Deja vu all over again

I took a trip down memory lane last week when I went to a meeting of Austin's zoning and platting commission. Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was more or less a regular at those meetings. Zoning and platting were hot items in my part of the city in those days, and heady days they were.

We had massive zoning "studies" going on wherein the city would zone three or four thousand acres in one big zoning ordinance. We had limited purpose annexation and regular purpose annexation. We had neighborhoods versus developers, developers versus environmentalists, environmentalists versus neighborhoods. We had city planners with fire in their eyes. We had virtual blood baths every Tuesday and Thursday and most days in between while we worked our way through obscure zoning codes and wrangled over watersheds.

Then the real estate market tanked or something, and things slowed down. That gave us time for Austin Plan, a sector by sector plan for the whole city--which came to not much of anything after months and months of meetings and public hearings. At one point, I think I had 11 linear feet of Austin Plan on my bookshelves. Fortunately, the city had begin residential recycling by the time I realized that I could no longer afford to devote my shelf space to a slice of local history.

Then things really slowed down--and my job took up time--and I wasn't involved in local things so very much anymore. Until a couple of weeks ago when my neighborhood association decided that it was time to have another meeting. Once a year is about how often we meet to talk about dog poop and kids playing in the street versus cars driving on the same street. This meeting was a little early, but why not, I thought.

At the meeting, one of my neighbors mentioned that he had received notice of a zoning case near his house. My ears perked up, and I realized that it was a big honking office development that would affect us all if we weren't careful about it. And that put me back in the middle of things I had long ago forgotten about.

It was interesting from several perspectives to see the differences that time had wrought. Meeting with the city meant going to a rabbit warren in a high rise office building. In the old days, there was less rabbit warren and less high rise. The old cubicles had been replaced by actual offices--and we met in an actual conference room. Instead of hauling out huge maps, the planner just called up plats and aerial photographs on his computer.

Meeting with the developers to discuss the case was similarly different. I had dealt with the company in the past when it had a different name, but I recognized the conference room. The company representatives were different--and younger than me this time around. The atmosphere felt different this time, though. Perhaps the combination of age and experience gave me confidence. Perhaps the simple cordiality of the meeting was more pleasant than my memories of past conflicts. In any case, it was prettty much--what can we do to make this work? So we told 'em. And they agreed to what we asked and more. I mean, who gets a 750 foot setback without asking?

The next step was to get a formal motion from the Zoning and Platting Commission to say what we had agreed to. There was some shuffling in the background with my neighborhood. I really don't want to take on any more responsibility much less leadership, but there was a bit of a vacuum there for a few days. I slipped into the role of representative without much strain--but only for the one hearing, we all agreed.

The Commission still meets in City Council Chambers, but, of course, Austin has a new City Hall and new Council Chambers. This was my first visit. I arrived early to scope out the parking issues--which turned out to be pretty simple since there is now an actual parking garage. The next hurdle was getting through security. This surprised me, although I suppose it shouldn't have. Still, there's no metal detector at the Capitol these days, so I was startled by the metal detector and x-ray machine for bags and three guards on duty.

Entering the Chambers took a bit of time, since sign in is still required for testimony. The hall was caretainly bigger than the old one and made even larger by the presence of actual windows. Lots of them. Whole glass walls of them. The distance separating the audience from the dais had also increased. There were several monitors and screens around for projection, but no evidence of what might be showing on Cable Channel 6. (Does the Commission still show up there anymore?) I think that someone making their first visit to the Chambers could be intimidated by their arrangement--and the entry hassles. I was just fascinated by the change of venue and atmosphere.

Since we had worked out prior agreements with the developers and city staff had concurred with those agreements, our case would have been voted on by "consent" (without discussion) had Save Barton Springs not appeared to lodge a protest against development in that part of the city. At that point, everything fell back into place for me, and I was exactly where I remembered being. In fifteen years, nothing has changed after all.

The staff presented the case. The developer's agent stated his position. SBS made their case. I presented the neighborhood view--and slipped in a little history. The Commission approved the case and passed it on to City Council. I am told that SBS will have a "substantial presence" at the Council hearing on the case.

And what's at issue? A large office development in an environmentally sensitive watershed. The development could generate a lot of traffic at peak hours, which means air pollution that eventually pollutes the water. (Yes, your car pollutes the water you drink as well as the air you breathe. And a poor road system makes it worse.) SBS wanted to see single family residences on one-acre lots instead of the proposed 3-4 story office buildings limited to 20 percent impervious cover.

Oh, dear. And there I was, mentally screaming: Do you realize how much those houses would cost these days? Do you have any idea how much the county will raise my property taxes because of those fancy-assed houses? And who's gonna tell those rich neighbors you want me to have to forego fertilizing their lawns or propertly dispose of used motor oil? And why do I have to put up with more neighorhood noises 24/7 when the office workers would go home--somewhere else--at 5:00? And--well, the list goes on. I've been down this road before. Literally.

All of it brings back those same old problems. My neighborhood shouldn't exist. It's the oldest subdivision in the area, platted in the 1940's. Houses weren't built until the 1960's. It's small and secluded. There are still a few vacant lots in the subdivision, but they will soon be built out. Even so, one of my neighbors still has a few goats in a side lot. We only got a sewer lines within the last five years. Before that, our aging septic tanks were probably worse than any traffic in the area for pollution. The earlier residents of the neighborhood (in 27 years, weve lived there longer than just about everyone else) were independent-leave-me-alone kinds of folks. Many of the current residents still are.

So. This neighborhood shouldn't exist because it's built on a sensitive watershed. In a karst area. In an aquifer-recharge zone. With drainage problems that suggest that some tributary or some creek or other is being frustrated by the presence of houses where water really wants to flow.

Still it exists. Which means that those of us who generally had no clue about the enviromental sensitivity of the area when we sank our life savings into our property--which was rural in those days before the city sprawled out to capture us with annexation--have to figure out how to continue to live in the area and protect our steadily eroding quality of life.

Much has changed in the past fifteen years--and nothing has changed. The city even says they will start a new planning study--a neighborhood plan--for our area this fall. I can hardly wait.