attitude wouldn't be so unusual except that the "no outsiders in our neighborhood" types in Austin consider themselves paragons of tolerance nonetheless.

Of course the dumbest thing about 50th street ban is that it will have zero effect on criminals. It only punishes law abiding pedestrians and cyclists. But I guess if you just can't stand seeing otherwise-harmless people that aren't from your walk of life walking down your street, it's perfect.

[heyzeus]

As a resident of the neighborhood immediately north of this development, this makes me sad. It's hard enough to run/walk/stroll through the IM fields, which are vigorously fenced, and into Hyde Park.

What's even more ironic is that the new development will almost certainly be higher-dollar than the existing homes near Rowena and 50th St., most of which are smaller and older. The outsiders they're keeping out should probably be keeping them out instead, if the goal is to always keep "poorer" people from walking on your street.

[patrick]

Wow. Just, wow. Is this the same crowd that's all uppity over Wallie World moving into the asphalt wasteland of Highland Mall?

[AC]

Thanks, McChris. I've corrected the directions.

[Shilli]

Nice post. My thoughts:

http://austinist.com/2008/04/25/hyde_park_na_ha.php

[AC]

Thanks. And thanks for the link.

[William Cook]

Just a point of clarifcation: the reason why the neighborhood is demanding no pedestrian access is that *the developer is not agreeing to put in enough parking for guests*. Thus people will have to park on Rowena when they come to visit this new large housing development. They want to pack the thing with houses, without including room for the necessariy facilities. Rowena is a very narrow street. If the developers included enough parking, then the complaints about access would go away. I agree that the situation is insane, but I think its evolved to a lose-lose situation because both sides are at fault. Its too bad that the underlying reasons weren't made more public.

[AC]

The agreement requires the development to have the parking required by code. (p. 43). This won't have commercial/retail uses (or operas or reggae festivals); it's strictly residential. If that's the rationale, then it seems to me to be a backdoor attempt to increase the city's minimum parking requirement.

[DSK]

Not to mention that the correct solution to such a parking concern would be making Rowena a Rowena-resident-only parking permit zone.

In other words, I'm not buying the parking argument. It's a fig leaf for the real impetus.

[M1EK]

I just posted the following in response to William on the hydepark group, but it's likely to be delayed or unposted:

That is completely insufficient justification for this horrible move - the developer is proposing sufficient parking to satisfy city code, which many of us who know a thing or to about urban development believe to be too MUCH rather than too LITTLE off-street parking.

If Rowena is too narrow to support on-street parking, it should be signed off-limits to on-street parking, including for residents of Rowena St. I suspect that's not really what was meant here, of course. It's just too narrow for _other_ people, right?

[Bruce]

William,

Please be serious. We are adults and we can all see what is going on here. Parking? Really? So this time it's about parking (again). Or maybe it's about drainage. No, wait, it's really about blocking someone's view. Oh, you say it's about traffic now? Uh oh, we meant to say it's about preserving the "character" of the neighborhood.

This is yet more of the same NA tactics we see over and over again in Austin. Dishonest arguments that amount to little more than obstructionism and and da facto blackmail--an attempt to either discourage developers in the hope they will give up, or else extract concessions from them and the city. So, basically, politics as usual. They tried a similar scam with VinoVino, no doubt hoping the owners would run out of money and close.

So some visitors may have to park on Rowena. Okay. And? I'm sure residents know they don't own the street, right? 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 really 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.

Also, I would like to point an irony here. We need more parking for visitor's cars? Well, perhaps if people supported a decent rail plan and well-considered residential density, everyone in Austin wouldn't need a car to go everywhere, and thus all of our development decisions wouldn't be driven (pun intented!) by our voracious need to park cars.

So let's just call this what it is, so at least we can have an honest discussion.

[el_longhorn]

Great post, AC. This is the kind of stuff that scares me about Laura Morrison and company. She thinks neighborhood association plans should trump council? And then the NA's want to close off a street to pedestrian and bicycle access? I don't think so.

