You maniacs! You blew it up!

Council last night passed the McMansion Ordinance with 0.4 FAR applying to everything (totally rejecting the Planning Commission’s efforts), and while they were at it, removed the “quick review commission” which could have provided a cheap(er) quick(er) path for obvious variance cases like mine. This means my next door neighbor wouldn’t be allowed to build a second floor to expand his 1010 square foot house (family of 5).

Let’s review: The unmitigated evil of this task force, and yes, I’m going to name names now, includes these sterling folks:

Karen McGraw, Hyde Park Neighborhood Association (link is to one of three properties at same address for her and husband): Has worked for years to stifle multifamily development in this area – leading to unintended consequences such as superduplexes and “McDorms”. Lives in a property with 3500 square feet of developed space, including a garage apartment, surrounded by properties which are more like 1100 square feet. Incompatible size and bulk, anybody?

Mary Gay Maxwell, North University Neighborhood Association: Likewise has worked to obstruct multifamily development for years – and then has the gall to simultaneously complain about students renting houses in our area. Lives in a 2-story house which ‘towers over the backyards of its neighbors’.

– Chris Allen – lone person on the task force from the neighborhood side who understands anything about development – misled people for weeks and weeks into thinking the ordinance would have no effect on cases like mine, then switched tactics late in the game and started smugly telling people that I should just build “habitable attic space” or a basement, and, if that might be a wee bit too expensive or impractical, just go to the “quick review commission”. Nothing to worry about, right? Except that the “quick review commission” just evaporated. Say hello once again to our old friend, the neighborhood-pandering kilodollars-wasting Board Of Adjustment!

Tell me again why these people have any moral justification whatsoever to tell me that I can’t have a garage apartment and a second floor? (Neither of which would, unlike Maxwell’s, ‘tower over my neighbor’s yard’?)

Tell me again why these people have any moral justification whatsoever to tell my next door neighbors that they can’t have a second floor unless they tear down their existing garage apartment?

Tell me again why these people, who were wrong about opposing multifamily development, should be allowed to do even more to attempt to obstruct the market’s desire to provide additional housing supply in the central city? (By further disincenting duplex and garage apartment development – both of which are much more affordable than single family homes, even tiny ones).

I’m disgusted. It’s 9:00 AM, and I need a beer.

Contest Idea: If/When my next door neighbors move out after they find out they can’t build their second floor, and we’re left as the only family among about six houses full of students (thanks to the fine work of Ms. McGraw and Ms. Maxwell), what should I do about it? Most entertaining suggestion wins a prize.

m1ek

blahg

4 thoughts on “You maniacs! You blew it up!

  1. And don’t forget the bonus – once this goes into effect later this year, we’ll start hearing, from the usual suspects, that there is an “emergency inspector shortage!” Followed by the creation of an volunteer architecture police with the power to find violations real and imagined: got one of those rubbermaid tool sheds? Joe Busybody is going to get you fined for exceeding your FAR!

  2. Again, this will have unintended consequences, like the rapid proliferation of larger, higher-priced luxury condos downtown and eastward, just the sort of thing this bunch is trying to stem. So much for promoting affordable housing in the central part of town. .40 is FAR is ridiculous; it includes driveways, patios, and pools, which have nothing to do with the primary complaint here. One can objectively evaluate a new construction plan on it’s own merits without presenting these arbitrarily-drawn templates.
    The granola mafioso neighborhood-group NIMBYs are killing the buzz that is 21st century Austin.

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