 "Photo: Micah Debenedetto")
On a hot, humid Friday afternoon, Rudy Estrada overlooks a yard sale from his front porch. A man inspects some shutters leaning against a tree.
"How much for the shutters?" he asks.
"Dos pesos," Estrada replies.
Estrada, a painter, has called East Austin his home for 50 years. He rents the house he lives in now - a small, white home in desperate need of a new coat of paint - for $330 a month.
Estrada has witnessed an evolution in the racial makeup of East Austin over the years. "This area used to be just Chicanos," Estrada says, pointing to the block on East 2nd and Waller streets. "Now, white people are buying all these houses."
Across the street from Estrada, Jennifer Chenoweth works in her art studio while a baby-sitter watches her child in the living space of the house. What used to be the worst house on the block is now renovated and painted burnt orange, mustard yellow and moss green. A custom-made steel fence surrounds the front of the house, where a Vespa is parked.
Chenoweth moved to East Austin with her husband five years ago after finishing graduate school. She was attracted to the affordable housing, proximity to downtown and a family-oriented environment.
"I love this neighborhood," Chenoweth says.
Some older residents, like Estrada, have stayed to see the changes in the neighborhood throughout the years.
"There used to be a two-story house over there, a hamburger place over there. There's none of that no more," he says. "Now people are buying, selling houses. There's new condos going up. Taxes are going up."
"How we gonna live?" he asks.
In the past 10 years, more people like Chenoweth have bought homes in East Austin. They are primarily white, affluent residents moving to an area that has historically been home to working-class blacks and Latinos. Their arrival has added to a rise in property values - displacing older residents - and changed the social fabric of the neighborhood.
This urban change is known as gentrification, and it hits urban centers throughout the United States, from New York City to Boston to San Francisco.
Now, it's a real issue for Austin.
'Undesirables'
Gentrification has become pronounced in Austin since the expansion of the high-tech industry caused its population to nearly double in size in the 1990s. The spreading populace looked to Austin's East Side for sound housing stock and low property values.
The area just east of Interstate Highway 35 has been home to Mexican-American and black families since after World War I. In 1928, the city of Austin Master Plan called for all "undesirables" (people or industries) to be relocated to East Austin.
Susana Almanza, a native East Austinite and executive director of People Organized in Defense of Earth and Her Resources, an East Austin environmental organization, calls this 78-year-old segregationist zoning plan "an urban reservation, in new terms."
Working-class blacks and Latinos in East Austin have been sharing the same labor market, neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, elderly homes, day-care centers, playgrounds and other resources since the implementation of the city's 1928 master plan, Almanza says.
Over the past 16 years, blacks, more than Latinos, have been displaced by whites moving into East Austin. Between 1990 and 2000, a survey of the area bound by I-35 to the west, Manor Road to the north, Research Boulevard to the east and Town Lake to the south shows a 31 percent increase in its white population. The Latino population increased 16 percent during the same time. Meanwhile, the black population decreased 19 percent, according to the city.
Higher taxes
The streets parallel to East Cesar Chavez Street, which runs east-west through East Austin, are dotted with small, well-kept one-story houses. Flowerpots hang from the porches and signs by the front doors read "God Bless Our Home," "Welcome to the Mendez home" or "Guerreros." Many Mexican-American families bought these houses for around $6,000 in 1928.
The affordability of these quaint homes is rapidly disappearing. The neighborhood's proximity to downtown and its access to the interstate make it attractive to a new generation of professionals, many of whom work for the growing number of technology companies in Austin.
The "cozy bungalows," as they are often advertised, are being bought up mostly by affluent white people, and longtime residents are squeezed out. Property values have risen dramatically, making it difficult for working-class Mexican-Americans to keep up with the skyrocketing property taxes.
Attempting to mitigate gentrification, PODER has offered recommendations to the city council, basing its claims on an analysis of East Austin housing data and tax records.
Census data shows a sharp increase in home values throughout East Austin. In 1990, 80 percent of the houses in one particular census tract were valued at less than $50,000, with just 0.5 percent valued at between $150,000 and $199,000. By 2000, the figure for houses less than $50,000 had fallen to 48 percent, and 4 percent were valued between $150,000 and $199,000.
