So Chris Bradford wrote an interesting article on the missing middle in Austin’s housing market. I live in a neighborhood with all of these types of housing just around the corner (as well as large apartment complexes). And they’re a huge source of two of the things Austinites say they desire most – affordable housing and students for urban public schools.

But our current code doesn’t support building these sort of buildings, and we have ordinances like McMansion that makes it harder to build them. McMansion was extended to my area so many of the homes could not be replaced with what is currently on the property or what is across the street.

I think that’s somewhat intentional. Look at the following points:

• I hear again and again that we need to make urban areas more attractive for families so they don’t move out to the suburbs.
• The majority of kids in urban schools come from multi-family housing.
• Areas with underpopulated urban schools frequently fight new apartment complexes, duplexes, and fourplexes.

When I look at this I can’t help but think that these neighborhoods are fighting to try to bring suburban kids back. You know, the kind of kids who make a school into a “good school”. I think a lot of our zoning has to do with this perception that allowing lower-income residents a foothold in our neighborhoods will make the changes permanenent.

But the changes are permanent. Affluent white parents are never going to have the approximately 4 kids that each single-family home needs to have in these areas to make up for all the singles. Aging suburbs will never again reach the concentration of kids they had when they were brand new. That’s the nature of suburbs (and almost all of Austin’s urban neighborhoods began their lives as suburbs).

Perhaps we need a new slogan. How about:

“Multi-Family is Family Housing”

You got something better?

The Austin Bulldog has an article on fundraising for Prop 3 and 4. Perhaps most interesting is parsing what corporations think will happen versus what the campaigns are saying. Prop 4 is primarily funded by lawyers, the builders of Circle C (and longstanding foe of Save our Springs), and Austin Cab Company.

Prop 3 is primarily funded by home builders and out-of-state commercial/residential property owners (home away style??). As well as libertarian groups.

Still somewhat puzzled by what the libertarian groups hope to get out of this? There is no geographic region of libertarians in this town whose voices are being blotted out by all those voters in central Austin.

I’m assuming the cab company wants to ensure that it continues to be easy to lobby for their monopoly of permits. 10-1 seems like it could easily lead to 10 geographic cab companies.

Obviously the biggest group are home-builders who see both plans as a boon to making it easier to build in Austin. Especially West Austin over the aquifer. Far-west Austin does not have a strong history of voting in elections, and this could make it easier to outvote the environmental voting block (which after this will more than likely be concentrated in one or two districts).

I think I’m going to vote no on Prop 3 and 4. They both seem like a bad idea. Do you have any thoughts on what you think the source of this money means?

If you haven’t been following the news two apartment complexes in my neighborhood have been literally falling down. They are the Las Palmas and Wood Ridge apartment complexes. I haven’t met anyone who lives in the area who was surprised by this. Most just thought it would have happened to some of the complexes that appear to be in worse condition (Canyon Oaks I’m looking at you).

Thankfully no one has been hurt yet, but these complexes allow for an illustration in how housing prices work in Austin. A lot of people in Austin seem to think building new expensive condos raise housing prices. But these complexes show that isn’t the case.

The estimated monthly rent for Las Palmas is between $600-700/month. Wood Ridge is $680-860/month. Think about that. These are places that are literally falling down, and yet they can still charge 40% of the cost of one of those luxury rentals on Rainey Street. Even though the buildings are falling apart.

That says to me that Las Palmas and Wood Ridge cost the same as the luxury rentals. Once they rebuild the building they will be able to charge a 60% premium for a building that isn’t falling down. Not because they’re luxury condos. Because they’re not falling down.

They’re already priced as structurally unsound luxury condos.

So the Austin Chronicle came out with their voting endorsements and they’re good. I’d suggest printing them out and taking them with you to the voting booth.

But I wanted to take a minute and point out two issues that are particularly important to the performing arts.

Theater is a Special Interest Group

Special Interest Groups have a bad rap right now. It’s very easy to get voters riled up against them. But let’s face it, we are they. We advocate for and receive money from the city. There’s a tax that exists specifically to fund grants we receive (the Hotel Tax).

Single Member Districts

I bring this up because Single Member Districts were proposed specifically to suppress the influence of Special Interest Groups and have closer alignment between geographic areas and a single city council member. The city will be carved up into districts each represented by a single council member. Since all theater practitioners don’t live in the same geographic area we potentially would have a harder time garnering support for theater related legislation.

Four Choices

So there are really 4 choices on the ballot with regards to single member districts:

1. Vote no to single member districts (No on Prop 3 and Prop 4)
2. Vote yes for only geographic representation (Yes on Prop 3)
3. Vote yes for a hybrid of geographic and at-large representation (Yes on Prop 4)
4. Vote yes for any form of geographic representation (Yes on Prop 3 and Prop 4)

I can see why people would chose to go with voting no to both. As theater artists we stand to lose our collective power under a geographic representation system, but geographic representation has the potential to provide more engagement between city council and some of the less represented parts of town. So I’m a bit torn on this issue.

I cannot advocate for voting yes on Prop 3. Prop 3 carves Austin up into 10 districts, each of which votes for 1 council member. There is only one council member we’d all vote for – the Mayor. While this is being sold as a populist solution it would make mobilizing theater advocacy very difficult and we’d potentially have to have 10 advocacy groups in each geographic region (or more likely we’d need 5 and then work to get the mayor on our side).

I think ultimately if you’re going to vote for geographic representation, I’d recommend Prop 4. Prop 4 is a hybrid system with 8-2-1. That is 8 geographic representatives, 2 at-large representatives, and the mayor. We’d all vote for the 2 at-large council members and the mayor, plus our geographic representative. That would mean that it would be fairly easy to get a coalition of at least the 2 at-large council members, the mayor and we’d only need to get 3 geographic regions on board.

Voting Yes on Prop 3 and Prop 4 will mean your vote will count towards both, and whichever gets the most votes will be implemented.

I’d love to hear your comments and reasoning. This issue is complex and I can’t say my mind is solidly made up.

Prop 18

Prop 18 potentially includes money to replace the Daugherty Arts Center. So this one is very important for all theater artists to get out and vote for. In pretty much every survey they do The Creative Alliance gets lack of rehearsal space as one of the biggest challenges for theater companies in town. Very rarely do we get the chance to vote on something that so directly addresses our pain point as artists.

So get out and vote!