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What the fuck is wrong with you, Austin?


crash_davis

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2 hours ago, bschoolprof said:

Don't lump me in with those commie nutbags.  I don't oppose developer profits (obviously).  

I'm just saying that even in a real estate market with no land use restrictions at all, desirable housing (close to downtown where everyone wants to live, on the beach, etc) will always be expensive.  There's no way to build enough housing close in to get relatively "cheap" prices. This is self evident.   

I think that what the folks in the video are saying.

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50 minutes ago, Steel Shank said:

I think that what the folks in the video are saying.

Except I don't oppose the plan. I think it will help with supply, and bring prices down (relative to the counterfactual of doing nothing), but not to the extent that we'll get 300K units close in.  That's a pipe dream. That's the only part I was pushing back on.  

And I am fine with developers making money - that's the price we pay in a market system to get new housing.  

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BTW, to anyone thinking that the HOME initiative will provide housing for a teacher ... no way.
Teachers start just over $50k, consider a teacher that is a few years in making $60k.  


Let's correct this.

A starting teacher's base salary is $55.8k. They don't hit $60k ($60.2k actually) until year 19 at the current salary.

That's right. Almost 20 years in and the base pay hasn't even increased $5000. That means after 19 years their pre-tax monthly paycheck has gone up $400.

At 30 years they're at $69k, an increase of about $1000 (before taxes) per month over a first-year teacher.

Yeah, teachers can't afford to live anywhere in Austin without a spouse or partner making a lot more. Two teachers aren't living in Austin together, especially if they have kids.

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Rename Barton Springs?

The link reads like an Onion article. 

Quote

“I think at some point, all of us started referring to [Barton] spring as ‘The Spring,’” said Pedro Villalobos, Chair of the Parks and Recreation Board. “That’s because of the baggage that it carries with it.”

If we're taking a vote on the ridiculous bath house names I'm going with Tza Wan Pupako Springs Bathhouse. 

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22 hours ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Severely reducing Air BnB would double or even triple housing supply overnight according to that video.* 
 

Can anyone verify the 3500(sale) vs 16k airbnb?

HOME will fix nothing in central Austin. Not one sub $300k property will be produced organically

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Mueller_Austin_TX/pnd-hide

Hmmm, here's one website for Airbnb's that has a count of around 14,800:
http://insideairbnb.com/austin/

I don't have access to MLS, but Zillow shows about 2700 homes are for sale in the Austin area right now, depending on the size of the map.

Also, this article says Austin area will deliver about 23,400 new apartments in 2023, to add to the 45,000 apartments created from 2020-2022:
https://austin.urbanize.city/post/austin-apartment-construction-how-many

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Forcing AirBNB out of town isn't the answer here.  I would bet you a bulk of the AirBnB listings are owner occupied units that are rented out during major events like F1, SXSW, ACL, etc.  We have a neighbor that puts his house on AirBnB for 5K / night, and I can't tell you if it's EVER been rented, but it's one of those, if they want to pay it, why not?

 

I think the more irritating thing is seeing Chito and Vanessa tweet about how they're modeling HOME or the rail system after Portland or some other random city they've visited recently.  The QUICKEST way to piss most people off is trying to shoe-horn some bullshit from a city that's in disrepair into the City of Austin.  The longer I watch, the more I turn into Armybrat, watching all the transplants move here and try to turn Austin into the shithole they fled.

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4 minutes ago, PvilleStang said:

Forcing AirBNB out of town isn't the answer here.  I would bet you a bulk of the AirBnB listings are owner occupied units that are rented out during major events like F1, SXSW, ACL, etc.  We have a neighbor that puts his house on AirBnB for 5K / night, and I can't tell you if it's EVER been rented, but it's one of those, if they want to pay it, why not?

 

I think the more irritating thing is seeing Chito and Vanessa tweet about how they're modeling HOME or the rail system after Portland or some other random city they've visited recently.  The QUICKEST way to piss most people off is trying to shoe-horn some bullshit from a city that's in disrepair into the City of Austin.  The longer I watch, the more I turn into Armybrat, watching all the transplants move here and try to turn Austin into the shithole they fled.

I mean, I kind of like Portland.

That said, renaming Barton Springs... uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhggggggggggggg

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5 hours ago, PvilleStang said:

Forcing AirBNB out of town isn't the answer here.  I would bet you a bulk of the AirBnB listings are owner occupied units that are rented out during major events like F1, SXSW, ACL, etc.  We have a neighbor that puts his house on AirBnB for 5K / night, and I can't tell you if it's EVER been rented, but it's one of those, if they want to pay it, why not?

 

I think the more irritating thing is seeing Chito and Vanessa tweet about how they're modeling HOME or the rail system after Portland or some other random city they've visited recently.  The QUICKEST way to piss most people off is trying to shoe-horn some bullshit from a city that's in disrepair into the City of Austin.  The longer I watch, the more I turn into Armybrat, watching all the transplants move here and try to turn Austin into the shithole they fled.

