Adusting our angle? The Mueller development

Emily and I spent some time on the east side today taking photos. We also talked with a handful of people, who confirmed something that both she and I have been thinking: it might make sense for us to narrow our focus and concentrate on what effects the development at the old Robert Mueller airport will have on the east side community.

There are a number of reasons this might make for a fruitful focus:

*It's without a doubt the single most important ongoing development anywhere in the city. Its scope is enormous: more than 4,000 new residential units and 5.3 million square feet of various commercial properties.

*It's got a good current hard news peg. Ground-breaking took place recently, and the construction is under way in full force. There are also community forums and town hall meetings coming up soon that will give current residents the opportunity to speak their minds, incluing a Nov. 8 Mueller Plan Implementation Advisory Commission meeting (at 6:00 p.m.). One week later, PODER is hosting an East Austin Housing Forum to focus on 'addressing the broken promise of affordable housing.' Very interesting interaction there because the Mueller development pledges that 25% of its housing will be affordable to people who make less than 80% of the city's median income. Sounds nice, but according to TexasHousing.org, ,
that's still $64,700 per year .

*It definitely will allow us to keep the general attention of the story concentrated on what's coming next. That's something we've talked about wanting to do, and this story will definitely support that:
-How will the Mueller development impact property values on the east side? Will the sudden influx of new-construction homes drive down prices on older houses, or will the Mueller development function to speed up the influx of wealthier, predominantly white home-buyers into the east side?
-What kind of effects will the development have on the predominantly Latino neighbordhoods "behind" (north and east) it?

Plus, I think concentrating on the Mueller development will interact with the work we've done with our sample block on e. 18th quite well. This block, as Emily posted earlier, is in the heart of a transition. Fortuitously for us, it's also almost exactly equidistant between the Mueller development and the keystone developments closer to downtown, such as the Waterstreet Lofts on Cesar Chavez and the Sixth and Brushy Lofts on, well, Sixth and Brushy. I think what happens to that block will be a snapshot of what happens to the rest of the neighborhood: does the availability of new housing drive down demand for older places, resulting in a leveling off of the property value increases the area has seen in recent years? Or do those developments serve to open the floodgates and fully sanitize East Austin from a white homebuyer's perspective?

Also, two unrelated notes

1) Props to Julie for the 'Signs of Change' idea. I think that's going to turn out to be a realy cool way to unify the visual elements in the presentation. It's also just a cool thing to pay attention to. Emily and I a got bunch of pictures of signs today. The highlight is probably the one from the mixed use development on e. 11th: "Just another sing of progess in the East End." You couldn't have asked for a better sign for our project

2) Emily and I heard a bunch of speed-bike engines when we were poking around the old airport. I'm wondering if there's a group of people who use the old straightaways to race bikes. I'll head back next weekend and see if I can track them down. Could make for an interesting vignette (maybe).

I think that's it for now.

rf