So there’s been a bit of talk lately about the Grayco Development along Lakeshore. Save Town Lake is against it because they believe that the 40’ height limit should be absolute. Chris Reilly (one of our new council members) has weighed in on why he supports it. His argument is that they are only asking for a height variance and they are offering a massive number of incentives to the city in return (public plazas, preserving trees, park improvements, sidewalks, etc).

I’ve become somewhat pessimistic about development in Austin. It seems that these initial offers are generally their best offer, and they tend to get to build what they want in the end. The Northcross debacle is just one of many where we were going to get something pretty nice from the developers, but in the end the city is quite a bit poorer and we’re getting a generic Walmart. As far as initial offers go, this is a great one, and is completely in keeping with the ideals of the new East Riverside plan. But while the pro/anti development track is a pretty common argument, I don’t really want to address it in this case.

I also don’t want to address it in the sense of ugly vs. nice developments. One of the things that being on a Neighborhood Association Board convinced me of is that you cannot create rules to avoid ugly. You can create rules for well-kept. You can create rules to effectively use space, but you can’t avoid ugly.

That said, I wanted to compare the two properties that are side by side. The Grayco Development and the Amli development next door. You can view a map at the Chronicle’s writeup on the issue. I want to compare them simply from a lakefront utilization perspective.

Here’s a view of the where the Grayco development will be from across the lake. It will be behind the second tree line (per the variance agreement those trees stay). There’s an existing two story apartment complex there. You’ll need to expand the picture and look very closely to see it.

Here’s a view of the area from the actual hike and bike trail. It’s taken from right next to the water fountain which is halfway between Lakeshore Boulevard and the closest the Hike and Bike trail gets to the water.

Next look at the Amli complex. This is a project that did not request a variance and is within waterfront overlay height limits:

That large concrete building is a parking garage. Don’t get me wrong. I actually like the Amili development. Looking at the way it integrates with Riverside you can imagine how Riverside is going to become a nice strollable boulevard of shops and apartments, rather than a bunch of run down strip malls:

But is “Save Town Lake” right to contend that the Grayco development is some sort of monstrosity that will destroy the spirit of the lake? That development is going to be behind the treeline. It’s going to have a lot of units, which means more people who can enjoy the lake, and it’s going to preserve the Hike and Bike trail (something the Amli development is not extending, you still get to run by it on the sidewalk). There will be a plaza to engage the public and bike routes and sidewalks through the development to make getting from Riverside to the Trail easier.

Is a parking garage really the best utilization of a waterfront view? Shouldn’t people be enjoying the view instead of a concrete wall? Shouldn’t we encourage developers to seek variances when following the rules would lead to something that is obviously not the best utilization of a site?

I think we need to take variances to get what we really want. Keep the views for the people. Keep density in the East Riverside area and bring in new commercial development to a historically under-served community.

---

Comments

Alex

2009-10-05T00:55:32.000Z

Amen!

Mark Cathcart (http://austin.metblogs.com/author/triman/)

2009-10-06T04:33:42.000Z

I think the point is that a lot of Austinites over a number of years put in real effort and time to get our current and former political overlords to agree to a set of standards which allow the developers to make money from the water front overlay properties, but not to allow them to exploit it to the point where the waterfront becomes the domain of the developers exclusively through back office deals with broken promises about what they’d do in exchange for the ability to add “just a few more floors”. The question isn’t as you say if its a good looking building or not, you are right in suggesting you can’t legislate for that, either way. However PUDs give the developers a way to circumvent the agreed process and the will come back again and again if they are not held to a higher standard. In this case that higher standard is the waterfront overlay, which the City not so long ago agreed to uphold. Conveniently many of the current city seem to have forgotten what they agreed just a short time ago. The net of the issue hear is will the developer walk from the Grayco project if they don’t get those few “extra feet”? I think not. I also don’t think that what they are offering in return in worth the precedent of allowing them via the PUD process to effectively dilute the waterfront overaly. No one is saying they shouldn’t be allowed to make money, there is as you’ve identified plenty of opportunity to do that, going up shouldn’t be one though.

