Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelB
I still think anyone who uses the phrase NIMBY should disclose where they own and what they would do if something indeed threatened their investment.
This is not simply reduced to a "have vs Have not" or "race" discussion. Lets look at from the other side..... I guarantee you Every lower income minority person who has fought their ass off to purchase a home in this city is having the same discussions.... how to not have the 4 story apartment building( loaded with a Bunch of noisy white entitled millennials) be build next to their quiet home of 30 years. It's a real life issue. Yes It changes your life.
Any person who has planned , sweated and invested has these concerns.
This transcends race or financial status. Cheap shot.
This from a very pro density person......
And Black lives do matter.
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I own in Zilker and have had 4 houses around me torn down and turned into max height duplex or quadplexes with another lot down the street turned into 20+ units and I'm totally 100% ok with it. I can see two cranes out my front porch for office buildings going up right along the Lamar frontage near me. And I would say 70% of the neighborhood in my vicinity has been added onto or torn down rebuildin the last 12 years.
I'm also a lifelong South Austinite whose grandparents have lived in the same home since the 1950s. There house is on a double lot and is probably the only single family house still on their street at this point.
Gentrification is another issue altogether that needs to be tackled by cities, but I would argue a lack of density in other close-in parts of town *causes* gentrification, not the other way around. East Austin became "prime" real estate because near-in South Austin became too expensive. If Austin hadn't fought density tooth and nail in the 80s and 90s we might not be seeing the knock-on effects of Hispanic or Black neighborhoods East of 35 being taken over that we are today. Or at least not to the extend that we are.
Things like the TacoPUD, the office building where the hooters is are still being fought tooth and nail. I use the phrase NIMBY because lots and lots of Austinites are against any kind of change at all. To the extent that a shuttered boarded up Taco Cabana and a Hooters with a dirt parking lot are, in their minds, better than change happening in their city. They want to gatekeep their city and their neighborhoods for themselves. Whether they are aware that the policies they fight for make the city more and more exclusive is another question, but the fact remains that if you want to bring down price you need to either bring down demand (Detroit style) or have supply sufficient to meet it (Tokyo).
My little brother from big brothers big sisters has been pushed further and further out of town for the 14 years that I've known him. He started out living on MLK near Chicon. His mom just had to move to an apartment in Manor. This adds to her commute and causes her to spend more money travelling and less time in leisure activity. Her QOL was directly impacted by the increasing expense and lack of rental units in her area that were affordable for her. There are smart ways for a city to allow density bonuses in building that come with requirements attached for building.
And the city needs to up their enforcement game for low-income units. I know of people who are decidedly middle-class who are living in housing earmarked in newer developments for "low income". They cheat their way there by having the lease be under the name of the grad-student who lives there and not the lawyer who they've been dating for 5 years who also lives there. Low-income housing very often sees developers trying to cheat the system because the reality is these buildings make their money on the full-rent units and very often wind up discriminating against actual poor people or minorities in awarding these units in order to keep the 'value' of their full-price rental units up. If someone from the city would actually audit these units and do in-person interviews of a handful of people getting awarded low-income housing I think we would find lots of individuals and developers are cheating the system.
Density alone won't get us there, but the city needs to allow for MUCH more residential much closer to the urban core of the city and they need to implement smart policies to tackle issues like racial discrimination in housing and a loss of minority-owned businesses in neighborhoods that were once minority-majority areas.
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(The quote say $1 million, but the article says $1.)
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