Retrofitting the suburbs presentation Thursday
 

FYI, in case anyone is interested. Ties in with the Whither 78745? thread discussion.

http://www.centraltexascnu.org/sites...ones_Flyer.pdf

To be honest, we should be very wary of wholesale retrofitting. Pick a few nodes that an area should focus on to retrofit, and go all in on those areas.

For the Austin area, the historic center of Round Rock is really the only place that I think fits this model. One could argue that the eventuality of North Burnet does as well, but that's conceptually different as that is mostly new development as opposed to re-development. Also different is the corridor approach, which is mostly due to developmental overflow from downtown Austin proper.

San Antonio, on the other hand, has many areas where this kindof approach would work very well.

F that. Retrofit it all.

Rip it out and start over.

I can see certain parcels getting retrofitted out, like a long dead mall getting converted or large areas of asphalt getting infill.

But creating a few nodes of mixed use and density doesn't overcome the basic problem with low density, single use, sprawl built on dendritic pattern of Cul de sacs, feeders, collectors and arteries...Not closed to this, but wonder of its realistic.

Indeed, death to IH35!

Most of these retrofit-the-suburbs ideas are naive, and some are just scams. Spend some time driving around Avery Ranch, like I just did (had to run to Target to buy a camp chair to sit in the cafeteria at this suburban elementary school while my kid's in a chess tournament). There's just no way this can ever be retrofitted - we could dump billions here and not end up much better off.

Far better to slowly retreat from these areas and invest in areas that actually have good bones. But, of course, that'll never happen here - with us doubling down on the Red Line and sticking the urban core with nothing but buses.

Basically what I said. San Antonio has way more semi-suburban areas with the "good bones" than we do, which is why it would work better there.

I don't know exactly what Dunham-Jones would say in response, but fleshing out the presentation a bit: some of it actually had little to do with retro-fitting and was about 'reinhabiting' old strip malls, which has some benefits, but is not at all about 'urbanizing'.

There was some discussion of tearing up developments and returning it to greenspace/wetlands, etc.

The retrofitting seemed focused on older inner-ring suburbs - I don't think she was arguing we could fix Avery Ranch. The presentation was tied to the South Austin Combined planning process, which I think does have some (perhaps limited) potential for retrofitting, along with the east side of 78745.

The other focus was on redeveloping old malls, of which there are some successful examples:
http://www.downtownbelmarapts.com/4/...wood-Colorado/

On the downside, most of the successful retrofits seemed to be TODs of one sort or another around light rail lines. In many ways it was a depressing presentation because it showed how far "progressive and green" Austin lags behind...

1. Reinhabiting old malls has nothing to do with suburban retrofit - its the age old process of filtering down. I don't know why she discusses it in relation to the topic.

2. Taking old malls and asphalt and converting it to mixed use town squares has some benefits, certainly that's possible with Highland Mall here. But creating lifestyle center nodes, while nice, doesn't fix the basic problem with sprawl.

3. I agree there really isn't a fix for Avery Ranch type development.

4. Her challenge to imagine how to retrofit Ben White Blvd was a bit of nonsense. There is no fix for that short of ripping it out and starting over. She could have chosen a better target like Airport Blvd. or SoLa or Burnett where there really is potential.

It seems that the only fix necessary for true inner ring suburbs built on the grid is up zoning (or even better form based zoning but I don't expect "progressive" Austin will ever accept such a radical concept). I'm not sure how you can ever fix pod style development on dendritic roads unless you're willing to rip it out and start over.

Don't really disagree with anything you said. I suspect she was asked to focus on Ben White b/c it's actually part of the South Austin Combined area. Or a border of it at least. I probably come at it from a slightly different angle since I live in '45 and probably will for the forseeable future whether I like it or not. I think replacing some of the strip centers like at Manchaca and William Cannon and upzoning around it could be successful. Not holding my breath though. And even if putting in a decent pub at the Westgate and WC strip center where Locomotion is now doesn't count as urbanizing, it would give me a pub within walking distance. And that's something. :cheers:

This seems relevant to this thread.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/a...bbyists/nWBZh/

Well - this is about far more than the suburbs as this affects every singly street and potential development in the city of Austin.

And, I'll note that Morrison and Tovo, i'm sure, oppose anyone they deem to be a "lobbyist" from having input on the code, but will insist on having the ANC well represented.

A more visionary council would be talking about scraping the use-based code altogether as being antiquated relic of the post war-strict separation of use mania that ruined our cities and put into place a sensible smart form-based code.

So would most lobbyists, incidentally.