…and Jeff Jack is pissed!
Here’s a choice quote:
The [Austin Neighborhood Council], a group that represents nearly all neighborhood associations in the city’s urban core, was among the proposition’s staunchest supporters; however, that failed to translate at the ballot box. President Jeff Jack blamed the results on the city’s changing demographics.
“It used to be that we were primarily single family residential neighborhoods, but in the last five years we’ve built all these apartments … so we have renters who aren’t engaged in the neighborhoods,” Jack said.
Three comments:
- ALL of Austin’s population – not just its urban core – has been composed primarily of renters for quite a bit longer than five years now.
- Somewhat bizarrely, the most support for Prop J came from the parts of town least likely to be affected by it: the suburban areas on the fringes of the city, which are unlikely to see any zoning changes of note for the foreseeable future (if ever).
- The incredibly rich irony here is that the reason we have so many renters in our urban core is because the exclusionary zoning policies propagated by ANC et al for the past several decades have played a large, if not the largest, role in preventing younger homebuyers from being able to afford to purchase homes in said core in the first place!
What’s the old saying about reaping what you sow?