A few colleges and towns have implemented some sort of "Town and Gown Commission" to iron our issues between the two communities. Housing, and student life are often two of the main issues addressed by these commissions. But many other issues are also addressed in these commissions too. Is there any sort of "Town and Gown Commission" in Austin?

~~ For those who may not know, "Town and Gown" refers to the non-academic population (town) and the university community (gown) in a college community. They are usually made up of civic leaders from "town" and college leaders/administrators from "gown".

In any case, it just seems like the historic significance of UT Austin is not being considered with respect to the City of Austin's urban planing.

The thing about West Campus is that the zoning was incredibly outdated.

There were really absurd maximum densities per acre that had a very limiting effect on how many people could be housed in a new building.

Add in the fact that demand was so high- an apartment in an older run down building was not much less than for a unit in a brand new complex (and a new complex does not stay new for long when your tenants are college students.)

The net result of these factors is that apartment complex owners had no incentive to keep their properties in top form because they could not expand the number of units in a rebuild. And those who owned and rented out homes had zero incentive to even keep them looking nice. In my day, West Campus was a pretty shabby looking place (though I loved it like that.)

When I was at UT, I lived one year in a West Campus apartment and our rent was $1,500 a month. It was a 1,000+ square foot 2 bedroom 2 bath place and pretty nice, but it was an older building and we had a good number of maintenance issues.

That was 10 years ago- and today rent in the brand new complexes is about the same- $700-800 per bedroom.

So while life is harder for the fraternities and sororities, I don't get too upset about the rezoning since it is actually a real benefit for everyone else. The range of rent in West Campus is little changed- but right now you have more units priced at the high end, yet you are also getting a lot more for your money.

In a few years time as the new complexes age and as more are built- rents will actually come down.

As for the city-wide plans, I felt much like you do when I first heard about it- but in looking over the maps and planned rezoning areas I have seen that development is being emphasized in newer or more run-down areas while preserving a lot of the more historic and unique neighborhoods.

This has to happen in some form. A LOT of people want to live here, and I am one of a great many people who could live anywhere I please- and I deliberately choose to live here even though New York or Chicago would be a more logical choice given my line of work. Right now there is also a ton of investment coming here out of California as real estate sinks there. California investors are driving a good bit of the land speculation in West Campus as well as other areas.

Housing costs here are unbelievable. If you want an average sized 3-4 bedroom home in a nice area like Tarrytown, Travis Heights or Westlake Hills- you better have a least $1,000,000 to spend if you want choices. $2-3 million is better if you want to get picky.

So the rezoning really is necessary and I am just grateful it is being done with some degee of care.

West Campus has been well-handled too I should note. The 90-175 foot building heights are only in certain areas. Much of West Campus is restricted to a 40-50 foot height- and there are many instances where an existing Greek House is in an isolated portion of a block with a lower height zone than surrounding areas which does keep the property taxes down some.

So while we have to pay more to stay here, there has been some obvious deference to our continued existence.

Sad to hear about the former Gamma Phi house, although we have not owned that property for a very long time. oh if only anyone had a crystal ball to know what real estate values would do in the future! Hopefully all the excitement of our new chapters coming to San Antonio and TCU this year eases the heartbreak for the alums in Austin a bit!

Protest
 

I know a bunch of groups (fraternities and sororities) tried to fight the rezoning known as the university neighborhood overlay but were unsuccessful. I believe it was described as postponed.

here is the link. http://media.www.dailytexanonline.co...-2992623.shtml

Talking with friends who are their respective alumni boards they are trying to find out ways around the system. But really when it comes down to it, the best way to not pay as much on the property taxes is to protest them.

I was an ATO at UT and know we protested our property taxes using the same group that KA SIGEP and Acacia used. I think when it was all said and done they saved all those organizations on their property taxes.

I'm not sure if you were familiar with protesting but it doesn't completely eliminate property taxes. It just saved us some money to use on more important things (such as repairs to the house, alumni events and so on).

In regards to the fraternity houses moving, I do not think there is any way. There is no where for them to go. Until something changes with this overlay what fraternities are left need every break they can get. West Campus is probably the only area where the houses can be somewhat tolerated. However, every few years the city makes a push to attack them.

And if kids keep dying or houses making major news stories around the country then property valuations will be the least of our worries.

I am not so sure about that. If you divide our housing bill up over 9 months in the SAE house at SMU, we pay about 800 a month, not including meal plan. I wish we could own our own property, but as it is the school owns 51% and we own 49%, which means it is technically theirs. Police can come & go as they please, etc. etc. However, the school does take care of all the maintenance.