Source
r/UTAustin•
sid-kap

Austin-wide rezoning: what changes do you want to see?

The City is in the process of introducing a new zoning code. (For those who don't know, the zoning code is the document that decides what kinds of buildings can be built where. This includes use (single-family, multifamily residential, retail, mixed-use), building height, parking requirements, etc.)

They have released a new draft code, which lists the new zones and their requirements, and a new draft map, which says which zones will be used on each plot of land. For West Campus, the map is not actually correct; there is actually something called the UNO (University Neighborhood Overlay) which is in the draft code which list special rules unique to West Campus that doesn't conform to any of the zones.

The draft has mostly kept the status quo in the places near campus:

  • In West Campus, UNO is basically the same as what is has been, since it was first added in 2004. This means tall buildings, mixed use (the ground floor of a building can contain retail), parking reductions (they don't have to build as much parking per housing unit as they do in other places in Austin, since they know this is a more pedestrian-friendly place). The height limits are the same as what they already had: about 175 feet (15ish stories) in the core of West Campus, from MLK to 25th and from San Antonio to Rio Grande, and gradually getting shorter as you go out from there (see draft code pg. 333 for a map).
  • In North Campus, the status quo is also preserved. The means mostly single-family houses and 2-story aparment buildings, with a strict separation of uses (no mixed-use buildings).

What kind of changes would you like to see? We have the rest of the year to contact our representatives and show up to meetings to give our opinions about what should change or stay the same about our neighborhoods. I'll post a comment with my ideas for what could be changed.

Posted Apr 24, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC

2038
MiddC•

Someone sounds like an Urban Studies major, like your point about Hyde Park

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sid-kapOP•

Here are some changes I want to see:

  • Remove all parking requirements in West Campus. Right now, it's at about 0.5-1 parking space per housing unit. This parking is pretty expensive to build (about $10,000-20,000/space), which means that we end up with a bunch of huge projects, that take up a whole block, that are quite ugly, and which have pretty high rent to make up for the costs of building the huge parking lot. I'd like to see some smaller apartment buildings (maybe wood rather than concrete/steel) that are cheaper. This would also add some diversity, rather than having these huge buildings that occupy a whole block.
  • Upzone North Campus/Hyde Park to have more mixed-use, and slightly taller buildings (maybe 5-6 stories instead of 2 stories). I've heard that there aren't any good grocery stores in North Campus/Hyde Park. (There's Hyde Park Grocers which isn't even a real grocery store.) Mixed use buildings would allow adding some grocery stores and restaurants within walking distance of most housing.
  • Remove all parking requirements within 1/4 or 1/2 mile of high-frequency bus routes. (Of course, developers can still build parking if they want to, but it shouldn't be required.)
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jsr1001•

Parking in West Campus is already expensive enough as it is. Dropping that supply further would be terrible. I'm not a massive fan of the current trends in West Campus apartment construction, but right now demand is higher than supply. Developers are going to build the biggest apartment buildings they can, because virtually every unit will fill. Short of banning large scale apartments (which would be a nightmare) that trend will not stop until all the excess demand is met.

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sid-kapOP•

First, to be clear I'm not advocating for dropping the supply of housing. In fact, my proposal—reducing parking requirements—would probably increase supply of housing.

The buildings in the center of WC are limited to about 170ft. height, which must be divided between parking and housing. Each parking space is about 180 sq. ft. and goes for about $100/month (please correct me if I'm wrong). If the developer is debating whether to build more parking or housing, with 1000 sq ft they could either build 1 2-bedroom apartment (which rents at about $2000/month) or 5-6 parking spaces (which rents at about $500-600/month). Clearly, the optimal choice would be to build more apartment units because they can make much more money with that use of space. Why should we force developers to make economically suboptimal choices? The total benefit to society of housing more people in West Campus is better than the benefit of someone parking their car there instead, as evidenced by the fact that people are willing to pay much more for an apartment than for the equivalent amount of parking.

Of course, I know there are some people who really want a parking space, and if the developers want to build parking to please that population, then it's fine. But I don't see why we should force them to make unprofitable choices—which hurt both producers and consumers—just because someone in City Hall thinks that parking is a human right that ought to be subsidized by higher rents from everyone else.

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jsr1001•

Yes, parking is between $80-100 a month, that's because there is demand for it. Building small two stories apartment complexes instead of 10+ story high rises is definitely going to drop supply more than removing the already limited parking.

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kor321Computer Science '17•

parking "Rates from $85 - $130 depending on contract term" :( http://quartersoncampus2.businesscatalyst.com/garage.html

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sid-kapOP•

I agree that we shouldn't decrease the housing supply! I wasn't suggesting small 2-story apartments. I was suggesting apartments with 15 stories of housing (or maybe 2 stories of parking and 13 stories of housing), instead of 5 stories of parking and 10 stories of housing.

