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Chris Duel wrote:
> So what you’re saying is our own neighborhood planning team SCREWED us,
> but it was for our own good?
There seems to be the usual level of misunderstanding and hysteria at
work here. Here are the facts:
1. The planning team only added VMU to properties that already had
commercial zoning.
2. Because virtually all* commercial properties in the neighborhood were
rezoned with an MU (Mixed Use) overlay during the planning process years
ago, VMU hardly affects us at all in any way; i.e. VMU mostly adds MU to
CS/GR/LR-zoned properties; something we had already done 6 years ago!
* A couple of properties on IH-35 requested to not get the MU overlay.
3. VMU does offer modest density increases and a relaxed parking
requirement (some MU building choices already had this anyway), but it
doesn't allow for any height increases and doesn't relax compatibility
requirements (read: no monster complex could be built behind your house
without a variance).
4. At the same time, VMU does add affordability and design requirements
that most developers currently consider too onerous to bother with,
given the modest entitlements they get from VMU.
In short, adding VMU to the properties along Koenig is unlikely to
change anything at all. What someone who already has commercial zoning
can do to you *right* *now* is so much worse than anything VMU will
contribute, this is not an issue to get up in arms about. If anything,
VMU will civilize commercial development, as they would need to make it
attractive to the people who would be living -- not next door, but right
on the site.
> if the Skyview church is re-zoned, sells and is developed into a
> monster complex, my property value is ruined.
...
> NO ONE will voluntarily live behind massive buildings like that or ever
> pay what they would even one block away. And, even if it takes years or
> is never redeveloped, buyers will know that the possibility exists and
> will most likely look elsewhere.
Jeez, this explains why New York City is such a wasteland! I had no
idea, but thanks for saving me from buying that condo in So-Ho I was
looking at.
I really don't understand why people keep saying things like this, since
all the evidence suggests that precisely the opposite is the case. Pray
that they build some kind of giant complex on the Skyview Church site so
that you can cash out and pay cash for a 3500sf house in Pflugerville or
Hutto with enough money left over for his and her Cadillac SUV's.
Skyview is currently zoned for civic use, however, and I'm not sure it
automatically got VMU by virtue of its location -- probably not. Since
Kriss Schluderman just met with the city about this and has looked over
the maps recently he can probably answer this question.
> By the way, where do all of you live? I'm just going to guess that it's
> not within 1000 feet or more of any of these properties.
>
I'm sure the planning team members who live CLOSER to these properties
than you do (they can identify themselves if they wish) appreciate your
vote of confidence (not to mention hands on participation in the process).
Despite our worries/concerns (due largely to a lack of familiarity I
think), mixed-use development works (and works very well) both across
the planet and through time. It's our suburban, segregated ideas about
land use that are weird and very likely (12 trillion dollars in the hole
and counting!) unsustainable. At this point, if just the Chinese
government decided to dump their dollar holdings, this discussion would
be longer over, as we would be facing problems that make VMU vs. no VMU
appear like a trivial concern compared to, say, finding enough food to
feed your family. I don't know about you, but I consider that to be a
pretty ridiculous situation to be in -- similar to watching the
president practically groveling and begging the Saudi Arabian king to
pump more oil so that the price will go down (note to W: listen to your
own energy consultants, fool - they couldn't if they wanted to).
How is this relevant? Because every time someone in North Loop *drives*
to the mall rather than *walking* to the corner store, they're
contributing to the problem. Like quantum mechanics or special
relativity, this might be hard to wrap your brain around after a
lifetime of knowing nothing else, but this makes it no less a fact.
Anthropologists like to muse about what the person who cut down the last
tree on Easter Island was thinking, but you can be quite sure that the
ones who pushed the problem of "no more trees -- we're dead!" to the
point of no return weren't thinking anything at all.
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