Tim

2009-10-06T09:09:32.000Z

I respect the desire for some sort of standard, but I don’t think this one is particularly good. I think setback is a much more interesting metric for waterfront development than height. I just don’t get the height restriction. Is the Shoreline really less visible from the trail than the 360? I just feel like this is a way to keep density out of central Austin. I can’t see a purpose to it otherwise. Until you fight to get those ugly old complexes off the route of the trail, then I really don’t want to hear it. You’re fighting the wrong fight. This just smacks of anti-density, not “protect the lake” And I just don’t agree that they’ll build it anyway if they don’t get the height variance. Sure they’ll build… something. But not the great shiny beautiful project they present the first time. Time and time again we’ve fought a battle. The developer’s won, and we’ve ended up with what I can only politely call “ugly urban sprawl”. I don’t see any value in continuing these fights. If we’re going to get AMD, and Circle C, and Westlake regardless of what we do, then I want them to pay. I want beautiful open air plazas, and public park lands maintained by private funds. I want ground floor shopping and the number of fences kept to a minimum. I want sidewalks and bike routes. “will the developer walk from the Grayco project if they don’t get those few “extra feet”?” Certainly the might. And they almost certainly won’t build the plaza, or the bike routes connecting riverside and lakeshore. I want a nice city. Not a city of interchangeable small apartment buildings that don’t offend anyone.

Check out the newest provision in the FHA guidelines. You know, the loans that make it easy for first time home buyers to buy affordable houses with little to no down payment. Julie and I bought our first house with one.

- Because of noise worries, FHA insurance will be unavailable when properties are within 1,000 feet of a highway, freeway, or heavily traveled road; 3,000 feet of a railroad; one mile of an airport; or five miles of a military airfield. Projects must take action to avoid or mitigate such conditions before completing the loan review process.

What does that leave? There are million dollar homes in Austin less than 3000’ from a railroad. Most of the affordable housing in Austin is that close. Have you looked at the affordable developments in South Austin? The ones that pretty much run along the tracks?

Oh wait. That also knocks out half of our current neighborhood for being too close to a highway. You know the neighborhood where you can still get a 1200 sq/ft house for less than $150k within 2 miles of downtown.

I know that people want someone to blame other than those at fault for giving out bad loans, and the financial industry that thinks they can predict markets with math, but this is just ridiculous. The people getting FHA loans were not to blame. It was the risk analysts. The whole point of FHA loans is to take a risk on the people and properties banks won’t.

So we’re going to push to the suburbs some more. Farm land, far from highways and railroads. Petroleum burned as far as the eyes can see.

Grumble, grumble, grumble… must go to bed and stop ranting. That’s it. Take a look at a map. Those highways and railroad lines do an amazing job of covering most of Austin. Goodbye affordable housing.

---

Comments

Kate

2009-09-17T06:34:23.000Z

What’s the reasoning? That just sounds ridiculous!

So we went to a meeting about Becker, an elementary school in our neighborhood last night. We’re considering sending Stella there, due to the extreme overcrowding at our local elementary (> 120%, highest in AISD). Plus a lot of our friends are in the neighborhood. There was talk of a daul-language program, which was interesting, but one thing that struck me was their academically unacceptable rating and their small class size. Linder (the overcrowded school in our neighborhood) has been academically acceptable since the creation of “No Child Left Behind”. That seemed a bit odd to me. But first a word about averages.

Steve Crossland of the excellent Crossland Blog has often spoke about how useless averages are in real estate (and really in much of life). When someone asks you what the average home price is in Austin, you don’t actually tell them the average. You tell them the median. Thanks to the million dollar homes the average home price is probably around half a million. The median is probably in the high 100k’s. When we say average we generally mean median. And when we see averages we generally extrapolate them to the median in our head. When I was in school, if I saw an average grade of 75% in one of my classes, I would assume pretty much everyone got a C. Yet, depending on the size of the class it could have been 2 unprepared lunkheads who got no answers right, and the rest of the class aced the test. Averages tell you very little about individual performance.