When I referred to "ugly big apartments", I meant apartment buildings that occupy the whole block. I'd rather see a street with 5 side-by-side (tall) apartment buildings, rather than one big building. (Here is a blog post which basically describes what I'm imagining. However, this is just my personal, subjective aesthetics and doesn't really matter that much.)

Yes, parking is $80-100/month, but isn't that much lower than what it should be? A 1000 sq. ft. 2-bedroom apartment costs $100,000 to build in Austin (at about $100/sq. ft), and rents for about $2000 (1/50 of that price). By the same ratio, shouldn't parking then cost about $200-400 (1/50 of $10-20k)? If the price people are willing to pay is lower than the production cost, doesn't that mean that the amount produced is more than what is demanded? (i.e. the market is operating to the right of the intersection of the supply and demand curves)?

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LeDauphinMIS '17•

What you fail to address here is the assumption that people will live in apartments that don't have parking spaces.

I for one would not live somewhere without a parking space because I use my car for transportation. If you've seen any of the apartment complexes in West Campus, many of their parking garages are full. Removing these spaces would reduce the number of prospective tenants.

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sid-kapOP•

Sure, some people demand parking spaces. Others (like me, and many people I know at UT) don't. Why can't the market decide on its own how many parking spaces to build? Why should the government make these decision for people?

See, for example, this case from last month where a developer wanted to make a small apartment building in West Campus with fewer parking spaces than were required by law. A group of neighborhood activists showed up at the meeting and insisted that the developer make the full number of required parking spaces, and the developer's request was rejected. This will both add to the developer's construction costs (since they'll have to make a multi-story parking garage, rather than just a surface lot), and reduce the number of housing units they can build, since they have a height limit, and now more of that height limit will have to be used toward parking rather than housing. As a result, the apartments (if they get built) will be more expensive.

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kor321Computer Science '17•

I see your point regarding parking, but I think parking reductions should be removed and each unit should have the appropriate amount of parking. The streets around west campus used not to have pay meters but now they do as of last summer I believe. Yes, west campus is a pedestrian-friendly place, but that does not mean that people don't have cars that they need to get in and out of west campus. If someone living in a unit is not using their parking, they could rent it out to someone else, maybe a commuting student.

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sid-kapOP•

Sure, but why should the government force people to build parking? Why can't the market decide on its own how much parking to build? About half (or more) of the people I know don't have cars, and so there's definitely a market for some cheaper apartments that don't come with parking. (I know parking permits are sold separately, but those permits are usually cheaper than what the actual price should be, which means that everyone, even if they're not buying a parking permit, is indirectly paying for these parking spaces through higher rent.)

This would also free up space to build more housing. So rent would probably come down, while parking costs would go up a bit. It's a tradeoff, but one that I think should be left to the market to decide, not to the government.

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kor321Computer Science '17•

These are some interesting points that I didn't think about before esp market vs government. Thank you for raising them. My question is, and I am just wondering here, why would the market build more parking spots if they could just raise the price of their current parking? The demand is there, and as more people are moving into these high rises, demand will increase a bit for people who have cars and want to park them nearby. Thank you for making this post OP!

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sid-kapOP•

In theory (assuming a perfectly competitive market, no product differentiation, yada yada yada), the market will produce more of a good as long as the price people are willing to pay (the demand curve) exceeds the cost of production (the supply curve).

If, say, the market price of parking was $500/month, but the cost of producing parking is actually more like $400/month, then in theory someone would build more parking and rent it out at $499/month, making a $99/month profit. Basically, as long as there is profit to be made, people would in theory build more until they reach the point where the supply and demand curves intersect and no profits are made.

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ozigiri•

I would like to see more actual highways. I know everyone is going to throw sh*t at me for this comment, but yeah, pretty much we need that to fix the congestion issue.

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sid-kapOP•

As someone who doesn't drive in Austin, I'm curious to know, how does congestion affect you? I thought that it was mostly just a problem on weekdays during rush hour, and mostly for people who commute really far (i.e. far north or far south Austin to downtown).

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ozigiri•

I have to go to classes as well man in the early morning, and the congestion is so bad I make like 1 hour in bus, when there is no traffic I make only 10 minutes

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ctilsie242•

This. The only major road improvements that have been done in Austin since the mid 1990s has been things the Council has not bothered to do, and any real highway road work is all toll road related.

Contrast this to San Antonio which is working on a third loop around the city, and where, even at 5:30 on a workday, you can get across town in a reasonable fashion, barring a wreck.

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sid-kapOP•

Oh, and by the way, if anyone wants to learn more about this stuff, the ATX Urbanists facebook group is a great place to discuss! It would be awesome to get more points of view in that group, especially from students.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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sid-kapOP•

I agree with the general sentiment of lessening restrictions on development, but you might be interested to learn that Houston has many laws, such as parking minimums and covenants, which unfortunately do impose heavy restrictions on development.

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