As urban core growth and density spark clashes between neighborhoods and developers, how can both sides find common ground to best benefit each other and grow San Antonio sustainably?
The answer lies in better development guidelines and community engagement, according to a panel of local developers, architects, and neighborhood leaders who gathered at the Future SA Forum Wednesday night at the UTSA Downtown Campus.
Forum moderator Jim Bailey, associate principal at Alamo Architects, said news of San Antonio topping the list of population growth among major cities is a sobering reflection of the rate of development happening citywide.
“We can feel that impact – a whole flock of construction cranes around downtown,” said Bailey, who also serves on the Mayor’s Housing Policy Task Force. “Traffic congestion is markedly worse than before. Commutes are longer.”
The San Antonio area is expected to add more than 1 million people by 2040. Bailey asked the panel, which comprised neighborhood and development advocates with different perspectives, what could and should the City look like in the way of sustainable, healthy development that benefits everyone.
The typical development patterns prevalent in suburban sprawl are unsustainable, said Peter French, development director of major urban core developer GrayStreet and CEO of Rising Barn, which builds affordable, sustainable dwellings.
“What happens with conventional suburban development is that you’re chewing up lots of land,” French said. Sprawl only adds more roads, which encourage more traffic and result in higher infrastructure maintenance costs.
French advocates for neighborhoods where all amenities – job centers, transit options, schools, recreation – are close to where people live.
The relaxation of development rules, especially on single-family homes, could encourage such neighborhoods and increase the diversity of housing stock, he said.
“Provide more housing choices, give people an opportunity to stay in the neighborhoods where they live, help people get into the neighborhoods where they want to be,” he added.
SA Tomorrow, the City’s comprehensive plan, describes a city that is more connected to amenities, accommodates growth, yet maintains the “character and integrity” of existing neighborhoods. But the challenge of infill development, which is developing vacant or underused properties within the urban core that are largely developed, is that it can be seen as disruptive of the existing neighborhood fabric.
The plan focuses on growth in 13 areas known as regional centers. One of these centers could benefit the Eastside community, which has seen more development in recent years, said Liz Franklin, a member of the Eastside’s Dignowity Hill Neighborhood Association.
But the surge of new amenities, housing, and rehabilitation in her neighborhood could lead to displacement of many low-income and longtime homeowners as property values – and therefore property tax bills – continue to rise. Because of this, there is growing resentment and distrust between neighborhoods residents and developers, she said.
She blamed new high-density projects for rising property values.
“We need a better balance [of housing] because four homes on what was previously a single-family home lot will price someone else out of their home,” Franklin said.
Infill development in Dignowity Hill has drawn attention as plans for a five-story apartment complex next to the historic Hays Street Bridge near completion. The property is located at the convergence of an industrial district and single-family homes – many of which are affordable to low-income families.
Panelist Ashley Smith, senior project manager at Alamo Architects, called the SA Tomorrow plan “a good start” in encouraging more appropriate infill development.
Smith added that regional centers in the SA Tomorrow plan provide a blueprint on how existing neighborhoods could evolve.
“We have spread out so much, we need to start filling some of those holes,” she said. “We probably don’t have to build too many more roads at this point. We barely can take care of the roads we already have.”
It is typically easier and cheaper for a developer to build in undeveloped and suburban areas than to do infill development in older neighborhoods, said panelist John Cooley, chief operating officer at Terramark Urban Homes.
“We’ve incentivized [for] that by default or inadvertently by the means of the City making it more cost-efficient,” Cooley said. “But the future has to be urban.”
Terramark has developed dozens of infill projects in and around the urban core, several of which are in the near East Side.
Panelist Anisa Schell, a Tobin Hill Community Association board member, helped lead an unsuccessful attempt to get a historic district designation – and the stricter redevelopment rules that come with it – for part of Tobin Hill. Schell suggested developers get “meaningful input” from neighbors when they face a proposed redevelopment.
Developers should explain their vision to neighbors as soon as feasible to give residents a chance to become engaged in the project from the start rather than react in an adversarial way.
“Here, people can get on board with what’s happening, and not just accept what they’re being told,” Schell said.
Franklin echoed Schell’s sentiments, saying developers entering a neighborhood should hold forums to understand what residents would like to see on property being eyed for redevelopment.
“That’s what’s missing,” said David Bogle, owner of Syncro Architecture Studio, “vision planning. … We need to do more of that – it’s a more inclusive process and needs to be done in an open forum.”