With that in mind I decided to look at test scores in town. I decided to compare against 3rd grade, but the numbers are pretty consistent. Here’s Becker (all numbers are number of kids who failed the test):

Becker

Grade

Average Class Size

Reading

Math

Writing

Science

3

12.8

4.1

4.22

3.2

3.07

I was shocked. So academically unacceptable in this case means that 3-4 kids failed the test in each class? That’s not so bad. And when you consider averages are at play here it’s possible that there are a few bad teachers dragging the rest down. So I decided to see what academically exemplary means. This is a school that does not have a lot of english profeciency problems, economic disadvantage, or section 8 housing:

Kiker

Grade

Average Class Size

Reading

Math

Writing

Science

3

21

0.21

0.42

0.21

1.05

So the difference is 2-3 kids per class? Not as much difference as you would expect from the terms “exemplary” and “unacceptable”. I finally decided to look at Linder to see how it stacked up:

Linder

Grade

Average Class Size

Reading

Math

Writing

Science

3

22.4

4.93

6.5

2.46

7.39

So, Linder, which is an academically “acceptable” school actually has more kids failing per class than Becker which is “unacceptable”. The law of averages at work. So this means that school districts are rewarded for having over-crowded schools. It explains why suburbs that can’t seem to build enough schools to keep up with demand don’t seem to have the same problems their inner-city counter parts do. And it shows me that realistically most of the schools in Austin are quite good and after meeting some teachers last night, I have to say they’re really dedicated to voluntarily go to meetings until 7pm on a work night. I’m looking forward to sending Stella.

Here’s my spreadsheet if you want to check my work.

---

Comments

ttrentham (http://thechunk.com/blog)

2009-09-11T00:09:42.000Z

Just curious. You linked your spreadsheet, but where did you get the numbers to fill out your spreadsheet?

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com/blog/director/listblog/tim.html)

2009-09-11T00:12:05.000Z

http://www.austinisd.org/schools/campus.phtml?opt=bylevel&slevel=elementary Then go to the school in question. click “School Report Card”. I used the 2007-2008 TEA report.

ttrentham (http://thechunk.com/blog)

2009-09-11T00:51:13.000Z

A couple of notes… Third graders don’t take the writing or science tests. They only do reading and math. They add writing in fourth grade and science in fifth grade. (We’ve got a fifth grader and first grader at Zilker.) So you’re taking the percentage passing for the whole school and applying it to the third grade. Unfortunately, they’re not breaking down the data the way that you want to show it. They break down math and reading for fifth grade. They only do reading for third grade. Not sure if that data is available on the TEA web site or not. Be glad to talk schools if you’re interested. We’ve visited quite a few in AISD and tried the charter school route.

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com/blog/director/listblog/tim.html)

2009-09-11T01:05:46.000Z

Yeah, would love to talk. The masking standards are really irritating. I think the basic ratios are right even though the numbers don’t quite work that way. Linder still has over twice as many failing students as Becker. The trends still favor labeling overcrowded schools as acceptable.

Anna

2009-09-11T01:50:21.000Z

I’m wondering where you got the overcrowding info, as I’m really curious about those statistics for the schools in our hood. Also, isn’t it complicated to transfer your child from the school your neighborhood automatically feeds into?

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com/blog/director/listblog/tim.html)

2009-09-11T02:03:58.000Z

Linder being overcrowded is a statistic that gets bandied about a lot since it’s the worst in the school district. You can see the actual numbers on the AISD scorecord which is on the same page I pointed Tim at. I think I may have found the correct numbers.

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com/blog/director/listblog/tim.html)

2009-09-11T02:05:07.000Z

As for transfers, from what I’ve head they’re apparently harder if you’re doing something they don’t want you to do (transfer into a popular school), easier if you’re doing something they do (transfer into an underpopulated school). Tim has much experience on the subject though.

Just listened to “A Neighborly Conversation” on KOOP. A discussion between Jeff Jacks and Chris Bradford (Austin Contrarian). Not a lot of new ground. Jeff Jacks does appear to be absolutely against new development in neighborhoods which is interesting. I wouldn’t have thought he’d put it quite that strongly. But he did bring up that we’re not pushing for density in the new development in Austin that’s not in existing neighborhoods. South Park Meadows is suburban sprawl. West Austin is nothing but sprawl. 969 is sprawl. That’s a real failure. While we can’t change what Round Rock, Cedar Park, or Buda are doing, we can change what we’re doing as a city. We really need to view the entire City of Austin as being “downtown”. Because it will be shortly. The fact that all of our new construction within the city limits isn’t at least as dense as Mueller (which isn’t very dense) is a real failing on our part.

