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Originally Posted by paul78701
For all the complaining WRT new developments on Rainey and the claims that it's all taking away from the district...this building would add more retail and street level interaction than just about anything that's ever been developed or proposed downtown. Also, the two bungalows on the site will be preserved.
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I also think that the complainers are really missing the lesson on Rainey. Everyone here knows the story: neighborhood got upzoned, tower projects fell through in '08, bar owners (namely Dunlap) seize the opportunity to get nightlife started there, bam.
What Rainey shows is that when you loosen zoning, people will find innovative things to do with the land, and changes no one ever planned for happen organically, which adds to the feel and uniqueness of our city.
Unfortunately, in this city, our zoning system sets up a competition between the nightlife that draws people here, and the dense urban development that results from the demand. While there's always going to be the cycle of bars/restaurants being the vanguard revitalizing new neighborhoods, followed by large scale development that pushes the new edge out, the problem is that Austin is verging on running out of places for new nightlife to go.
If we want more Raineys, we need to open up the possibilities for more Raineys... and that is inevitably going to mean cutting into the SF zoning that rings downtown.