I read over on the Mueller Yahoo group that some of the narrower yard-house side streets measure eleven feet wide when there is a car on either side. What would that be, about 22 ft wide total? 24?

I imagine that means similar width to the side-streets in older neighborhoods of Austin.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "professional preference"?

My understanding is the residential streets are to be 28 feet face to face on the curb and the alleys 15 feet. I don't know if this holds the same for the connecting streets which also have dedicated bike lanes nor those streets with the bulb outs.

The Mueller Design Guide depicts a variety of streets within the entire development.

The Mueller Design Guide does not make a distinction that I can tell for the residential streets (referred to as local neighborhood in the guide) with regard to the lot width.

The residential streets are shown with two parking zones of 7 ft each and a clear roadway of 14 feet. The guide also shows Neighborhood Connecting streets with two 8 ft. parking zones and two 10 ft travel lanes.

We received the following message today from Jessica Guerra at Catellus:

Well I'm just confused about this one.

I'm still not really sure how they're going to enforce this sort of thing. For example, how could they possibly know it's my girlfriend's car parked four houses down? ...or for that matter, how could they even know it was my car. And they're not private streets, so I'm not sure they can ban them from other people's use?

Are all residents in the community going to be required somehow to have stickers on their cars?

A parking officer MIGHT have the ability to lookup who the car is registered to, but it certainly shouldn't say the address of the where that person lives.

I guess I shouldn't complain, but if they're going to make rules, I'd just like to see them as rules that can be enforced for the good of the place.

This whole parking situation just sounds not very well thought out.

This is regrettable if these rules remain in the HOA.

Functionally, the rule is unreasonable in Mueller. This rule looks as though it was designed for subdivision homes with garages AND parking driveways. There are a variety of reason that the narrow two-car garages (I believe there is 18 inches on either side of the garage door) will not accomdate a two-car family much less a three car family. Full-Siz SUV, storing more than a couple boxes in the garage, conversion of one side of the garage to a workshop or studio to name a few.

Philosophically, it is contradictory to New Urbanist principles. By that, I mean the lack of street parked cars actually has been shown to make life tougher for pedestrians and bicyclists. Cars on empty streets drive faster. Here's a quote from Richard McLaughlin...

"On-street parking is another civilizing component of neighborhood streets. Cars parked to either side of a street's traffic lanes deter high speed traffic, buffer pedestrian activity on sidewalks, and distribute parking evenly throughout the neighborhood. Also, on-street parking reduces the need for parking lots and long driveways. Buildings therefore occupy more buildable lots and help shape continuous neighborhood streets. "

They can't really take away the driveways and forbid on-street parking. McClud's option above is much more reasonable.

Yikes.

I was one saying I prefer if people use their garages for parking, and I do, but I certainly don't think it should be a rule "on the books".

The streets turn out to be plenty wide for street parking, don't they? So why else should Catellus force residents away from street parking?

I'd guess the policy stems in part from PR concerns. 78723 has very high auto theft rates (only 78741 is worse), and although Mueller will be a bit of an enclave, auto thieves might see cars there as fun bait. May be that the builders and developers want to avoid bad press which might affect sales in later phases, or tarnish the success of the development overall.

I think that's the most plausible reason I've heard thus far.

However, my thinking is that regardless of WHOs car is actually on the street, the streets will still be packed most of the time. Especially if you consider just how many houses are on each block (hugely dense compared to a regular residential neighborhood) and the fact that there are parks everywhere that people will drive and consequently park to use.

I for one would like to see Catellus issue a statement as to why they felt this was an appropriate bylaw for the neighborhood.

Food for thought:

Catellus is in the business of developing real estate, which means somebody must build and sell houses. Houses require dirt on which to be built. The project is limited to something like 700 acres. Wider streets mean fewer houses because there is less dirt available for houses and more dirt under streets. Wider streets means less developed (read: sold for a profit) real estate.

City codes require minimum sizes for streets, to allow fire trucks, ambulances, etc. to safely navigate. On-street parking means the streets must be wider to allow navigable lane widths (again, the less-real-estate-to-sell issue). If, however, they discourage on-street parking, they can build the streets narrower, allowing them to sell more real estate.

In a previous post in this thread, I noted that I have a "professional preference" for wider streets. I drive a fire truck that is responsible for responding in the Mueller area.

This is only for discussion; I do not officially represent AFD or the City with any of this information.

I understand that point too and think it's completely valid and sensible that there be provisions for emergency and other professional (to use the word) vehicles.

The only issue that I have is that it seems the parking restrictions are aimed at residents, NOT just vehicles in general. It would be one thing if it said 'No Vehicle may be parked...' but it actually cites the vehicle being that of an owner or a guest.

Here is what we have been citing, just for simplicity:



So if you live on Littlefield (for example), unless you have an emergency or are approved to do so, you can not park on Littlefield. When your out of town friends come to visit, they can park on Littlefield for 72 hours.

So what about someone who just wants to park their car there but happens to live across 51st street? Is there car going to be towed? Best I can tell, all of the parking signs have already been erected in the neighborhood and there is no mention of cars being towed just for being there.

Similarly, I could park my car in front of some random house across 51st street and leave it there for quite a long period of time before it was removed - I think anyways.

I realize that it does say 'Guests and/or visitors...' whereby visitors might just be a random person with no ties to a Mueller resident, but they aren't signing these restrictions and would have no way of knowing that rule in the first place. And since this isn't a gated community and has public roads...

So without getting lost in this lengthy discussion now, I guess my real confusion is simply: why is it only that owners and residents can not park in the streets? ...and are there additional sections in the deeds that prohibit cars in general from parking on our streets? ...and if so, how is a random person supposed to know the mueller deed restrictions and who enforces these?

I know it's a lot to ask, but I would imagine that I'll commonly have a few people over to my house and am really not sure how this is going to work if I have to worry about people's cars being towed. Not to mention, I have NO intention of not using at least half of my garage for various things other than parking a second car.