It's not like Austin is some shining beacon on the hill. It's a big city with big city problems that are not at all unique to Austin. People who complain about transplants turning Austin into "the shithole they fled" are a big part of the impediment to effecting positive change.

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On 11/28/2023 at 9:02 PM, DalTxHornFan said:

Pro tip:  If Bill Bunch is for it -- oppose it.

Got a mailer the Austin Parks Foundation requesting a donation. This reminded me that Bill Bunch was against the "Zilker Vision Plan". I don't agree with him on everything, but I do on these two issues. Life's not black and white. 

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It's not like Austin is some shining beacon on the hill. It's a big city with big city problems that are not at all unique to Austin. People who complain about transplants turning Austin into "the shithole they fled" are a big part of the impediment to effecting positive change.

We are impeding change that we don’t see as positive.
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37 minutes ago, royiv said:

It's not like Austin is some shining beacon on the hill. It's a big city with big city problems that are not at all unique to Austin. People who complain about transplants turning Austin into "the shithole they fled" are a big part of the impediment to effecting positive change.

Our problems may not be unique, but our current City Council wants to model a child care system after Penn State University.  They're also standing up a Title 9 office modeled after Baylor.  

Like it or not, Austin is a pretty unique city, geographically speaking.  We're a large metropolis that failed to plan and is left with a bunch of North / South corridors and very little East / West options.  We're built up on dense land that's not easily tunneled into, and we have a lot of urban sprawl compared to most cities of similar population.  So doing things like converting existing roadways to bike paths or outdoor mall space is freaking stupid, as well as tearing out homes and businesses to provide mass transit to service those you just alienated.  

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22 hours ago, crash_davis said:

We I lived in Dallas, I wanted to live in the M streets and Lakewood areas. That shit was hella expensive. No one bitched about affordable housing back then.

I lived in the M Streets in 2014 and got a duplex for $1k/month.  That is less than 10 years ago.  Shit has gone insane since then.  

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58 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Everything in Austin has like 5 names anyway.  Always has been MLK as long as I can remember, but if someone's calling it 19th St, ok.

MLK was renamed as such in 1975. Oldtimers like my dad still sometimes refer to it as 19th street (he doesn't live in Austin).  He also used to call 35 "interregional."  

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5 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

MLK was renamed as such in 1975. Oldtimers like my dad still sometimes refer to it as 19th street (he doesn't live in Austin).  He also used to call 35 "interregional."  

Calling it 19th street... yeeah, I don't know about that one.  And it was 1st when I was at UT but I'm not going to going out of my way to call it that over Chavez.  1st, 19th... they're numbers.  Town Lake... that there is sacred.  

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I kinda use 1st & Chavez interchangeably.  50/50, I'd say.  It's MLK to me 99% of the time, just how it was introduced to me when I moved to Austin and lived just north of it in Cherrywood.  I didn't "get" Town Lake for the first year I lived here.  I thought it was just the Colorado River, so eventually adopted Town Lake from Hula Hut to past Pleasant Valley.  Ladybird Lake just never took off like they thought it would.  No disrespect to the former First Lady, but if you can't get an environmentalist democratic name on a river in Austin, you can't get much done period.  Same with Ann Richard bridge.  It's the Congress Avenue Bridge or South Congress Bridge.  Nobody's trying to be an asshole about it.  That's just way things turned out.  

For a few months, my new neighbor from Los Angeles area kept referring to MoPac as "The 1" and then "The 35" and "The 183."  After I stopped laughing because I thought he was doing a bit from "The Californians", I explained the naming system.  It's all good now.  But I think it'd be fun to do voiceover work for car nav systems from California where it's my voice saying, "Take the 290 to the 71"  

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Every once in a while doing delivery, I'll get a package addressed to "E 19th St" and I'll think, "There is no 19th St." Google Maps has no idea what to do.

It'll go to one of those new apt buildings on E MLK. I've had people there tell me the address auto-populates as 19th St when they order.

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5 minutes ago, ftf82 said:

Imagine the uproar when they changed Pecan Street to Sixth 

Evidence that Big Peanut was trying to eliminate the competition even way back when. 

 

4 minutes ago, Macklemore said:

It will always be 26th St and not Dean Keeton for me.

Racist!

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10 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Was there a name for old Mopac north of parmer?

 

1325

Burnet Road just morphed into 1325.  Pretty sure that Parmer didn't extend that far west.  It was all just a bunch of dairy farms out that way until IBM built their plant in the mid 1960s (to build Selectric typewriters -- very high tech!).  Gracywoods is named for the Gracy family that had a big dairy operation out that way.  @Armybrat may have a better recollection than me -- he was driving cars and chasing tail when I was still riding on a yellow school bus!

