Moody Center
A Developer Responds
RECEIVED Mon., March 12, 2007
Chronicle,
Re: Ted Ducote's letter posted online March 9 [“Postmarks”]: I am one of the developers of Spring. When complete, Spring will increase the tax base by more than $1.5 million per year. This puts money into the city’s coffers without requiring a single new road, sewer line, police salary, library, park, or fire station. Spring, and projects like Spring, will keep your property taxes lower in the future. We are contributing more than a quarter million dollars to enhance Shoal Creek and to an affordable housing trust fund. We are building a beautiful colonnade and sidewalk on Third Street where currently no sidewalk or safe public access exists. The benefits of Spring are many. You are correct that the Austin American-Statesman consistently reported units in the $200,000 to $400,000 range. You are incorrect in that nobody ever proposed anything lower than $200,000. If you take the time to come into our marketing center, you will find that indeed we have many residences in the $200,000 to $400,000 price range. In fact, we have artificially lowered the price of some residences below their market value to get as close to the $200,000 goal as possible. With incredible increases in construction costs over the last two years, $235,000 is the closest we could get. I know you probably think that we developers are greedy, mud-sucking, bottom-feeding scumbags. I ask you to consider another possibility that perhaps your expectations of what you might get for this price were off-base. The real challenge to more affordable Downtown housing is that construction costs are shooting through the roof. Construction costs and land costs are rising much faster than people’s income and net worth. This is the actual problem. Unfortunately, you will probably see this trend increase even more over the next few years.
Re: Ted Ducote's letter posted online March 9 [“Postmarks”]: I am one of the developers of Spring. When complete, Spring will increase the tax base by more than $1.5 million per year. This puts money into the city’s coffers without requiring a single new road, sewer line, police salary, library, park, or fire station. Spring, and projects like Spring, will keep your property taxes lower in the future. We are contributing more than a quarter million dollars to enhance Shoal Creek and to an affordable housing trust fund. We are building a beautiful colonnade and sidewalk on Third Street where currently no sidewalk or safe public access exists. The benefits of Spring are many. You are correct that the Austin American-Statesman consistently reported units in the $200,000 to $400,000 range. You are incorrect in that nobody ever proposed anything lower than $200,000. If you take the time to come into our marketing center, you will find that indeed we have many residences in the $200,000 to $400,000 price range. In fact, we have artificially lowered the price of some residences below their market value to get as close to the $200,000 goal as possible. With incredible increases in construction costs over the last two years, $235,000 is the closest we could get. I know you probably think that we developers are greedy, mud-sucking, bottom-feeding scumbags. I ask you to consider another possibility that perhaps your expectations of what you might get for this price were off-base. The real challenge to more affordable Downtown housing is that construction costs are shooting through the roof. Construction costs and land costs are rising much faster than people’s income and net worth. This is the actual problem. Unfortunately, you will probably see this trend increase even more over the next few years.
Larry Warshaw