Calling All Downtown Planners

"Austin Mayor Will Wynn and other local leaders believe Downtown can eventually have as many as 25,000 residents and encourages that many parking lots be replaced with multi-level parking and condos, with downtown rail lines to help mobility...[the mayor] announced a City Council resolution to hire consultants to develop a Downtown Austin Plan aimed at turning those parking lots, and other underutilized space, into a more people-friendly, mass transit-navigable, and revenue-generating vertical topography."

In addition to a plan for subsidizing affordable housing downtown, the resolution anticipates "that a critical mass of downtown residents will provide a steady market for retail, restaurants, and (especially) mass transit that all of Austin can enjoy. The 'density begets density' argument is familiar to anyone who paid attention to the city's other recent densification efforts, such as commercial design standards or the transit-oriented development ordinance, and the plan includes many familiar features -- rail and dedicated bus lines, updating infrastructure, and dealing with those pesky height restrictions, to name a few."