Community not Coffee Shops!
Austin's lead NIMBY group raises alarms about coffee shops.
On City Council's agenda this week is a resolution calling for more "coffee shops, cafes, and coffee trucks in more residential areas" of the city. It asks the city manager to analyze existing regulations and "identify barriers" to Java access.
The genesis of this was a resolution passed by the Zoning & Platting Commission (the junior Planning Commission) that called for something much bolder. It called for the following to all become "conditional uses" on properties with single-family zoning:
- Counseling Services
- Guidance Services
- Medical Offices – —not exceeding 5,000 sq/ft of gross floor space
- Consumer Repair Services;
- Food Sales;
- General Retail Sales (Convenience);
- Personal Improvement Services
- Personal Services
- Pet Services
- Restaurant (no alcohol sales)
You won't be surprised to learn that I think that ZAP's original proposal was a good idea. I'm not going to bother with the environmental, affordability and public health arguments, although those certainly exist. The best argument is simply that it's probably what most people want.
I suppose there are people who don't want any type of commerce within walking distance of their home, but they're certainly not the majority in Austin. Most people wish there were more things they could walk or bike to from their homes. That's one of the big reasons people are willing to pay such high prices to live in neighborhoods like Hyde Park, Clarksville, Central East Austin and Mueller. Indeed, have you noticed how often when people speak nostalgically about old neighborhoods in Austin, their memories are often about the area businesses? The taqueria, the diner, the barber shop...?
The ZAP proposal excludes the stuff most likely to bother people: gas stations, car repair, bail bonds, payday lenders, pawn shops, smoke/vape shops, liquor stores. It would also not allow drive-throughs.
What I've heard is that most Council members were receptive to the ZAP proposal but nobody jumped at the chance to carry it. So it looks like Ryan Alter is pushing ahead with something far more modest. Coffee shop seems oddly specific, but it kind of makes sense: it's the type of business whose absence from their neighborhood the median Austinite is most likely to bemoan.
NIMBY group Community Not Commodity sent out a scatterbrained rant on the matter:
They're right: it's really not about coffee beans. Or even the beverage those beans are used to create. It's about creating more third spaces – places where people in our increasingly lonely and depressed society can hang out without having to spend a lot of money. It's not quite as nice if you have to drive to a strip mall.
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