Screwing with Bethany Lutheran Church's Right to Sell
Austin-American Statesman: Church's plans to sell land for apartments upsets neighbors
...Bethany Lutheran Church sought city approval for 272 apartments to be built on part of its Southwest Austin campus...some neighbors are protesting and threatening to sue to stop the project, saying that the church, which plans to sell the land to a private developer, should be required to use the normal zoning process..."We want to make sure that any development on this property complies with all water quality and land-use requirements."...annex more than 13,000 acres that year and apply its environmental regulations, including the SOS ordinance, to development on that land...church was required to upgrade its water quality pond to SOS standards..."You couldn't build anything on the land because by the time you did the re-irrigation and water quality retention pond, there was no building space left."...the land was never zoned in the first place...the City Council wasn't required to hold public hearings...city will not require the water quality controls on the site to meet SOS standards, but the church will have to enlarge...begin irrigating...harvest some runoff...new deal eliminated two retail or office sites...number of units that can be built on that land was reduced...the height of the buildings was reduced...neighbors still upset with the deal and how it was handled have formed a nonprofit called the Oak Parke Brodie Wild Preservation Group...any development on the church's site, which is in the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, to adhere to SOS requirements..."The church couldn't sell their land."Copyright 2008 The Austin American-Statesman. All rights reserved.
It is amazing to me that anyone can get anything done in this city. The above is a sample of the rigmarole voters, politicians, and city "planners" have thrown up in the face of people wanting to do conduct their business.
This kind of shit - the endemic, rampant, and almost universally ignored category of property rights violations known as "local law" - is vastly more responsible for economic sluggishness than the increasing cost of oil, sub-par graduates from the Public Education Machine, and other common targets.