PODER also found that homes within the area that have been designated "historic" negatively impact the adjacent, non-historic homes. When the property value of a historic home increases, so does that of an adjacent non-historic home. For instance, one historic home jumped in value from slightly more than $50,000 in 1998 to almost $500,000 by 2002. An adjacent, non-historic home also increased in value from $50,00 to $75,000 without repairs or upkeep. The owner of the historic home also enjoys a lifetime property tax exemption, while the adjacent homes must pay higher property taxes, PODER says.
Almanza of PODER says the tax appraiser may look at all homes within a one-mile radius of the more expensive home, "messing with everybody's tax base."
"The elderly can't even pay close to a $400 tax bill [when] most of the people in East Austin bought their homes for $6,000 to $18,000," she says.
Some residents end up "cashing out" by selling their properties for a higher value. When someone offers a resident $100,000 for his or her house, "to them that sounds like a million dollars because they've never had that much money, but then when they get it, they can't get any place nearby." They are forced to find houses in areas far away from the city center, such as Buda, Kyle, Lockhart and Dell Valle.
When original residents are displaced, a "break in community structure" occurs, Almanza says. A new neighborhood dynamic between old and new residents and businesses is created. The old flavor of the neighborhood is essentially lost.
"[The new residents] come in saying they really like East Austin because it's an open community. People gather in the front yards, their backyards. But then they come in, and they put these walls up. They put aluminum fencing in ... all of this stuff is going to change it back to the same thing they were leaving because they wanted the openness."
Almanza says the newer residents complain about the original East Austin community's numerous cars and loud music. "They don't realize we have big families ... this is how we've always played [our music]."
Also flooding into East Austin are "mixed-use" developments. These buildings were permitted under an amendment to the East Cesar Chavez Neighborhood Plan. The plan was designed by the city to allow community input in deciding how these neighborhoods will look in the future.
Recycling
The Waterstreet Lofts, a mix of residential and commercial spaces, is the latest of a half-dozen developments being built in East Austin. The $6.5 million project will attract residents who can afford the $180,000 to $270,000 lofts.
A sign announcing the new lofts is posted on an empty lot on East Cesar Chavez and Comal streets, with the words "Stop Gentrification Now!" spraypainted across it.
Terry Ortiz, an East Austin native, is the structural engineer for the project. The Ortiz family owns a Mexican restaurant on East Fifth Street called Nuevo Leon. They also own the empty lot that will be the future site of the Waterstreet Lofts.
Ortiz does not like to identify himself as a "gentrifier."
"As an East Austin resident, I would never do anything detrimental to the neighborhood," he says. "I am not an outsider. I am not someone who grew up with means."
Ortiz emphasizes the positive effects of gentrification in East Austin.
"Because of new developments, there is some kind of activity in East Austin. Infrastructure improvements have taken place with new libraries, sidewalks," he says.
He says that mixed-use developments create a safer neighborhood.
"They secure the neighborhood," he says. "Gang activity and prostitution goes away in the disadvantaged neighborhoods."
But PODER'S Almanza disagrees, saying, "Gentrification does not remedy crime, it merely pushes it out of one neighborhood and into another."
Ortiz was the engineer for another mixed-use development on Sixth and Pedernales streets, the Pedernales Lofts.
These apartments were built on abandoned, contaminated land, according to Ortiz; they are his example of how new development can help East Austin. The gated property's nearest neighbor is a recycling plant. The stone structure is flanked by railroad tracks, a paper factory and a lumberyard.
"It's a nice place to live," Ortiz says.
He says a portion of the housing units are "reasonably priced." The city defines reasonably priced as being affordable to someone making 80 percent of the region's median income, or about $56,900 for a family of four and $40,000 for a single person.
East Austin residents, however, earn an average of 20 to 40 percent of the median family income, according to Almanza.
Gentrification has also affected small businesses in East Austin. East Cesar Chavez Street is populated with mom and pop businesses that cater to the Mexican-American community: Mexican restaurants, doctors, funeral homes, financial services, barber shops and bus lines to San Luis Potosi, Mexico dot the street.
A few blocks from Azul, Francis Aguallo, 75, owner of Aguallo's Florists, sits behind a glass partition in an office, her wall adorned with images of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The small flower shop has provided flower arrangements for quinceaneras, baptisms, weddings and anniversaries for 40 years. Aguallo says her business has been "hit hard" by property tax increases with the influx of new developments. Her business sits across the street from the empty lot that will hold the Waterstreet Lofts.
