what to do with old buildings & open spaces

These two topics might seem unrelated, but I think that they actually intertwined with one another:  the opportunity and potential of a blank slate (with respect to planning a park or building homes) and people's extreme adoration or abhorrence for historic structures.

I think this connection is illustrated by the Mueller Development in Austin.  All the sudden the city had a large parcel of land close to the city center with which to do whatever they pleased.  They chose to use it for affordable housing to deal with the large lack of such housing in Austin.  They also are developing it in other ways, with retail, grocery stores, health care, and parks and public spaces (this is interesting and informational, but kind of unrelated to my point: http://www.kxan.com//dpp/news/investigations/mueller-bursts-with-major-developments )  But even as the city develops this area in many different ways, they still try to keep a connection to what was there before: an airport.  They kept the old air-traffic control tower and adorned it with colorful Christmas lights, and the new HEB planned is going to have an aviation theme.  (on Google Earth you can still see the old runway... I think they should keep that somehow, perhaps as a type of main street or promenade, but that's probably not viable)  It was just an airport, not an old historic church or anything like that, but still people feel an attachment and the need to preserve what was there before.  I think is simple and not very controversial example of this relation between the ideas of blank slates and old objects.

This relationship is more prevalent and important in scenarios like the Holly Street Power Plant and the Freemason Lodge in Mart, TX.  I think the basic program of the Holly Street project has been decided, but not the specifics.  They are going to expand the park, which I think is a great idea considering its location in East Austin along the river.  And it is my understanding that the power plant itself is destined to be completely removed, with no trace of it remaining.  In this case, the people o the community hated the building and saw it as a symbol of oppression and wanted it gone, regardless of what kind of spatial opportunities the infrastructure cold provide.  The power plant was so offensive to them that they wanted to just erase the piece of history from memory.  In Mart, the opposite is true.  The Freemason lodge is in total disrepair, but the people who use it would defend the structure at all costs.  Even though the building is basically ready to fall over, the history embedded in it is something irreplaceable to the community.  This situation presents many unique opportunities, whether they eventually decide to demolish it, somehow preserve it, or something in between.  There may not be tons of money available for the project, but the fact that the space is there and the building is so important to the people gives this project mush potential.  Personally, I think that decommissioning the building but keeping elements of the actual structure as a memorial, and making the site into a park, and perhaps eventually build a community center to keep and expand on the functionality of the lodge would be a fine way to treat this project.

There is a segment towards the end of the "Urbanized" documentary we watched in class about the redevelopment, for lack of a better word, of parts of New Orleans affected by Hurricane Katrina.  There is boom in building of new and architecturally interesting houses, and houses are nice and necessary, but they are not all the the area needs to rebuild itself, and frankly they aren't designed to match the character of the area and I doubt that the people of the community really identify with them.  The documentary profiled a public art artist who had a project of placing stickers on abandoned and derelict building throughout the affected districts.  They were made to resemble those "Hello, my name is:" stickers but they read "I wish this was:"  People passing by these buildings in their community would write in their desires for the structures.  Responses ranged from 'a park' or 'McDonalds' to 'not here' or 'owned by someone who cared.'  In the end this project was really just a piece of art, but I think that methods like this could be a great way for planners to communicate with residents of a community and learn how they feel about existing or historic structures in their neighborhood or their attitudes and ideas towards the development of public places.

"Urbanized"

I Netflixed that documentary we watched in class before spring break and I have watched it more than once now, really thinking about what each segment is saying.  It's really good...  All of my classes this semester, while different, at the end now all seem to relate and make me think, and this documentary helps me understand more clearly what I am thinking about... if that makes sense.  A few segments really stood out to me.

The first person to speak is the Director of the New York City Department of Planning.  she says "Urban design is really the language of the city.  When you walk down the street, everything you see has been designed:  The width of the sidewalk, where trees are planted, the scale of the trees, how the street furniture interacts, how many store you have per block, the height of the buildings, where they are set back; each one of these things has been thought about."  That statement kind of blows my mind.  Maybe my mind should've been blown the first week of this class, but perhaps it took a whole semester of this class and to hear that statement again for it to really sink in.

