Flashback
What Did They Know?
By Jenny Staff Johnson, Fri., Aug. 13, 1999
One landowner asking for delay was Jack Marrone, who said he'd only heard about the proposed change two days before. But Marrone's law partner, Henry Gilmore, and Jim Knight, a representative of the engineering firm which Marrone and Gilmore retain, were both aware of the proposed decreases.
"I'm probably not going to bring many tears to your eyes," Marrone said before telling the story of the eight acres he bought at RM 2222 and 620 in the early 1980s. Originally, he and two partners planned an 83,000-square-foot office building on the site, but the plan fell apart during the economic bust. Marrone said he's currently in advanced negotiations with a buyer to sell the land. But if this change passes, he said, he could likely only sell for a third of the $2.7 million he paid for it.
Spelman said he'd checked out Marrone's site plan for his property, which seemed to be more or less "ready to go." Marrone was planning to submit it in three weeks, in accordance with the city Development Review and Inspection Department's development cycle. Spelman said the plan included about 20,000 square feet for office space, and 20,000-30,000 square feet for retail space. "If anyone is that close, to pull the rug out at this point would be inequitable," said Spelman. "It's a big deal to put a site plan together."
Spelman said it seems "a little fishy" that no one "had gotten around to telling Mr. Marrone that [the change in regulations] was happening." But Slusher said that even if Marrone didn't know about the change, he should have. "He probably didn't know about it. [But] if somebody's representatives aren't informing them, that's not a good basis for how we should proceed with public policy."
Signs of Strain
With all the compromise hoopla, joint announcements, and fajita socials between environmentalists and developers, it's easy to forget the differences of purpose the two still share. Those dissimilarities could not have been more evident Thursday night, when landowners used the dreaded "takings" terminology (claiming city regs unfairly prevent them from using their land as they see fit) to describe the council's action, while environmentalists reminded the council of days gone by, when developers' requests for delay meant simply more time for them to build under old rules.
Some council members say RECA didn't play fair. Slusher accused members of selective opposition: "If they didn't know about this one, how come they knew about the development fee reductions" discussed at the same meetings as the impervious cover decrease, and which the council also passed Thursday night, along with setting expiration dates for preliminary site plans (three years in the Desired Development Zone; five years in drinking water protection zones).
"Almost everyone who signed up against this one, signed up for closing the loophole on the preliminary plats," said Slusher. "What is the point of going through a year of peace talks, if one side is going to show up at the end and opposeconcessions [it] made?"
Says Spelman, "RECA is flexing its muscles. They showed that they could get 50 people out at a public hearing, just like SOS."
Speaking of SOS, they're reportedly divided on the issue of whether to work with RECA on a compromise on this issue. One council source said that if the two sides could come up with one plan, it would be "very persuasive" to the council. But it's not yet clear whether all parties can be persuaded to hit the bargaining table before the council takes the item up again on August 19.
Oppel's Intentions
If his earlier columns were too subtle for you, last Sunday's one-two punch (one against the council's affordable housing program, two against Slusher) left no doubt with which side Oppel wants to align himself. Outdoing even his KGB crack at the Water and Wastewater Commission, Oppel compared Slusher's position on the impervious cover changes as akin to the Chinese government toward the Falun Gong religious sect, and accused the council of subverting democracy by avoiding a public hearing on the issue. (Interesting aside: On that same day, on the page facing Oppel's column, a letter from RULE council diva Louise Epstein -- the "E" in RULE -- praised Oppel for his recent work: "Iwish he had been here ...when I was on the council.")
But if Oppel thinks Slusher is his only bad guy, he might want to consider the point of view of Spelman. Always the council's most scrupulous voice of logic, Spelman said he supported the delay because he believed it would result in less development under the old impervious cover limits -- not because he opposed the stricter limits. His argument was that in the two weeks before the council could vote on the change, only projects that already had a good deal of substance would have time to file applications, and property owners who had not been aware of the change would have time to get their affairs in order. Once the limits were lowered, however, Spelman did not see fit to include a hardship clause.
"I'm not sure what we mean by hardship," said Spelman. "I mean absolutely no disrespect ... but frankly, it's going to be difficult for me to take seriously a hardship provision for a person who owns a $2 million piece of property."
On the other hand, says Slusher, "I'd rather have a hardship provision than a land rush." He's seen such things happen before: "We have a long history of any time there's a period of delay, developers rush in applications" for development under looser environmental restrictions. "I've had enough of that."
Questionable Motives
As for the landowners' pleas of ignorance: It is not city policy to notify landowners of proposed changes in impervious cover limits. The city may have erred in underestimating the political importance of this change, but on the other hand, they were aware of opposition from development interests, including RECA, and had planned to proceed anyway.
Which brings us to the questionable nature of the protesters' motives. Though most were asking simply for a delay so they could "have their say," others -- including Marrone -- asked that the limits not be reduced at all. Knowing that the council was going to approve the change eventually, why even ask for a delay, other than to try to get projects into the system under the old rules?
Despite dissent among council members, it was an honest disagreement, with the council divided -- once again -- on different ways to achieve more or less the same goal. Slusher and Co. were weighing the lost opportunity cost of a few developers against the possible water quality and traffic ramifications for that particularly distressed part of Austin. The other side was wagering that the land rush wouldn't happen, and that the development interests would be satisfied with the two-week delay.
The person whose goals are most suspect these days seems to be Rich Oppel. He claims that the purpose of his latest Slusher-bashing column was to warn citizens of an attempted evasion of the democratic process, and to urge the council to hold a public hearing, in fairness to suburban citizens who did not know about last week's scheduled vote. What he failed to mention was that a public hearing had already taken place Thursday night that allowed the opposition ample time to make its case. He knows this. He was there. Moreover, there's another hearing slated for August 19. (He was also present when the second hearing was scheduled.) If Oppel's real purpose was to give the proponents of higher impervious cover limits a chance to have their say, he might have mentioned the upcoming hearing in his column.
Kind of makes you wonder: What was his purpose?
This Week in Council: The council does not meet this week, August 12. On Aug. 19, however, expect more budget briefings, as well as another round of the Bull Creek impervious cover battles.
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