KLRU
Master Plan of Encroachment
RECEIVED Tue., Nov. 24, 2015
Dear Editor,
So now we have CodeNEXT to plan new developments that Austin needs ["CodeNEXT Prepares to Rewrite Austin," News, Nov. 13]. City plans we had before were Imagine Austin, Smart Growth, New Urbanism, Austin Tomorrow, and Urban Renewal. I would be interested in this new code if the planners were mostly native Austinites and it included affordable housing for longtime, low-income residents who have been displaced because of gentrification.
Starting about 1900 the city pushed us out of our Old West Downtown Mexican neighborhood. And then with the 1928 Master Plan of segregation we were pushed to East Austin. Because of racism we were red-lined and denied bank loans and were unable to fix up our houses, buy property, or start our own businesses in East Austin. In the meantime, outside investors were buying up all the land.
In the late Nineties East Austin activists begged the City Council and Planning Commission to put in place ways to prevent gentrification. The city did the very opposite and changed the zoning to commercial so that outside businesses and people can come in, take over, and push us out of our own neighborhood! All the redevelopment plans were aimed at a market that wasn't the longtime residents.
Neighborhood plans should have been made only by longtime residents. Of course we didn't want high-density urban projects that would cause more traffic and pollution that would harm our children and the environment. To me, community revitalization is an oxymoron because what it really does is kill the community.
This ongoing master plan of encroachment and land grab is an abomination and must stop. In the 19th century this was called Manifest Destiny; today we call it gentrification and cultural genocide.
So now we have CodeNEXT to plan new developments that Austin needs ["CodeNEXT Prepares to Rewrite Austin," News, Nov. 13]. City plans we had before were Imagine Austin, Smart Growth, New Urbanism, Austin Tomorrow, and Urban Renewal. I would be interested in this new code if the planners were mostly native Austinites and it included affordable housing for longtime, low-income residents who have been displaced because of gentrification.
Starting about 1900 the city pushed us out of our Old West Downtown Mexican neighborhood. And then with the 1928 Master Plan of segregation we were pushed to East Austin. Because of racism we were red-lined and denied bank loans and were unable to fix up our houses, buy property, or start our own businesses in East Austin. In the meantime, outside investors were buying up all the land.
In the late Nineties East Austin activists begged the City Council and Planning Commission to put in place ways to prevent gentrification. The city did the very opposite and changed the zoning to commercial so that outside businesses and people can come in, take over, and push us out of our own neighborhood! All the redevelopment plans were aimed at a market that wasn't the longtime residents.
Neighborhood plans should have been made only by longtime residents. Of course we didn't want high-density urban projects that would cause more traffic and pollution that would harm our children and the environment. To me, community revitalization is an oxymoron because what it really does is kill the community.
This ongoing master plan of encroachment and land grab is an abomination and must stop. In the 19th century this was called Manifest Destiny; today we call it gentrification and cultural genocide.
Anita Quintanilla
