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DasBlueHaus :(
June 14, 2005 ( life )
So, we lost against the Planning Commission, and it's therefore so incredibly unlikely that we could win in Council that we're not planning on putting forth the effort.
Of the seven commissioners present at the meeting, one understood our goal and supported us hands down, two offered lots for placement of the house if it could be moved, but voted against us anyhow, and another was very torn on the issue. They all emphatically requested that we submit our research to the Austin History Center, which we will do.
Basically, the new zoning for West Campus comes down to this: The City agreed to stop screwing developers who bought non-hisorically-zoned and/or non-high-density-zoned land in certain chunks near UT in return for protecting still-fully-intact historical neighnorhoods in danger of developer encroachment (Hyde Park, and Heritage, which, incidentally, is where the owner of the Haus lives). It's basically a pact-with-the-devil type situation, as many commissioners live in these sought-after historical-but-not-protected neighborhoods, and the developers could have really been unpleasant about it, so, West Campus is scorched earth for historical property, basically.
The one vote for us was emphatic, and the three other commissioners basically sung the same song -- you're right, you've made compelling arguments for saving the house, but (a) the owner does not support it , which requires a much higher standard of historical import, and (b) the buyer intends to build high-density housing on the lot and we promised to stop doing this. Sorry.
Realistically, this was going to happen at the City Council if it didn't happen here, so.
Amusing side notes:
The Owner approached blanu and repeated the request that we submit the data to the history center. She also refrained from making ad hominem attacks against me this time, which I very much appreciated.
The Purchaser approached me and gave me his card and seems interested in taking up our leases until they get the right demo/building permits, because, seriously, uh, we are tenants that in different situations landlords would compete for.
So, the actual movement asks the owners to seek someone who'd be willing to eat the cost to move it to a lot (and two lots were proposed, one which already is historically zoned, and therefore worthless to developers!) so the Haus might still have a chance to survive, but not in West Campus.
I'm not as sad as I feared, overall. I was realistic going into this whole thing, and was pretty certain that we'd lose at the City Council. I hoped we'd get past Planning, but they have a lot of deals binding them down. It's a happy-ish ending. We fought a good fight, we reminded the Planning Commission of some painful sacrifices they've made, and we can sleep at night knowing that we didn't roll over and let it die without this.
Posted by griffjon at June 14, 2005 11:12 PM
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