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Originally Posted by hereinaustin
You guys are ignoring the reality that if you further reduce the availability of land that can be used for dense development you drive up costs on the remaining parcels. Those higher costs end up translating into higher rents for businesses and individuals; there's no way to deny that. I think the CVCs are fine in several corridors, but there are some unnecessary ones that do more harm than good.
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You make a valid point. I was just looking at a map of the CVCs and the East Side of town in particular has major overlays all over. As the UT Research Campus and the parts of the Waller Creek corridor further from Lady Bird Lake develop and mature, there will no doubt be challenges, and the city will have to way the pros and cons carefully (I think the one designated solely for a threeish-block stretch of I-35 could probably shrink or be tossed out).
Fortunately right now, Austin still has plenty of land left to develop, but as time goes on and density further becomes the way of the world in the city's core, such challenges will no doubt come up...but these also present opportunities for growth elsewhere, giving a unified urban fabric far and wide. How about taller towers in West Campus? Ten or twenty more Corazons on the East Side? All the land still in open season on Lamar and Burnet? The evolution of the Domain, Mueller, Highland Mall, or even Southpark Meadows into nodal cores elsewhere in the city (transit improvements part and parcel)? Downtown will always have a certain cache, but truly urban cities are urban throughout.
For me, urban dawn may have hit Austin already, but it's still mid-morning.