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13 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

Burnet Road just morphed into 1325.  Pretty sure that Parmer didn't extend that far west.  It was all just a bunch of dairy farms out that way until IBM built their plant in the mid 1960s (to build Selectric typewriters -- very high tech!).  Gracywoods is named for the Gracy family that had a big dairy operation out that way.  @Armybrat may have a better recollection than me -- he was driving cars and chasing tail when I was still riding on a yellow school bus!

I didn’t get much farther north on Burnet than the Green Acres miniature golf and driving range in the early 1960s. 
Was a South Austin boy then, except for the tail chasing. That was primarily after sundown.

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1 hour ago, Armybrat said:

I didn’t get much farther north on Burnet than the Green Acres miniature golf and driving range in the early 1960s. 
Was a South Austin boy then, except for the tail chasing. That was primarily after sundown.

Did you show her your new Edison player and give her your letter sweater?

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I have an interesting story regarding one of my Texas ancestors and William "Billy" Barton (owner of springs and apparently, slaves).  I'm a direct descendant of Gen. Ed Burleson (from Republic of Texas fame).  William Barton's son, Wayne Barton, married a daughter of General Ed.  William Barton was the first Sherriff of Travis County.  There was a dispute between the Burleson son (John) and William Barton and Barton shot and killed John.  A couple of years later, two of John Burleson's brothers found William Barton and killed him. 

edited to add that my GGG Grandfather, David Crockett Burleson (1837 - 1911) would have been about 12 years old at the time.

AUSTIN COLONY PIONEERS, Ray, 1995 Wayne Barton, son of old Billy Barton, was a waggish fellow with a strong sense of humor, says Noah Smithwick in his "Evolution of a State." (Because of his temper and because of his inherited dislike of neighbors... and perhaps because he had killed a son of Gen. Edward Burleson in 1848, two of Gen. Burleson's sons went after and killed him.. after numerous rounds were exchanged, despite the fact that Wayne Barton was the husband of their sister, Mary.)

NORTHERN STANDARD, of Clarksville, February 3rd, 1849, p.2, col.5: "Wayne Barton was killed in Washington County by two sons of General Burleson. Several shots were fired on both sides. Mr. Barton was a son-in-law of General Burleson, the former Vice-President of Texas. The quarrel originated from an old grudge - Barton having killed a brother of the Burlesons last year, and this was the first opportunity they had of taking revenge."

Edited by BottleRocket
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13 hours ago, Armybrat said:

I didn’t get much farther north on Burnet than the Green Acres miniature golf and driving range in the early 1960s. 
Was a South Austin boy then, except for the tail chasing. That was primarily after sundown.

Man I spent a lot of time at Green Acres.

Was a great miniature golf course.

I remember every hole.

spacer.png

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58 minutes ago, BottleRocket said:

I have an interesting story regarding one of my Texas ancestors and William "Billy" Barton (owner of springs and apparently, slaves).  I'm a direct descendant of Gen. Ed Burleson (from Republic of Texas fame).  William Barton's son, Wayne Barton, married a daughter of General Ed.  William Barton was the first Sherriff of Travis County.  There was a dispute between the Burleson son (John) and William Barton and Barton shot and killed John.  A couple of years later, two of John Burleson's brothers found William Barton and killed him. 

edited to add that my GGG Grandfather, David Crockett Burleson (1837 - 1911) would have been about 12 years old at the time.

AUSTIN COLONY PIONEERS, Ray, 1995 Wayne Barton, son of old Billy Barton, was a waggish fellow with a strong sense of humor, says Noah Smithwick in his "Evolution of a State." (Because of his temper and because of his inherited dislike of neighbors... and perhaps because he had killed a son of Gen. Edward Burleson in 1848, two of Gen. Burleson's sons went after and killed him.. after numerous rounds were exchanged, despite the fact that Wayne Barton was the husband of their sister, Mary.)

NORTHERN STANDARD, of Clarksville, February 3rd, 1849, p.2, col.5: "Wayne Barton was killed in Washington County by two sons of General Burleson. Several shots were fired on both sides. Mr. Barton was a son-in-law of General Burleson, the former Vice-President of Texas. The quarrel originated from an old grudge - Barton having killed a brother of the Burlesons last year, and this was the first opportunity they had of taking revenge."

Early Texans were some feuding sons of bitches.

Especially the cedar choppers and that wasn't that long ago.  

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21 hours ago, bschoolprof said:

MLK was renamed as such in 1975. Oldtimers like my dad still sometimes refer to it as 19th street (he doesn't live in Austin).  He also used to call 35 "interregional."  

 

I still accidentally call it 19th sometimes. Not because I'm THAT old, but because my dad and other older relatives always called it that.

 

26th will always be 26th, however.

As will Town Lake.

 

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