Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Several respondents noted that property developers were instrumental
in breaking up the red-green coalition after the passage of the SOS Ordi-
nance, and one environmental activist goes so far as to claim that promi-
nent developers “gave money to Eastside organizations and convinced
them that Barton Springs was not an issue about them. This prevented
the environmental community from creating a coalition with the social
justice advocates of East Austin.”
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Although the role of development
interests in breaking up the coalition between environmental justice and
environmental protection advocates is a matter of debate, the protection
of Barton Springs and the Hill Country was increasingly understood by
environmental justice activists as an issue that would serve middle- and
upper-income Anglo residents while having no appreciable benefi t to low-
income minority residents in East Austin. Saving the springs was an Anglo
issue and its goals would be detrimental to the Latino and African Ameri-
can communities living in East Austin.
In 2003, the city council abandoned the SGI as offi cial municipal policy
due to a combination of issues, including a national economic downturn
that slowed development activity as well as persistent and vocal protests
by East Austin environmental justice advocates. There was a lack of enthu-
siasm from the development community for the market-based incentives
offered by the municipality and there was unanticipated political fallout
in foisting urban density on East Austin. Smart Growth was not a panacea
for Austin's urban growth problems as initially advertised because it ex-
acerbated the existing social tensions between different inner-city popula-
tions. Although the offi cial program of inner core densifi cation has been
abandoned, the municipality continues to encourage more density in the
urban core through a variety of less spatially specifi c strategies, including
Transit Oriented Development, density bonuses that allow developers to
exceed building height limits, and tax incentives to lure commercial busi-
nesses to the Desired Development Zone.
An unintended consequence of directing future growth to the city's
central core has been a reassessment of the function and value of the inner-
city waterways, specifi cally as they relate to infrastructure services. The
vestiges of inequitable infrastructure provision between Central Austin and
East Austin still exist, but several respondents noted that the attitude of
the municipality has changed in the last two decades. A Watershed Depart-
ment staff member notes: “We're very sensitive to eastside/westside issues.
For instance, we look at whether we have as many ponds on the eastside as
on the westside and the same with streambank stabilization. Are we doing
the same type of projects and the same quantity of stormwater projects on
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