What do you think the solution is to getting more people into Austin without sprawl?

---

Comments

M1EK (http://mdahmus.monkeysystems.com/blog/)

2009-09-04T22:33:32.000Z

1. Jeff Jack is lying. Circle C is more dense by any reasonable metric than are the single-family portions of his neighborhood (Zilker/Barton Hills). The only difference is that somebody a long time ago built some MF mostly on the fringes of his neighborhood (against his will, no doubt, if he was there at the time). This is like the idiots in my neighborhood trying to claim credit for existing density (as in, “look at us! aren’t we nice urbanists?”) while failing to mention that it only exists there because they *lost*. 2. The density of the new subdivisions is actually not the issue - it’s the design. Their moderate density is completely car-dependent because of the layout of the roads and the strict separation of uses. The city IS affecting the design of new subdivisions within its jurisdiction - not enough, in my opinion, but certainly more than they did when the relatively suburban Barton Hills area was developed.

No room for your dumb ass

I was reading the Alcalde this morning. The Alcalde is UTs Alumni magazine. They recently did a profile on the lack of alumni engagement from those alumni who went to UT in the 1980s. Letters came in this month and a lot of people mentioned that the reason they didn’t get involved was that their kids were going to another school thanks to the 10% rule. One letter in particular said he blamed UT’s political correctness more than the legislature for creating the problem. Which is really the problem here.

So Republicans hate the 10% rule? A rule that was enacted because affirmative action was unfair. A law that was needed thanks to a court case pursued to the supreme court by Republicans. A case that was pursued to end political correctness in admissions at UT. A law created in response to that decision by a Republican legislature, signed by a Republican governor. Yeah, you’re right. It’s those politically correct liberals at UT who are keeping your kid from getting in.

We really need a new party so we can have honest discussions between the informed adults left in this country. And we can leave the Republican party to attract all the morons. It really sucks that politics is about winning votes and you have to appeal to these jackenapes.

Just finished this article on Salon about Inglorious Basterds, Quinten Tarrantino’s new movie. It has some really fascinating statements. About this movie:

Pitt and Roth’s characters “behave like butt-ugly sadists,” Wells writes, while the German soldier, despite cursing out his tormentors as “Jew dogs,” behaves like “a man of honor,” accepting a brutal and painful death rather than ratting out his comrades. In Sammel’s brief performance, Wells says, he depicts the German as “a man of intelligence and perception” with “a certain regular-Joe decency,” while Raine and Donowitz come off as unhinged horror-movie villains.

This is fascinating because it seems taboo to say. But yet. There are Jews who behaved horribly. And German’s who behaved decently. And both Jews and Germans who behaved like angels after behaving like monsters. We like to frame the Holocaust in these expressionistic black-and-white terms, but human beings are never black and white.

Hollywood scholar Neal Gabler to ask why Tarantino “conventionalizes Jews, puts them in the same revenge motif as everyone else.” Doesn’t that risk creating audience sympathy for their Nazi victims? (One should of course say “German victims”; it’s intellectually lazy and historically inaccurate to assume that German soldiers are all Nazis, but that level of ambiguity does not register in the Tarantino universe.)

How fascinating that anyone would assume that Jews could somehow avoid conventional revenge narratives. Why? Because there’s a certain threshold where revenge becomes acceptable? A really good read unrelated to the movie. I think it lays bare a lot of attitudes, and explains why for some people the phrase “never again” does not apply to say Rawanda or Srebernica.

Ahh… feels like junior high.

“Downtown Austin” wrote a post about the battle to redevelop the warehouse district.

