Rep. Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, has stepped into the fray over the Capitol view corridors this session, filing a placeholder bill intended to take the view corridors out of state law and move them over to a stakeholder committee for a more objective review.
Among the local and state historical community, the view corridors are sacred, so sacred that they deserve to be embedded in state law. Preservation Texas put the view corridors on its list of most endangered places, writing that “the views are priceless and any modification to the view corridors would endanger a treasure that belongs to all Texans.”
The fact that Krusee – already mired in the contentious toll-road debate – would pursue a new course on the Capitol view corridors is a rather bold move, one that could potentially throw the Williamson Co. lawmaker into the center of Austin-centric politics. Krusee insists he’s not throwing any curveballs and that he won’t move forward with any changes unless all the stakeholders involved support his bill.
“We’re not changing the view corridors. We’re changing the process for deciding when and where and if we want to change them,” Krusee said. “I’m not defining what that process should be or who the players should be. Right now we have to go through the Legislature, which is a very messy and sometimes unpredictable process, so the thought was to make this a more predictable process.”
That doesn’t mean everybody in the historic community is greeting Krusee’s bill with open arms. The Heritage Society of Austin, for instance, still fears who will be doing the deciding on the view corridors. John Philip Donisi, chairman-elect of the Heritage Society, said he appreciated Krusee including the society in the working group on his bill, but the group still firmly believes that oversight of the view corridors belongs to the elected members of the Texas Legislature.
“These protections belong with our elected officials – and should not be relegated to an agency unaccountable to the people of Texas. Bottom line, the corridors are better protected in the hands of elected officials deliberating in the light of day than they would be with anonymous agency personnel operating behind closed doors,” said Donisi, alluding to proposals to turn the view-corridor review over to state agency officials. “We also believe it is important for us to stand with the responsible developers who have played by the rules over the last 25 years. These developers have respected the view corridors and their constraints, often at significant cost.”
Krusee’s interest in the bill comes from two transportation-related issues: the desire to put low-rise affordable housing on top of the state-owned garages on San Jacinto if a Downtown streetcar system is implemented and a recognition that the view corridors would be altered significantly if the region ever depresses I-35. Both would require significant alterations to the corridors. Already, City Council has asked the Downtown Commission to take another look at the corridors. Commission members will meet again this week to review their findings, although no one appears eager yet to amend the 35 city and state view corridors.
Still, there’s nothing sacred – or even especially logical – about some of the view corridors, which were set out by a city committee back in 1982, based on committee members’ own subjective opinions of the best views of the Texas Capitol from places like the back patio of the LBJ Library on the UT campus, the porch of the French Legation, or the shoreline of local parks. Mayor Will Wynn is open to the idea of possibly amending the corridors, saying he’d support a discussion of the issue. As a young architecture student, Wynn watched the “pros” and “cons” of the view corridors being determined back in 1982. “There are clearly view corridors that I certainly hold as sacred, but I also think there are some that we should at least analyze and see if there’s room for amendments,” said Wynn, who added that he certainly supports the idea that decisions on the corridors – which impact Austin so directly – be made much closer to the city. “I’m a local control advocate,” he said, “so I would like for this to be as local an issue as possible.”
This article appears in March 16 • 2007.