Quote:
Originally Posted by Jdawgboy
The main problem I have is with the master plan. Correct me if im wrong but from my understanding It's a final one time plan that doesn't change with the times. It would make more sense if the plan was evaluated every 3 to 5 years or so. I don't see why it has to be so rigid. It was finalized before the Imagine Austin growth plan and doesn't incorporate new density.
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The reason it's not re-evaluated is because it was set up as a master-planned PUD (Planned Unit Development). In order to get federal subsidies and other financial incentives including $10M from the US Dept of Energy, they planned the entire thing out from the beginning to incorporate a variety of elements, including the residential, commercial, retail, apartments, the Dell Medical site and the future UT Research site. Once the PUD is approved and in place, you can't really change it up without going through the whole process all over again. It takes months and sometimes years to get a PUD approved. It takes almost as long to get one amended. Because its a master plan, a change to one part of it changes the entire thing. Sometimes it just can't be reworked after they're half-way through.
To get around that you can parcel out a large development into phases, and have each phases' site development plan approved separately as you go along, but you lose all the advantages of the PUD by doing it that way. You also run into a lot of extra infrastructure cost for roads, water and sewer lines that can only be partially completed and have to be extended into the next section at a later date. Very expensive way to do it.
One of the advantages of a PUD is that you can build buildings in ways that would be prohibited by city ordinances otherwise. That is how Mueller got the ridiculously dense single-family housing through. I think Mueller is, if not the most dense, definitely in the top 5 most dense single-family residential developments in Austin. There are no front yards and you can almost touch the wall of your neighbor's house through your bedroom window. However, 25% of Mueller's single-family homes are designated as affordable housing, which is great.
While the housing is incredibly dense, the apartments and commercial buildings could definitely have been planned more densely. Also, the tallest planned building for Mueller is 11 stories, which is way too low in my opinion, especially since they don't have height restrictions.*
*I'm pretty sure about that but if someone knows more please correct me.