Cooley, French, and Smith agreed that they and their colleagues in the development and architecture industries could benefit from better certainty and predictability in City rules and processes when it comes to building permits and the design process. They could also benefit from the community’s help to engage the right neighborhood representatives before proceeding with a project, they said.
“We could come together and write guidelines on what is acceptable to a community, but do it in a positive way,” Smith said.
A video of the entire forum can be viewed via the Future SA Forum invite page on Facebook here.
More than 50 people attended the forum organized by San Antonio Neighborhoods for Everyone, San Antonio Apartment Association, GrayStreet Partners, MyUrbanSA, and Bike San Antonio.
The issue of property taxes.
Property taxes are determined by only two things: property values and the tax rate. The tax rate has not increased. Thus, every person complaining about property taxes increasing is actually complaining about their property values increasing. This is an odd thing since increasing property values are actually making all of these people richer–a good thing in most people’s book.
What causes residential property values to rise disproportionately in some areas? Two things are possible. First, the area becomes more desirable due to better schools, less crime, better amenities, more investment, cooler architecture, whatever people like, etc. The other potential reason is a shift in the potential uses of the property. Thus, if a block of single story houses is rezoned (or has the potential to be rezoned) to allow for high-rise construction (and the market would support such a use), then the property values will naturally increase. I would submit that land use policy in San Antonio is largely market-driven (sorry planners) and, thus, this shift in values is also ultimately largely tied to market forces. So at the end of the day, you basically have property taxes increasing because of forces in the property market. Unless you are against the idea of a market economy and ready to commit to something else (Marxism, anarchy, not a lot of choices), then you are basically stuck with this reality so long as you have our current property tax system.
At the end of the day, I don’t think anyone complaining about property taxes actually wants to stop the market forces and investment that are causing their neighborhoods to become more desirable and higher value. Rather, they want to capture those gains but not have to pay the property taxes related to them. I don’t see how this is fair or just. You can test this hypothesis to see if people are really committed to the idea of staying in their homes without paying property taxes, or rather whether they are would really have low taxes versus property values. The way you would do this is to develop a program that allows people to freeze their property taxes but also their property values. The condition would be that the home would have to be sold when the owner moves to the taxing jurisdictions for the frozen property value and then the taxing jurisdictions could pocket the difference on a resale. My guess is that no one would take this deal since they will realize that they are better off just paying the property taxes, selling their home at a profit or taking out a home equity loan. Thus, they actually prefer higher taxes with higher property values versus low taxes and low property values.
Really, the only alternatives to the status quo are (a) reducing government spending to allow the tax rate to go down, (b) finding other sources of revenue for the government, (c) shifting taxes to commercial property owners and/or land speculators, or (d) shifting the burdens of taxes from certain homeowners to other (like taxing the people who just moved here more to lower the taxes on the people already living here). You have to pick one of these and recognize the choices involved. There is no free lunch.
Unfortunately, to Franklin and Schell, “meaningful input” in development means reducing the size of any development that gets proposed in their neighborhoods, resulting in less housing, less tax revenue to pay for badly-needed infrastructure, and less supply to meet the growing demand for urban housing, which jacks up prices, thereby jacking up taxes. But this argument that density is the problem is so deeply flawed, I’m becoming exhausted having to counter this myth.
Also, Jim Bailey needs to get some context here: a flock of construction cranes does not make a construction boom. In fact, San Antonio built far more housing in the 1980s or 1990s than it did in the 2000s and is not on pace to set any records this decade either. As we learned in SA Tomorrow, roughly 2/3 of Housing is getting built outside our city limits—hardly something we should be encouraging by letting the urban nimbys continue to chip away at new housing for families.
Ray, I found your comment so enlightening.
My musings on this issue has made me ponder how/if there could be mechanism to help local residents living in neighborhoods most affected by in-fill to rehabilitate their current homes so they wouldn’t feel so “left out” and “pushed out”. (grants, low-interest loans, etc.)
Ray, you are spot on. The current minority view that gets the most attention is the mistaken one that single family neighborhoods need to be preserved and kept affordable. As you point out, the opposite is true. In the urban core, this is not sustainable, and with it, those who are fighting for the ability to stay in their homes, will lose it to those who can afford it.
The issues seem to be that if infill development takes place, the fabric of the original community will be changed and the tax value on real properties will increase. Part of the answer may be to allow existing residents to control the critical fabric and install a tax freeze on existing property values until the first sale/transfer of title. New development will acquire new value. There are examples in other cities….
