Saving the Springs: Urban Expansion and Water Quality in Austin - Politics of Urban Runoff: Nature, Technology, and the Sustainable City - page 61

Simply purchasing open space with taxpayer dollars is the easy way out. It is much
more diffi cult to undertake comprehensive planning that addresses both the built
environment and undeveloped land. To the extent that states and municipalities
buy up islands of land while leaving unaddressed the more complicated problem of
how to build and develop in an ecologically sound manner, they will have achieved
only a small success. Dollars for land acquisition are one thing; comprehensive,
long-term planning for sustainability is another. 111

Meanwhile, the impact of the water quality measures by the City of
Austin (via regulatory and market-based approaches) and the federal gov-
ernment (via the Endangered Species Act) on the Barton Springs segment is
diffi cult to quantify. Only a handful of properties have been developed un-
der the SOS Ordinance; the majority of the land either has been developed
under grandfathered regulations or remains undeveloped. An unpublished
2006 land use study by the City of Austin's Watershed Protection and
Review Department shows that 46 percent of the Barton Springs Zone
within the City of Austin's municipal jurisdiction has been developed, 31
percent has been designated as conservation land, and the remaining 23
percent has the potential for development (only a small portion of which
can follow older, less restrictive water quality regulations). See fi gure 3.7.

Potentially
grandfathered
4%

SOS
agreement
3%

Single-family
residential
31%

SOS enforceable
16%

Undeveloped

Developed

Open space
31%

Commercial
and multifamily
residential
8%

Roads
7%

Figure 3.7
Land use in the Barton Springs Zone. Source : City of Austin 2006.