BIKE: preserving historic structures?

[Patrick Goetz]

Richard Ryan wrote:
>  
> Opposition to proposed projects is a seperate issue. Unfortunately, many 
> of the proposed development projects are also associated with the 
> demolition of a historic structure.  If the developers would stay away 
> from historic structures, they would find much less opposition.
>  
> Yours in preservation,  Dick Ryan
> 

Oh man, someone would have to cut my fingers off in order to let this
one slide.  Since you're on the bike list, I'm going to give you the
benefit of the doubt, but surely you must realize that 99% of the time
"historic preservation" is nothing more than excuse to prevent
development in or near the affected neighborhood?  I'm on the UTC, have
close ties to the Planning Commission, and come in contact with OWANA
frequently.  At the last ANC meeting, OWANA rep Laura Morrison
complained bittlerly about A) a condo building being built on MF-zoned
property which was 4 stories instead of 3 and B) a commercial
development on 6th street [no, I'm not making this up].  The nerve of
someone trying to do something commercial on west 6th street!  We're not
even talking about anything as diabolical like converting a single
family lot to multi-family use.  Jeff Jack chimed in to bring up the
"crime" of someone who scraped a one-story shack in Zilker in order to
build a 2-story house on the same footprint -- apparently one of the
greatest crimes of the century, judging by the reaction of the ANC
members present.  Morrison came very close to foaming at the mouth at
this meeting.  Much of her discussion focused on how to intimidate
and/or entrap city staff and how every ANC/OWANA issue, no matter how
trivial, must go straight to the city manager's office, and that lack of
cooperation from the city manager must result in a complaint made to
city council.  Anyone who knows about the city's CAF process knows that
this generates an inordinate amount of bureaucratic paperwork for city
staff, preventing them from getting real work done.

What is a historic structure, anyway?  I can assure you that by European
standards Austin has 2, at most 3 historic structures (the Littlefield
house on UT campus, the state capitol building, and the Drake Hotel).
Urban renewal and building sustainable compact neighborhoods means that
some termite-infested, abandoned, one-story wooden shacks are going to
have to be torn down, even if they were built in ancient times like the
1940's, 50's and 60's.  Your preservation is someone out on the street
because there isn't enough affordable housing available in Austin.  It's
someone having to drive 30 miles each day back and forth from a
depressing, soul-killing apartment complex on I-35 just north of
Pflugerville because they can't find a place to live in the urban core.
  Forgive me if I think the shack needs to go under these circumstances.

I second Mike Dahmus' comments 100 + epsilon percent.

The very best thing about Jennifer Kim's victory is that the ANC and
traditional neighborhood groups were lined up squarely behind Margot
Clarke and got a much deserved and thorough shellacking.  As I mentioned
earlier, we are a society in crisis and most people know it in their
gut.  Groups like the ANC and OWANA which stand squarely in the way of
solutions are on the way out in terms of having any influence on the
process, and that, in my humble opinion, is way past due.