What needs to be recognized is that what you are proposing will result in shifting tax burdens from one set of persons (existing residents) to another set of persons (the newcomers). California has a system like this under Proposition 13 and you can study the impacts. I personally think a system like this creates grossly unfair situations where two persons owning identical properties and getting the exact same city services can pay dramatically different amounts of property tax. While it sounds nice to focus on reducing property taxes in existing residents, an honest conversation involves recognizing that this will shift the increase the burden on other taxpayers. Again, no free lunch.
Your assertion that the current residents of some of these homes who resist the higher taxes (and thus, property valuations) are looking to benefit from the more desirable conditions without paying the price for them may seem valid to some… but consider the time it takes for the increased tax revenues in an area to actually trickle down into the community and actually benefit residents suddenly suffering a significant increase in their monthly expenses… Better schools, sidewalks, security, etc. does not happen immediately- the residents of neighborhoods on the upswing rarely actually see the benefits come to fruition before they are priced out of their homes. They are far more likely to pay the higher taxes while being the ones suffering the inconveniences of the actual improvement processes involved in the construction and improvement projects necessitating closed roads, sidewalks, parks, etc. for years while their kids most likely still suffer from underfunded schools, over-worked faculty and overall less opportunity. By the time the neighborhoods are improved- they won’t live there anymore. Perhaps they get a higher price when selling (if they aren’t foreclosed on) but considering the inconvenience of uprooting their family most likely to rent somewhere or buy in a neighborhood very possibly less developed than the previous one- after having paved the way with their payment of higher taxes (possibly for years) to improve infrastructure for the next wave of residents- I don’t see how the situation can be seen as in their own benefit. New buyers in areas such as these typically are looking at the long game of buying low-ish on the front end of an up and coming area and becoming part of the improvements in the neighborhood (these are rarely families with school-aged children unless they are that of the progressive, “open-minded” artsy intelligentsia types typically willing and able to pay for private school). More often these days, these homes are being snatched up as either long or short- term rental revenue streams for the new owners and the time it will take to build up the infrastructure and public services in these areas are of little importance to them. Taxes not an issue for them as that cost is absorbed by their renters or are simply within their budget when buying the house whether they choose to rent it out or not. Either way, the juxtaposition of street-art graffiti murals and a mix of old-school mom and pop restaurants and hip new local businesses make up for the inconveniences of less-ideal infrastructure, etc. Believe it or not…. some people just want to buy a house to raise their family in and leave at least enough when they die that their families don’t go into debt to cover the costs of burying or burning them. The accrual of deferred taxes, again, presents an incredible burden which would very likely produce the same result as above leaving the family with very little revenue with which to finance their relocation. This little rant does not offer a solution, I readily admit and I am not an anti-gentrification type of person in the slightest- I’m actually quite tired of people insisting it is a scourge to communities…. I believe there are incredible benefits that come with gentrification to cities and their neighborhoods… the problem is a binary view of the topic. Without understanding the nuances and severity of its affects on many of those most affected, we risk perpetuating the unfortunate cycle of bleeding urban neighborhoods of their cultural diversity, grassroots arts and non-profits organizations and so many of what originally attracted developers and new buyers to the area to begin with. And if you take a look around lately, it’s pretty obvious this country needs communities filled with culturally and socially diverse residents learning to live, understand and work with one another. It’s worth the effort for us to all figure it out. Regardless of how complex of a situation.
I see a compromise answer for not having people taxed out of their life-long home being something similar to the reverse mortgage answer. Taxes due could be capped but the accumulated balance would be due upon sale. Another compromise to letting a “family” retain ownership could be resetting the cap if the house is not sold with owners passing. Owner stays in home and fair tax bill is eventually paid. Win-win if staying in home is the objective.
This is a fair suggestion. I would suggest that there should be interest charged on the accrued tax liability. I also would say that I think reverse mortgages, home equity lines of credit and property tax lenders basically already offer this kind of service to people that want to make this tradeoff.
Meaningful input means having conversations about infill development where it is appropriate, and having those discussions BEFORE a developer comes in, says “I’m building X”, and forcing the existing people in the neighborhood to respond negatively. It also does mean a developer may need to reduce their density, particularly when they are forcing a square peg into a round hole. I can’t take any of Ray’s comments even at face value any more because EVERY comment in EVERYTHING to do with this topic includes nimby in the response. Most times, this is not the case, nor is it accurate.