Is a neighborhood matching program a good idea?

An article in today's Austin American-Statesman reports the City is considering a proposal that would have neighborhoods share in the cost of neighborhood projects. Some people are against the idea. They argue that is why we pay taxes. Read "Proposal: City, residents could team up on area projects. A 'matching program' for sidewalk work, speed bumps would stretch city dollars, officials say," by Marty Toohey and leave a comment to this post (click on comment link below) on what you think about the idea. Allandale residents had some experience with this approach with the Northwest Park tree planting project that volunteers participated in the Spring.

Comments

[Steven Zettner]

I like this idea in theory but am concerned with the caveat that "funds will be spread evenly across the City." The problem is that the City's problems are not distributed evenly across the City.

The City two years ago rezoned hundreds of acres in North Central Austin to allow multi-family housing, in an environment utterly inhospitable to people. The scale of the problem is enormous, and serious investment is required. The risk is that this program will be deemed "the solution" to making areas along Burnet or Anderson "pedestrian-friendly." It's not nearly enough investment, and the burden shouldn't be only on existing neighborhood associations whose core interests are in existing residential areas, not the commercial areas.

We need to hear City Council members make explicit the assumption that transit corridors require additional investment and zoning changes far beyond this single program.

[Tom]

Looks like it is moving forward. Here is the note from the minutes of last week's Council meeting regarding this item:

72 . Approve a resolution directing the City Manager to develop a neighborhood matching fund program to provide City support for neighborhood improvement projects. (Council Member Sheryl Cole Council Member William Spelman )

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council_meetings/public_meeting_agenda.cfm?meetingid=187

[MARY ARNETT]

I know North Shoal Creek can't wait to use their $35,000 and hand it over to the city for sidewalk repairs and traffic calming.

But really, it irks me that the reason the city has not allowed neighborhoods to use their money in the past was because of the possibility that there would be an appearance that certain parts of town were being favored with projects while other 'poorer' parts of town went without.

In reality, East Austin gets a great deal of largesse from the city for all kinds of projects. I understand their history, the Holly Power Plant issue, the tank farms, etc.

But at this point in time, there are developers knocking on their doors offering them money for those pier and beam type ramshackle houses that would knock your socks off. There is money still left for them to apply for a grant to fix up their houses so they can still live there if they want to. And there are tax abatements for people who have lived over there for a certain period of time to make up for 'gentrification'.

And they have lots of parks, libraries, senior citizen centers, traffic calming. The city just received stimulus funds in the amount of $350,000 for sidewalks and infrastructure improvements over there. And a faction over there was howling over some Holly Power Plant set aside money being used to develop another park along the trail, which is right in their back yards. Some of the prettiest parts of the downtown trail are east of I35 right in their neighborhood.

Enough already. The city has not used up the sidewalk repair bond money from 2006 yet. According to my latest inquiry with Public Works, the sidewalk repair crew was taken off that duty for the last four months to work on some kind of project for the downtown area. We are told to just wait in line. And I think if we look long and hard enough, I bet somebody could dredge up some traffic calming money that did not get used in a previous year.

Mary Arnett
North Shoal Creek