Shared from the 6/8/2017 Austin American Statesman eEdition

OTHERS SAY ED WENDLER JR. Special Contributor

A key lesson from CodeNext’s precursor: Changes affect people

It’s a mistake to believe that all property owners are rich developers.

One of the only good things about being in my sixties is I get to occasionally say, “I’ve seen this movie before.” Other than that, not so much.

In the mid-1980s, I was on the Austin Planning Commission when the zoning code was rewritten — and just like today’s CodeNext process, there was distrust, anger, hyperbole and a whole lot of self-interest. The same actors are reprising their roles: neighborhood groups, density and anti-sprawl activists, economic and business expansion proponents, and of course, real estate developers.

One thing I’ve noticed is that some elected officials, city staff, activists and planning consultants seem to have no grasp of the enormity of the economic and emotional issues involved.

Zoning impacts every piece of property in the city — every house, apartment complex, office building and retail center. That’s literally a couple of hundred thousand properties and billions of dollars of asset value. A new zoning code can add value or destroy it — and of one thing I am sure: People will defend their property and money. That is true of a big-time national developer or a family whose home is their only asset.

I’ll never forget a man testifying that his entire net worth was in a small, vacant commercial lot on West Sixth Street. He wasn’t a big-time developer. It was his life’s savings to pay for retirement and his children’s college education. The code diminished the value of the property, which directly impacted his life and the future lives of his children. It was personal — and his testimony was emotional. We were messing with his life.

It’s a mistake to believe that all property owners are rich developers. Changing the value of a property can have unknown consequences for an owner’s financial condition. It is not hyperbole to say that it could unravel someone’s financial future — and that is true of homeowners or real estate investors.

Another thing some fail to grasp is that a family’s home has emotional content. Kids are born and raised there. Thanksgiving dinner is served. Memories — both wonderful and tragic — are made. Longterm friendships evolve. Neighborhood kids play and grow up together. Parents on the block swap carpool days. It is the stuff of real life. It’s that mushy thing we call “community.”

It’s calloused to dismiss neighborhood groups as just NYMBYs or to discount neighborhood opposition to change as being selfish. We are messing with their emotional lives. That is as real and important as the physical structure they live in.

Now as then, the planning process seems clinical, almost sterile. In the 1980s, the process was like Monopoly players moving plastic hotels and houses around. Today, it seems like “Sim City”; the computer simulations are more sophisticated. Interactive maps are prepared showing neighborhoods that will be redeveloped. Spreadsheet simulations calculate the number of existing homes that will be razed to make way for new apartments or townhomes. The process seems like a virtual reality game. The problem is those maps and new transect zones aren’t real — but the families in homes and the owners’ whose cumulative savings financed an office building are.

In the ’80s, we tried to transfer the existing zoning into the new code — and even that was a struggle. Today, CodeNext proposes to basically start from scratch. The proposed code is over 1,000 pages long — and my guess is no one really understands its impact on residents or property owners.

I hope the City Council realizes that a rewrite of the entire zoning code has massive implications. You are messing with people’s lives — with their homes and all the emotional content that entails, and with vast amounts of accumulated wealth.

Part of me thinks the whole effort is a form of hubris. We aren’t smart enough to understand the ramifications of a total rewrite regardless of how many computer scenarios are generated or how real the CGI graphics seem.

Part of me thinks we should start over with something less ambitious and radical. Maybe the whole CodeNext process got out of hand and ran amok. The city is messing with real people’s lives. It isn’t a game. At the very least, the city should go very slow.

Wendler is a local developer and lifelong Austin resident.

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