They go on to talk about various things from slums in India to public transportation to Jane Jacobs.  One of the final segments that we didn't get to view in class is about a proposed massive redevelopment of a large piece of Stuttgart to replace and bury existing old railways and build tons of apartments and stores on the surface.  This sounds like a great idea to me, but then you are presented with what has to happen in order for the project to take place:  You have to demolish an old and historic train station that is very important to the people of Stuttgart, as well as removed a park and cut down huge trees that are hundreds of years old.  The segment profiles the massive opposition to this redevelopment project.  Apparently, almost 20 years ago the people of the town did approve a sort of redevelopment, but the process of designing the new project was plagued with problems and stops and starts and spanned many years and this made it nearly impossible for the community to be involved and informed about the process.  It is said that nearly 2/3s of people in Stuttgart now oppose the project and there is a massive opposition organization that stages rallies and protests.  When workers came to start cutting down trees there was basically a riot with police macing people and spraying them with fire hoses and arresting people.  It reminded me more of the Arab Spring or something than community participation or whatever about a public works project.  Community participation isn't the right word, but really, it was insane.  The community was so polarized by this issue and the people cared so much, just about saving a park and a building.  It was impressive how much they cared.  I know people get really worked up over issues like this in Austin, but I don't see anything like this happening here.  Not to say that we don't care, or that the people in Stuttgart are barbarians, but there just has to be something about our American society that is engrained in our DNA that while we are attached to our communities, by comparison, and as a whole, we are apathetic.  Does this make sense?  America is just so huge with so much space and we have become spoiled and come to take things for granted that we just don't care so much.  Either that, or it's because our society has been broken up into so many different groups and factions all wanting different things and we are too busy arguing that we can't some together to fight for what is important to us.

Mueller Development

My girlfriend recently purchased a house in the Mueller development. She's only 24 and definitely couldn't have afforded the house with out the assistance from the affordable housing program they have there, but with the assistance and rent from roommates she is going to be able to actually own her own home.

I've visited the area several times recently and gotten to hear some of the details of how the process of getting a house works. It seems like there is some red tape to deal with, but I suppose its necessary to accomplish the goal. She had to deal with her realtor, some other realtor, and also a representative of the affordable housing program. They required her to submit pay stubs and other information about her income. Even though she did earn less that the income limit and had a signed letter from her employer the program representative claimed she earned too much to qualify for a new house, but she did qualify for a resale. On that note, if you own a house in Mueller you have to get approval from the offices to do any substantial changes or improvements to your house, and if you choose to sell your house you first have to offer it back to Mueller first to be resold as affordable housing, though they may decline. Ultimately, if you do qualify, Mueller will pay $89,000 dollars of your house.

They have various different types of houses in Mueller for various income levels. They have houses, row houses, duplex-type houses, condos, and even larger more expensive homes, thought I am not sure wether those are involved with the affordable housing program. The video below talks about how the Muller development got rolling. The city had this large piece of land close to the center of town, and really the only option for it was to make housing, to take a bite of the some 35,000 people without available affordable housing. (we talked about this at the beginning of the semester, I think that is the right number.) It seems like the housing there is just getting eaten up. everything they have built is full, and even some condos and houses not even built yet already have owners.

http://www.muelleraustin.com/photos-and-videos#num=0&id=223

they have a nice website. it has just basic info about the area and the program, but it also has more in-depth information like design guidelines, information about purchasing homes, and also serves as a event guide and community message board.

http://www.muelleraustin.com/

The area does kind of feel like some generic tract home development, filled with McMansion Jrs, and home styles are kind of bland and beige colored, but I think underneath the outer layer it is a really well thought out and planned community and a nice place to live. They homes are close together and small, so the population is dense, but the layout and green spaces make it seem like a suburban neighborhood. There are a few small green spaces throughout and one large central park with a playground and pool. The pool house is pretty cool, we even visited it once for a Construction class. On the older streets the trees have started to grow in and the sidewalks are nice to walk on. There are several amenities nearby including more parks and an outdoor amphitheater and a place for foodtrucks farmer's markets. There is a nice civic center in core of the Muller area as something that would draw outsiders to the area. There are also multi-story apartment buildings next to the housing development with commercial businesses and restaurants on the ground level. Nearby they are planning on building an HEB designed by Lake-Flato, and it's neat a large retail center with a Home Depot and things like that. They even kept the old air traffic control tower and put pretty lights on it as a reminder of the area's past (this reminds me of the potential of the Holly St. Power Plant).

It's not all built yet, but they really are making this area a town within a town, an urban node that is a blend of a nice suburban neighborhood with houses and parks and ponds and a more dense urban area with mixed-use structures that is walkable and is a place that Austinites would want to live in or visit. I hope this post doesn't seem like an infomercial. Before I didn't know much about the area or the housing program, and was skeptical, but having had some experience with it and after taking a closer look I have come to really appreciate the area and the efforts it is making to improve the city.