Boulevards, Avenues, and Alleys

The following image zooms in to the first residential section to be built, the part I blocked in as purple before.
The Row Houses selling under the affordable homes initiative are the David Weekly Row Houses 22.5' x 70', shown in dark blue. As you can see they face only two primary streets, Zach Scott and Mattie. So we face a possible dilemma; which street do we live on, when given the choice? Living on Zach Scott would give us almost immediate access in and out of Mueller, and it is closer to both Lake Park and the Town Center, even more within walking distance. However, living on the boulevard section of Mattie has close access to the Neighborhood Park and Pool. To complicate things, let's zoom in on those streets.

The following three images are called Thoroughfare Sections, each showing an adjoining overhead diagram of what exists in plan. The circular things are trees.
First, an Alley Section above, which serves both Zach Scott and Mattie from the rear. They are not usually given a name; instead each housing unit gets its address from its primary enfronting street. I believe all the houses in Mueller are given access to their garages from rear alleys. This policy presents a much more friendly and human-scale front to the primary streets.
Above is the Street Section for Zach Scott. It is expected to host a larger volume of traffic, so its lanes are slightly wider with adjoining bike lanes. Like all thoroughfares in Mueller (minus alleys), parallel parking flanks the traffic lanes such that a pedestrian walking on the sidewalk has a substantial tree/planting zone plus a row of cars between them and the moving vehicles. As you examine the drawing, note the tall lamps which illuminate Zach Scott.
Find here the Street Section for Mattie at its Boulevard, named here a Linear Park. Again we see seven feet of tree/planting and parallel parking between sidewalk and traffic. This time, though, vehicle movement is one-way and along a more narrowly perceived width, causing drivers to slow down implicity. The street lamps are much shorter, producing less of a highway atmosphere. Notice also that the full Street Section contains four rows of trees and a recreational green median.

So, Zach Scott or Mattie? Each has its advantages and disadvantages based upon proximity to amenities and recreation spaces and the type of Thoroughfare Section it faces. Which would you choose?

I am embedding here a nine-minute segment of a video recorded in 1991 in San Antonio, featuring Andres Duany, one of the founders of New Urbanism. The segment emphasizes some items I've mentioned in this post. To see the lecture in its entirety, click here. Otherwise, click the play button below.

Literally Green

This quote from Mueller's website: "More than 140 acres of Mueller - one-fifth of the community - is dedicated to public parks, greenbelts, playfields, trails, and plazas. This network of public greenspace connects to other parks and trails in Austin's No. 1-in-the-nation park system. And Mueller's streetscapes are also designed and landscaped to promote outdoor living, walking and biking, and urban vitality."

In addition, Mueller's stated goal is to have every dwelling unit within 600 feet (less than 1/8th mile) of one of the green spaces enumerated below.
The area shaded in purple is the first section of residential they are building, and the two strips in dark red are the places where they have assigned as affordable rowhouses, the house type we are buying. So we are moving into the southwest section of Mueller, between Lake Park and the Park to Neighborhood 2.But don't get too excited too fast. This picture of Mia was taken at Lake Park at sunset, looking east. Remember that Mueller was an airport, and very few trees dotted its landscape. It will probably be 20 years before the newly planted trees for the avenues, parks, and greenways develop into maturity with extensive shade and space-defining capacity. As our present apartment community has nothing like a park, I'd say we'll take what we can get!

What about the House?!

OK, OK, I'll get off my soapbox against suburban sprawl. Let me tell you about these rowhouses. Take a look at the building block below, which includes four rowhouses at a street intersection. Why is our choice between the Longhorn and the Volente floor plans a subject of debate?

Ground FloorUpper Floor

You may have to click on each image to get a better look. The Longhorn is a corner unit, meaning it gets natural light from three sides, a yard on two sides, and we like the way it looks on the outside. The Volente has a bigger breakfast/kitchen area, three reasonably sized bedrooms, and the washer/dryer space is located in the garage, which we like. Shared demising walls are an advantage when it comes to saved energy costs but are a drawback if the neighbors are loud or unruly. We are not sure how much either floor plan costs or which one is more expensive.

Which would you choose?

. . . within walking distance.

One of the stated goals of Mueller is to provide a very walkable community, where people feel safe as pedestrians, where they have purposeful destinations, and such destinations within walking distance.

Let's zoom in on that big purple blob I drew on the Austin Map. Take a look at the Illustrative Plan below. Interstate 35, which bridges Dallas and San Antonio, can be seen clipping the upper left corner. Grouped near it in red is a regional retail center, hosting national chains like Old Navy, Best Buy, and Starbucks. Its proximity near that heavy traffic expects most patrons to enter directly from their cars from a parking lot in front.
But despite the allure of some of those stores, the really good stuff lies to the southeast. That's where the Town Center and the Neighborhoods are located, places where people can walk along an avenue, visiting local shops and stores of unique character, products, and services. Mueller has not yet announced who will be a part of the Town Center (shown as red and brown near the middle), but we're hoping for Austin favorites like Amy's Ice Cream, Dan's Hamburger's, Mozart's, and the Alamo Draft House.

We will be living in one of the four Neighborhoods, shown primarily in yellow, a mixture of rowhouses, yardhouses (the "normal" kind), and Mueller Houses, which are multi-family buildings made to look like unified mansions. More on the Neighborhoods in a later post.

As you can see from the legend above, many areas are labeled "Mixed Use." This means that businesses, residences, recreation, shopping, and working are encouraged to coexist in the same area, even the same life. The result, when well designed, turns streets into friendly places, places where people actually want to hang out.
And, of course, this "bleeding together" of functions shortens the distance between home and destination, potentially making visits to the grocery store or any other location a walkable event. See the image below to see the location of the four neighborhoods, the town center, and the two employment centers, listed as "quadrants."

Our Great News!

Family and Friends! We are moving into a rowhouse here in Austin sometime between October 2007 and mid-2008! That's a very broad time frame, we know; it was all the information we can get before we meet with our builder, David Weekly Homes, later this year. Take a look at the map. To give you a sense of scale, bear in mind that my drive to work right now is 25 minutes on an average traffic morning.

When Austin moved their airport to the southeast, it left the old airport a "greyfield" site, and the city has overseen its redevelopment into the proposed "urban village," named Mueller. That is where we're moving.

These days, the term "master planned community" means nothing because no developer would buy millions of dollars worth of land and say, "Come live in my unplanned community!" Instead they build a barely-planned community and call it "master planned" as a marketing ploy to sell the fast-food version of the American Dream.

But Mueller is different; its redevelopment has been rigorously overseen by multiple parties to the micro level, being awarded a Charter Award by the Congress for New Urbanism, the nation's premier authority on urbanism. Hopefully, I can touch on some of these things in future posts. For further interest, click here. But for now, let's talk about our future house. Take a look at the front of the building below.

Except for the trees missing in front, this is a pretty accurate image of what a rowhouse building block will look like. Each building will have groupings of four to seven rowhouses, using three different floor plans: the Longhorn, the Volente, and the Congress. We are hoping to get into the Volente or the Longhorn (no wisecracks, Kenny). Each rowhouse comes with a two-car garage, accessible from an alley in the back. I'll be showing more details of the floor plans in future posts.

And these are just the rowhouses designated "affordable." A multiplicity of houses with varying sizes and design features, built by a multiplicity of builders, are scattered throughout the community, creating an intentional diversity that would otherwise be homogenous in its appearance and socioeconomic demographic.

Anyway, I just wanted to give many of you a heads up, as you've been asking for more details. We are super excited and thankful to God that he's giving us this opportunity!!!