I think there’s a lot of nostalgia about the area, but what’s left to be nostalgic about? Aside from the gay clubs it’s become increasingly an area with a ton of chain restaurants and bars that are a pain to walk to. Waterloo’s gone. Ginger Man was a chain. It’s going, if not gone. The Spaghetti Warehouse will be fine I’m sure. There will still be a place to take a date with horrible food and piss-poor atmosphere. Never you fear. If this had been proposed in the nineties, I might have complained, but now? I think land owners trying to make money on their underdeveloped properties have already caused a lot of damage to the area.

If I’m going to dress up and go out drinking I’m going to West 6th or Second Street now. Thanks in large part to the fact that I don’t have to worry about getting hit by a car, or Julie wearing heels and falling down a flight of stairs with no handrail.

I think that you could probably come up with a design for that neighborhood that would be more “warehousey”, but that had actual walkable sidewalks. I’m interested though, is there anything anyone thinks is left in the warehouse district that they’d be sad to see go?

---

Comments

ttrentham (http://thechunk.com/blog)

2009-08-14T21:29:34.000Z

Ginger Man is still there. It just moved around the corner and to the south on Lavaca between 3rd and 4th. It still seems to be doing quite well. Starlite became something called Frank’s with Chicago Dogs and Poutine. I want to check that out. Otherwise, I agree with you, not much there. Did you know that the Whip In now serves food, has beer on tap and has a happy hour? I’ve been going there for an after work beer even though they’re a bit overpriced. Opal’s Penn Field is our default hang out since it’s fairly close to our neighborhood. I’ve heard good things about the Black Sheep on S. Lamar.

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com/)

2009-08-14T21:34:40.000Z

Yeah, I’m looking forward to checking out Frank’s. I love hot dogs. I knew about Whip-In, and need to check out their beer. I think we have a mental block because we don’t generally go that way when looking for food. And check out Black Sheep.

I submited this to for the Muses project. I just got the final list of playwrights, so I guess it was rejected. In any case, I really liked it. It comes out of all the horrible worries I have to push out of my mind every night as I try to go to sleep. Being a parent definitely introduces a new level of worry into your life (or a level of worry at all in my case). Dramatic liberties have been taken. This is not autobiographical.

Prolocide

(FATHER is washing his hands in the sink. He uses a nail brush. Meticulous. He finishes, and dries his hands)

FATHER

When I was in college, I was a professional house sitter. I loved it. I loved the first time you opened up a house. There were signs of the past everywhere. Generally they were clean. Immaculate. Awaiting their owner’s return. Perhaps a cereal bowl in the bottom of the sink. A wet towel on the bathroom floor, but otherwise clean.

I loved looking at the past. The furniture. The books. The photos. I loved imagining the future. Would they ever be able to make it through that case of fiber supplements? Would they finish the 7 pound book, marked 135 pages in, currently languishing on their bedside table? And what of the large pile of bricks just outside their French doors?

(FATHER contemplates a box of macaroni and cheese)

But when I was house sitting, it was as though time had stopped. There were the mementos of the past. And there was the potential for the future. But the house had been stopped in time. And I had walked out of time and into this twilight.

(he gets out the pot, and fills it with water, he puts it on the stove and turns on the burner, then considers the box once more)

I guess I must have thought about the future too much when I was young. That’s the reason I should never have kids. I can’t handle the suspense. You know the statistics. You know all the statistics. You know that the world has never been safer. That there is very little to fear. But too much of my youth was spend idling about in the future.

I am- was- married.

(he gets out a calculator and pen and paper from a kitchen drawer. He reads the box and reduces the amounts down to one person)

I got married. I was in love. I am in love. I don’t know how it’s possible to get out of that once you’re truly in it. Once you have love, you have all this past that will forever contain the person you love. Your history will always contain them, and that love. I could maybe love another woman. Maybe. But I don’t think that could ever change the past. But sometimes even if we love someone we do things that make them not love us back. Things that we think they won’t ever understand. And they won’t understand. One of the reasons I should never have kids. How could you ever see them fall in love, and know the risk they’re taking. Think of their hearts. Know the highs, but also know the lows. Know the days and months of anxiety. The constant fear that it’s all slowly unraveling, and the feeling of having your stomach in your throat for months as the drama unfolds. And the legal events unfold. And the couch unfolds.

