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Smart Growth On Track In Austin
Austin, Texas,
lobbied hard to host the second annual Partners for Smart
Growth conference anticipating that more ideas for its own
Smart Growth initiative would grow out of the meeting. The
US Environmental Protection Agency and the Urban Land
Institute, an organization of development professionals, co-
sponsored the conference held there in December 1998.
Austin's Smart Growth initiative attempts to limit the
potential damage caused by Travis County's rapidly
increasing population, climbing a steady 22,000 per year
since 1994. "This," says Mayor Kirk Watson of the Smart
Growth initiative he introduced last February, "is an effort
to control our destiny." Austin's Smart Growth initiative
focuses on four areas - first, setting up planning tools to
influence where growth occurs, starting with a Desired
Development Zone away from environmentally sensitive areas;
second, creating incentives, like faster permit approval or
reduced building fees, to direct development where it's
desired; third, changing the Land Development Code to
encourage in-city development; and fourth, speeding up the
building permit process, which takes longer to navigate in
Austin than in nearby cities.
"It comes at a good time," Mayor Watson says of the
conference. "We've been at it about a year. This conference
will help us evaluate what we've done, and it will help us
develop our next steps." Austin still needs to refine its
growth-management plans, and City Council-appointed
commissions and boards began reviewing specific
recommendations in January. Watson hopes the council can
begin voting on specifics shortly thereafter. Many business
leaders have applauded the city for using development
incentives instead of trying to regulate where growth should
not occur. But developers aren't ready to endorse Smart
Growth fully until the city works out the details, says Amy
Barbee of the Real Estate Council of Austin. "We do need to
look at how to manage our growth," Barbee says. "But you
can't force the market to go where it doesn't want to go."
Meanwhile, the city has already had several Smart Growth
achievements - two successful bond elections that will let
the city buy environmentally sensitive land, build large
parks, and improve downtown's Waller Creek.
For more information, visit http:/www.ci.austin.tx.us/smartgrowth.
Reprinted from the Austin
American-Statesman, 13 Dec 98, by Chuck Lindell (via
GreenClips).
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