[William Cook]

Wow, you guys are so eager to think badly of everybody in Hyde Park. I'm a HP resident, full time bicyclist and Austin CarShare member. Here's how it happened: The Rowena residents and the developers worked out a compromise. The result of this compromise were then presented to the HP neighborhood association, which endorsed them. I wasn't at the meetings, and you weren't either. It wasn't driven by the HP leadership. It was the Rowena residents who made this choice. I don't agree with them, but if that's what they think is best for their street, then I'm willing to support it without assuming that they have some evil plan that they aren't telling me. Maybe I'm naive. On the other hand, maybe I'm willing to give my neighbors the benefit of the doubt.

[William Cook]

For those of you who don't know, I'm also the moderator of the Hyde Park mailing list. I approved Mike's message to the list just before I came over here and saw that he assumed I wouldn't. Guess he's not always right.

[Scooby]

"...Giv[ing] [your] neighbors the benefit of the doubt", in this case and many others, means "doing stupid, selfish things for your neighbors' stupid, selfish reasons, without using any critical thought whatsoever". The developers will go along with this "compromise" because it costs them nothing whatsoever- it may even save them some money, all told. The only people it costs is EVERYONE ELSE IN THE CITY, who weren't consulted.

[William Cook]

I'm sorry, but I didn't come here to be insulted. I'll go elsewhere, and come back when you can be more polite, and neighborly. Bye!

[Texan]

No pedestrians or bicyclists allowed? I thought Hyde Park was an Austin neighborhood. Where is the Williamson County line again?

[M1EK]

William, I said "delayed or unposted" - the group's on moderation, so if you approve, it's delayed; and if you don't, it's unposted.

[AC]

William, the Rowena residents weren't the only ones with a stake in connectivity. The cost to them of allowing pedestrian and bicycle access to the development (and the IM fields) is neglible; the benefits to the community as a whole of increased connectivity for bikers and walkers are substantial. This should have been obvious to all concerned. It certainly should have been obvious to Council, which is supposed to police these kinds of things.

Neighborhoods would do themselves a favor by showing some judgment. They certainly shouldn't bargain for provisions like these, which not only hurt the greater good, but reinforce the perception that the central, increasingly expensive, neighborhoods are growing too elitist.

BTW, I appreciate your taking the time to comment and present the other point of view (as much as I disagree with it).

[William Cook]

Well, its nice to see a reasonable post here. I think that Rowena would not have had a problem if the parcel was truly connected. But it is blocked by UT on the west and south, and they are not open to allowing access. Why don't people here yell at them? I can undersand why a small street like Rowena would not want to be the only other "escape valve" for a very large development. If it were connected on all sides then the load would be spread out. If you open up just Rowena it will be concentrated.

[John]

The reason people love Hyde Park so much is because of its connected grid layout. Its one of the few Austin neighborhoods where you feel like you're in a "real" neighborhood. This "no pedestrian access" thing goes completely against what the Hyde Park neighborhood represents.

I have spent a good portion of my life in Central Austin and people constantly park in front of your house. It has never bothered me, and never crossed my mind that if would be something to be upset over. I have never understood people who get mad or disturbed when act like they own the street in front of their house.

How did the City Council let this happen?

[cb]

While I sympathize with anyone who has concerns about vehicle traffic, the idea of blocking pedestrian and bicycle access is ridiculous. And this decision runs contrary to what our neighborhood (Ridgetop) has been told by the city about road closusres. We have been fighting a losing battle against cut-through speeding traffic from I-35 and have sought to cut off some of our smaller streets from the southbound I-35 access road (when there's an accident on the interstate, our streets turn into off-ramps). City staff at Public Works has consistently refused to consider the idea (even though both APD and EMS have said they have no problem with it). When pressed, Public Works said that it is the city's policy not to ever close roads. Well, that clearly was a lie. So it now appears that the city will now close roads to prevent speeding pedestrians and cyclists but speeding cars and 18-wheelers? Hey, that's just fine.

[William Cook]

No, they are not talking about closing a road or a sidewalk. They are debating whether or not to open a hole in a fence that is already in place.