(he fills a cup with ¼ of the macaroni)

I made that jump. But I don’t know if I could watch someone I loved do it. I definitely should not have kids.

(he dumps the pasta into the water violently, the stove flares a bit)

When you fall in love with someone if they were to die, you would still have these ultimate moments. These memories that you could store away. The best parts of your relationship had already unfolded, and now you were living a life of peace and contentment. And then your spouse dies. But you haven’t missed the good parts.

(he puts a colander in the sink)

But that’s why I should never have kids. Because if they die, no matter what they’ve accomplished. No matter how old. There was always some ultimate event over the horizon. You may have good memories, but there’s always something more they could have done. They could have aced that spelling test, or the spelling bee, or written a dictionary. No matter how good the past is. No matter how many memories of fishing on a rainy Sunday morning. No matter how many home runs. No matter how many kisses good night. There’s always one more kiss good night. There’s always one more time for them to say, “I love you”. It’s not the potential of Harvard. It’s the potential of that one more moment where they say something to you that makes you feel so happy and loved that your heart is going to swell up and out of the top of your head, and just explode, because it feels so good.

(outside we see police lights pull up, FATHER turns out the kitchen lights, his face is lit by the gas burner)

I should never have had kids. I loved my wife. I loved my kids. Boys. Three of them. Every fiber of my being seems to hum with that love. But my heart couldn’t take it. I’m too afraid of the future. I had to stop it now while I could still handle the pain. I don’t think I could have handled it if something had happened to them in a years time, or even a month. Even one day more. I loved them too much.

I don’t suppose they’ll let me make that mistake again.

(father turns off the gas burner. flashlights shine in the kitchen windows, pounding at the door, end of scene)

---

Comments

susie

2009-08-12T23:15:22.000Z

I really liked it too Tim. It didn’t make it in, but just barely. I wish we had a few more slots!

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve been encountering a lot more vegetarians lately. It’s probably not so much that I’m encountering more, as I’m not driving them off as quickly. In the past I was an asshole if you were a vegetarian. Something along the lines of, “But we are omnivores, you’re just depriving your body.” Also, “Plants have feelings too.”

But as part of my laziness new cooking regiment, I’ve been using epicurious.com’s weekly meal planners to plan my meals for the week. They pretty much always do a vegetarian meal or two. Something that at first I just left out. Or filled in with something meatier. Like hanger steaks and fries.

But recently I’ve started cooking them. And Julie and Stella have been enjoying them. Mostly. The meals are hit and miss. Often the things that sound horrible are quite good, and the things that sound good are completely horribly foul. We had a side dish composed almost entirely of zucchini and I liked it. I didn’t like it for zucchini. I really liked it.

I even cooked tofu last week. And last night. Which still gives me a bit of a weird feeling. Because I’d rather cook an animal, than an animal substitute. I actually like tofu. But I’d prefer to cook it as tofu. This really cool vegetable product. Rather than tofu, “I can’t believe it’s not chicken”!

I’ve noticed a trend. There are a lot of vegetarians I’ve encountered who don’t really eat vegetables. This is supposed to be a diet about health. Or politics. Or both. But I’m seeing a lot of people who just eat McDonalds fries. And Annie’s Mac and Cheese. And Mission cheese burritos. Which seems like it’s defeating the point. Vegetarianism has become big business. The business being providing calories without requiring the actual consumption of vegetables.

It’s the same bad diet that is making most of America obese, but without the benefit of getting second-hand vitamins and minerals from animals that have already predigested those noxious vegetables for us.

I’m still learning to love vegetables. But we’re working through this together.  Stella’s my mascot. She’ll eat pretty much anything raw, but once I cook it she becomes uninterested. Potatoes. Zucchini. Red peppers. Garlic. Ginger.

Julie would prefer that I not give her raw garlic.

Maybe I should join the raw foods movement.

Joking.

28:03, 9:03/mi. I really pushed myself. I’m hoping it was the heat, because that’s just a middle of the road score for me.

Well, I’m back to running every day, so there’s always next year. I’ll chalk up this year’s poor performance to having a newborn.