Quote:
Originally Posted by Komeht
1. Not sure what that point is getting at. There were VMU buildings back in the day before the city outlawed them. And then they have come back somewhat (very reluctantly and with great pains to make it as difficult as possible) are allowing VMU in a few designated transit corridors and Mueller. I think you and I would like the city to allow this pretty much everywhere. At least for now Mueller is one of the few places in town this is allowed.
2. Outside of the NW commercial district this is just wrong. It is no more fundamentally suburban than Hyde Park and Clarksville are (two neighborhoods I also know very well having live most of my life in them). As a matter of fact, it has the potential to be far more urban than those neighborhoods as they are under restrictive COA landuse policies that are not applicable to the PUD and both have some of the most hostile neighborhood groups in the city to urban development which NIMBYism does not exist in Mueller who's residents are far more pro-urban than the NIMBYs of Hyde Park and Clarksville. The buildings can go higher, the homes are not subject to McMansion and have different impervious cover limitations, there will be a ton more options for having shopping, theaters, restaurants, cafes, all with an easy 5-10 minute walk or 2-5 minute bike ride of not only Mueller residents but also Delwood, Cherrywood, Windsor Park and University Hills residents who are benefiting greatly by Mueller. Not a single home has a garage in front. All streets have on-street parking and almost all are quite narrow to discourage quick traffic, it is build on a grid - nary a cul de sac in the entire development.
3. Mueller has build several large apartment buildings already (Mosaic, Elements, Wildflower) and the AMLI just broke ground and I can pretty much guarantee you this will continue for some time now. I really don't think you grasp what 2008 did to real estate markets but I can assure you from working on the inside that there was no money, no money whatsoever available for quite some time. Development did hit pause for a while, everywhere and is back in full swing. In five years, assuming the market is still there you will indeed see a bunch new apartment buildings (and condos, and town homes and garden court homes and sf yard homes and carriage houses/granny flats).
4. I don't know what universe you live in that you think it was realistic that the City of Austin was going to allow a developer to file a plat with no plan, ask for it to be exempted all those pesky city ordinances that inhibit urbanism from occurring in most of the rest of Austin, and just say - trust me, this will all work out, the market will decide. That wouldn't remotely be realistic and anyone who has worked with the city in any capacity (such as sitting on a transportation board) would know full well. And if Mueller wasn't planned and exempted from the city land-use policies then guess what would have happened
- the worst kind of sub-ubranism imaginable.
Mueller isn't perfect but it is moving the city in the right direction - the direction that you happen to be one of the loudest voices in favor of.
Or to look at your critique from a different angle, if Mueller is really suburban, as you charge, then I'm going to have to change my position on sub urbanism. Because if being dense, walkable, mixed use, variety of housing options, close to CBD, with shops, restaurants, theaters, businesses, employment centers, is suburban, then bring on suburban.
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I have very little time. Apologies for the brevity.
1. Somebody made the point that VMU only happened at Mueller. Not true. There's actually other examples outside the ordinance and outside Mueller too, although they tend to be in the DMU zoning category (not CBD; but close-in).
2. Mueller has strict horizontal separation of uses now. Single-family houses which wouldn't be out of place in Plum Creek (or the DC suburbs). There is no walkability there - because there's nowhere to walk to! The only commercial is strip malls and a suburban-styled HEB which discourages walking by design.
No, Hyde Park and Clarksville aren't suburban like this. I walk from my house to Julio's/HPB&G all the time. The Mueller people can walk to... Chipotle? Qualitatively (experience) and qualitatively (distance/density) quite different. Likewise in Clarksville with walking to their small commercial nodes. If you don't see the difference between West Lynn and the HomeDepotAgglomeration, I don't know how to talk to you.
3. Assuming Mueller could not have been built any way but how it was ignores all the high-rises in West Campus which did NOT pause in 2008 BTW. Assuming the Town Center couldn't be built until (always a couple years from now) ignores the Triangle. Etc.
4. Not saying it would have been easy - but the Mueller process as it was took years. The Triangle was built-out (at least the "town center" competitor part) while Mueller was floundering. As flawed as it is, it's been done and it's moderately successful. The Mueller way was not the only option. And I'm not blaming the part of the process which allowed more than suburban development; I'm blaming the part of the process that the local neighborhoods co-opted and forced excessive rules on (i.e. most of what happened with Mueller was NOT "let's allow row houses and more height and less setbacks"; it was planning out each inch to say "row houses can ONLY GO HERE and have these eight million rules on them".
As for the general principle, Mueller is more of a problem for urbanism than a help - because for ten years now it's been strip malls and single-family houses which call themselves 'urban' and ruin the brand for everybody else. I see no sign this is changing. They're not walkable, unless your standard for walkable is a nice suburb (where people walk to the park or walk on trails for exercise). They're not mixed-use unless you think a bunch of apartments separated from houses separated from strip malls is mixed-use (horizontal mixed-use). They're not dense unless your standard is Allandale.
They have nice parks. That's about it.
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