Quote:
Originally Posted by Komeht
... with a mix of housing types and levels of affordability actually welcomed and desired by the residents and getting denser all the time (see section 6 and several new planned and being built apartment buildings - such as Mosaic 2, and the AMLI).
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Apologies, but you have hit on a pet-peeve/raw nerve of mine. (In general, I tend to be somewhere between you and MIEK on this, maybe leaning a little more toward your position.
BUT, on the affordability and mix of housing I think Mueller is a complete failure. One of the main ways in which Mueller was sold was that it would have opportunities for all income levels. That is profoundly not what we got. For the market housing we got a mix of housing types unaffordable to 90% of households in Austin. And for the affordable housing it was probably only truly affordable to a tiny sliver of families meeting the cutoff. Last round had 'affordable' housing pushing $200k. A family with kids making 70% of MFI can't afford that. Plus affordable housing has started to revert to the market, at which point it becomes almost as expensive as the other market housing, so Mueller isn't even going to make its 25% goal by the time build out is done. And then there's a HUGE leap in price to the market units, "The Gap"....
If Mueller was a market driven development, that would be one thing. But as I understand it, we are basically giving Catellus the land. So I'm subsidizing people living in houses my family can't afford. I call BS on that.
And I think it's intentional by Catellus. For the first round of Mueller Houses they had market units with models with a $/sf price that would have allowed 3bd2bth units in the $150-$200k range, but they only built huge units that phase. Next phase they DID build smaller 3-2 units as promised. And jacked up the $/sf to make them unaffordable too.
(Full disclosure, my family got screwed around big time by Mueller, so it's a raw nerve.)
"The Gap" includes 40-60% of Austin families with kids, so I take issue with this idea that there's a mix of options or incomes there. To be clear, my frustration is not directed at you, I just can't let this idea stand that Mueller is doing anything other than failing spectacularly to deliver on this promise ....