What's the view worth?
Web Posted: 01/15/2007 01:07 AM CST
Lisa Falkenberg
Express-News Austin Bureau
AUSTIN — It is a blushing canvas in the sunset. A loyal companion to the University of Texas tower. A guiding star to lost motorists. A vigil bathed in moon glow.
The pink-domed Texas Capitol, viewed from dozens of points around the capital city, is one of the most powerful symbols of Texas heritage. But for all its permanence on the ground, the Capitol's place in the sky appears to be up in the air.
The view of the 1888 Capitol, from Congress Avenue and from two dozen other locations, has been protected since the 1980s by state-required "view corridors."
But with Austin's downtown developers clamoring for bigger pieces of sky, the City Council has asked a committee to evaluate the protected viewpoints for the first time since they were created to determine if they are still worthy of protection.
Though the view from South Congress, the tower and other sacred vantage points aren't at risk, other corridors such as the upper deck of Interstate 35 or streets where trees have grown up to obstruct the view may be vulnerable if the city finds they're preventing lucrative developments from taking root.
Preservationists strongly oppose the study, saying that modifying or removing even a few more viewpoints would erode the enjoyment of one of the state's precious treasures.
Capitol trivia
Completed: 1888
Architect: Elijah E. Myers, architect of the Michigan and Colorado capitols
Cost: Zero dollars. Texas paid in land: 3 million acres in the Panhandle that would become the XIT Ranch.
Some protected view corridors: University of Texas' South Mall, Waterloo Park, Lamar Bridge, South Congress at East Live Oak, Barton Creek Pedestrian Bridge, several spots on Interstate 35, Zilker Clubhouse, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library
Source: State Preservation Board, Texas Government Code
"We don't want Austin to turn into Chicago," said Julian Read, an executive committee member of the half-century-old Heritage Society of Austin. "The thing that has made Austin what it is, is its openness, its charm. We don't want it to become a cold canyon of high-rises. We have high-rises popping up like weeds."
Robert Knight, chairman of the downtown development committee studying the issue, said preserving everything isn't an option in fast-growing Austin, which hopes to quadruple its downtown population over the next decade.
"A city is a growing organism, and if you preserve everything you stop all growth," Knight said. "The best way to do it is to strike a balance and to preserve the most important things."
The committee will take several months to study the issue, he said, touring the city and evaluating the views, grading each one and determining how much each costs the city to preserve.
Knight said one example of a questionable view corridor is the upper deck of southbound I-35. It's a stunning view, but he said highway construction projects may eventually eliminate the upper deck, so Austin has to decide if it needs to keep protecting a view that may not exist in another decade.
"There are people out there who are wringing their hands and thinking, 'Oh, these people are going to destroy our heritage,' and that's not true. All we're going to do is collect the information and pass it to the council and start the discussion," Knight said. "We of course expect this will be, like anything else in Austin, a lively discussion."
He noted the city can't eliminate a protected view unilaterally; any change ordered by the council would have to be approved by the Legislature.
Views get protection
Though the granite and limestone Capitol was completed in 1888, views of it around Austin weren't protected by state law until the 1980s, when former state Sen. Craig Washington of Houston got a bill passed establishing building height restrictions that protected certain view corridors.
During the 2001 Legislature, the protections were added to the government code, which dictates the longitude and latitude of Capitol views just as it does the design of the Texas flag.
Washington, now practicing law in Houston, said he was moved to protect Capitol views after a controversy over construction of a tall bank building in the 1980s. Washington said that his news conference announcing the legislation featured a picture of the Capitol smothered in dollar bills.
"It was money against beauty, and I thought it was wrong," said Washington, also a former congressman. "I wanted to preserve it for future generations so you wouldn't have to stand a block away from the Capitol to be able to see it."
He even went so far as to sponsor a bill that would have created a "District of Travis," similar to the District of Columbia that encompasses the nation's Capitol. The bill didn't get far.
But Washington said it made a point: "It's not just the city of Austin and its citizens who are harmed by the unbridled growth and development of buildings that obscure and obliterate the majestic view of the Capitol. That view belongs to all Texans."
He said city officials have been good stewards of the Capitol views so far, but he's suspicious of any plan that weighs the value of views against development.
"It sounds like the argument they made before," he said. "What price do you put on it? It's priceless. And if they're doing it for money, shame on them. One day people will look back and say, 'Why didn't somebody stand up and do something about it?' when all the views of the Capitol are blocked, one by one, rationalization after rationalization."
Since the view protections were created, the Legislature has allowed three exceptions, including the upper deck of the Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, street redevelopment in East Austin and redevelopment of a municipal airport, according to Julie Fields, public information coordinator at the state Preservation Board.
'Bragging rights'
And that's quite enough, said Read, the preservationist, who remembers "the most magnificent view you could imagine" of the Capitol when coming over the hill from San Antonio onto Riverside years ago.
"You drive that drive today and you are confronted with an ugly blob of concrete," he said. He also argues that modifying view corridors now would punish the developers and owners of other buildings who played by the past rules.
Any corridor changes would likely affect East Austin, where the pink dome overlooks restaurants, small frame houses and public playgrounds.
Brian Perkins, 39, who has lived in a 1940s bungalow in the area for nine years, before a wave of gentrification brought a construction boom to the historically black neighborhood, said the view of the Capitol has always been "one of the bragging rights" of East Austin.
"I always thought it was like engraved in granite," he said of the view.
His brother-in-law, Jeff Plowman, 42, who can see the Capitol from the front lawn of his 1918 Victorian house fitted with burglar bars, said replacing Capitol views with $300,000 condo high-rises would be sheer waste.
"I'd much rather see some of the state's history than some yahoo's big profit there," he said.