Austin may be proudly weird, but parts of it are also, um, kind of ugly. Such is the underlying premise of the effort to put together a comprehensive set of commercial design standards for our fair (or maybe not-so-fair) city. The proposed standards, drafted over the last year and a half, will go before city council on March 3, and as part of the final tweaks, Council Member Brewster McCracken solicited public feedback at an open house that drew about 100 people to the new, not ugly, City Hall on Monday.
While “design standards” may call to mind some sort of master-planned, profoundly unweird Disneyland, McCracken says the point is to discourage big-box homogeneity and encourage wacky, distinctly Austin architecture. For example, the ordinance would severely limit the size and placement of signs, but would exempt any “locally unique” sign from the requirements. “We’re trying to make signs that reflect the character of Austin without telling people exactly what that character is,” he said. However, he added that the benefits go far beyond aesthetics. “This is not just about making stores look better,” he said. “This is about very significant impacts on our taxpayer-funded infrastructure.”
For example, the trend in suburban development is to build ever-longer blocks where most streets don’t intersect, but feed directly onto a few main arteries (think 2222 or Highway 360), which in turn become horrific bottlenecks. In response, the standards would require smaller blocks as a way to encourage better traffic flow. Or, requiring light-colored roofs and parking lot surfaces can significantly lower air temperatures in the summer. However, the ordinance wouldn’t just be a set of shalts and shalt nots; rather, it would work primarily through a set of incentives and disincentives where developers can “pay” for undesirable features by investing in desirable ones. It would also streamline the permitting process for desirable building styles, such as “vertical mixed use,” where street-level retail is topped by a few floors of condos or apartments.
At the open house, public feedback was mixed: A representative of a signage company warned that limiting megasigns would hurt roadside businesses; some bike folks called for more incentives for secure bike parking, and the 78704 crowd warned that increasing density would lead to outsiders parking in front of their homes.
But, the fun is just beginning: folks can check out the proposed standards and prepare to weigh in on the nature of “ugly” at council next month, at www.cityofaustin.org/development/commercial_design.htm.
This article appears in February 25 • 2005.