"Little by little," Aguallo says, "we're going to be pushed out eventually."
Victory's blues
Where East 11th Street passes over I-35, an iron arch with the lone star in the middle announces the entrance to the "East End" project. A few small, dilapidated houses remain beside a stretch of new three-story office buildings. The buildings stand on a newly-paved street, lit by elegant lampposts. A sign with modern graphics hangs in the window: "Progress Continues in the East End." Included is a number to contact the Austin Revitalization Authority, a private nonprofit responsible for the "revitalization" of East 11th Street.
Richard Franklin and Eva Lindsey say ARA bought vacant lots and condemned houses owned by black families to make way for its development here. The two sit at a card table at the Victory Grill, across the street from the new developments. Lindsey, the manager of the grill, points to a glass case that holds old photos and memorabilia of the blues club and restaurant, which has been around since 1945. In the back of the restaurant area, which is undergoing renovations, is a large empty theater where bluesmen like B.B. King and W.C. Clark used to play. The small yellow and blue building with a red roof, which houses the Victory Grill, shares a lot with a billboard that reads, "Coming Soon - Live/Work Lofts and Townhomes."
"My goal is to save this corner," Lindsey says. The Victory Grill has been designated as a historical site, and Lindsey is struggling to restore it to its former glory.
ARA completed the commercial buildings in 2004, but so far, the only business to lease a space is Wells Fargo. The nonprofit's goal, according to its president and CEO Byron Marshall, is to "make central East Austin a more livable - more services, less crime, cleaner - community."
This was to be accomplished through the development of the East 11th Street commercial corridor. The project promised to offer commercial spaces for a low price to small and minority-owned businesses and help small businesses get the funding they need.
But, according to Franklin, a community activist working for the restoration of the Victory Grill and a financial adviser, people in the community have not been notified of the available funding.
Still, ARA says the investment in central and East Austin will improve property values, create jobs and wealth, and bring in new residents.
"The project didn't generate anything," Franklin says. "It wasn't designed to revitalize."
Franklin says the project did not create the jobs, as promised.
"I can't count how many jobs were created on one hand," he says. "People are suffering here. They are shining cars to make ends meet."
Like the area around East Cesar Chavez Street, the East 11th Street developments have attracted new residents and raised property values and, in effect, pushed the black community out of central East Austin.
Victory Grill manager Lindsey says: "'Gentrification' is an ugly word with an ugly definition. It displaces people physically, psychologically, emotionally. It creates a new socio-economic situation that's not better."
Franklin says the city has to stop giving hand-outs to the black community on the East Side.
"The East Side doesn't want to be treated like a stepchild of the city," he says. "We want to control our own destiny."
Answers
Lindsey says that one thing is true about gentrification: It's inevitable.
The city created the Gentrification Implications of Historic Zoning in East Austin Task Force in 2003 as a cross-departmental effort to address gentrification. The goal was to adopt policy that optimizes the benefits of neighborhood change, while minimizing or eliminating the downsides of gentrification, says council member Raul Alvarez.
Alvarez, who was once a volunteer for PODER and was elected to the City Council in 2000, says the City Council has taken several steps to limit the impact of gentrification. One aspect is the neighborhood plans like the one for East Cesar Chavez. Alvarez says these "ensure that the scale of development maintains the neighborhood character."
Alvarez says the development of affordable housing is also one measure to curb gentrification. But what the city defines as "affordable" is not affordable to many of the working class residents of East Austin, say East Austin activists.
The Community Preservation and Revitalization zone program, similar to ARA's East 11th Street redevelopment project, is another way to address the problem, Alvarez says.
Stuart Hersh, the S.M.A.R.T.Housing coordinator for the city, says the zones provide financial incentives for developments that invest in a small businesses assistance fund, create jobs and provide affordable housing.
"It allows for long-time, low-income residents and long-time businesses to survive in the community revitalization zone when property values increase dramatically over time," Hersh says.
Alvarez adds that the council has asked staff to create a program so that low-income families in the zones can obtain tax abatements for making improvements to their properties "and thus helping the city to preserve affordable housing that already exists."
Faced with the inevitable forces of change, Franklin says people have two options: "Gentrification is like a wave, and we as a people - black, white, brown and yellow - can come together and ride that wave to prosperity, or we can sit and do nothing and allow that wave overcome us and eventually wash us away."
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