Second in a series, looking at the City's newly-released "vision" posters that promote the code...
Here's the City's "poster" about the R2 zones:
Does the image above look like Austin to you? It looks like Houston to us, which is apparently the point of this whole code re-write process: deregulation to remake Austin as a copy of Houston.
Were the pictures enough? Great!! Want to go into some details- read on...
I love that this model envisions a world where there is only one remaining motor vehicle!! Very cool.
Example #2- This is pretty much what most of us picture in our minds when we think of "Central Austin". Small-ish houses on tree-covered lots.
Example #3- a massive, high-dollar duplex with a rooftop deck and zero parking. This is what the current code draft delivers- aka Houston.
Example #4- a bizarre example attempting to illustrate what could be built under our current code. They pushed it to 3 stories by making the first floor footprint tiny (it's limited to a .4 FAR). Are there many houses in Austin today that look like this? If they're trying to show us that the current code is a bad thing, why do they show this example right next to an even worse example of what their NEW code does? We're puzzled...
Example #3a- "under consideration"... They're showing us that they might suggest lowering the FAR for duplexes on big lots (over 7k sf), but they'd still allow them to be massive on smaller lots (with a graduated FAR scale). This would be an interesting topic for in-depth discussion, but with the first Council hearing on the code only 2 days away, there's no time to study it or model the potential unintended consequences/gaming that would result from giving smaller lots higher FAR. We've seen too many examples already of how it goes wrong when this group of code-writers delivers code without beta testing.
Here's the City's "poster" about the R2 zones:
 |
| Full COA R2 poster (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Close-up of R2 street view. Note the existing home cowering in the background... |
Does the image above look like Austin to you? It looks like Houston to us, which is apparently the point of this whole code re-write process: deregulation to remake Austin as a copy of Houston.
 |
| Aerial view of the City's R2 block model. |
Were the pictures enough? Great!! Want to go into some details- read on...
I love that this model envisions a world where there is only one remaining motor vehicle!! Very cool.
Example #2- This is pretty much what most of us picture in our minds when we think of "Central Austin". Small-ish houses on tree-covered lots.
Example #3- a massive, high-dollar duplex with a rooftop deck and zero parking. This is what the current code draft delivers- aka Houston.
Example #4- a bizarre example attempting to illustrate what could be built under our current code. They pushed it to 3 stories by making the first floor footprint tiny (it's limited to a .4 FAR). Are there many houses in Austin today that look like this? If they're trying to show us that the current code is a bad thing, why do they show this example right next to an even worse example of what their NEW code does? We're puzzled...
Example #3a- "under consideration"... They're showing us that they might suggest lowering the FAR for duplexes on big lots (over 7k sf), but they'd still allow them to be massive on smaller lots (with a graduated FAR scale). This would be an interesting topic for in-depth discussion, but with the first Council hearing on the code only 2 days away, there's no time to study it or model the potential unintended consequences/gaming that would result from giving smaller lots higher FAR. We've seen too many examples already of how it goes wrong when this group of code-writers delivers code without beta testing.