Changes to Austin East Side
The walls are laden with pictures and movie posters and the air is warm and smoky. Outside, an old, screened-in porch holds the same occupants as yesterday, and inside, four walls of a remarkable past hold the same occupant as the last 40 years. He is the owner of this place, and while he sits among reminders of that remarkable past, he is indifferent to the fact that that past is disappearing every time he walks outside his front door.
“The culture is the past,” said Brian Mays, owner of Sam’s Barbeque on East 12th Street. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Mays is a business owner and resident of Austin. He has many memories of what the east side was like as a “black neighborhood, with nightclubs, a pharmacy, restaurants and bikers dodging cars with no bike lane.” However, he accepts the development and changes the area continues to experience, because of the financial gain it has brought him.
Mays is different than other Austinites in this area because he is unsentimental. Other residents and business owners are unhappy with the ongoing changes, particularly, with the rising property tax prices because of the new development.
“I think it’s a process of taxing us out,” Joyce Nesby, a volunteer secretary, said.
Nesby works at the 137-year-old Simpson United Methodist Church on 12th Street. She remembers the area as a “hub,” and describes it similarly to how Mays had. She is happy to recount various stores all within walking distance from everyone in the neighborhood. However, her tone changes when she describes how, as a member of the community and church for 52 years, she has seen many neighbors and family members leave because of increased property taxes and housing costs.
“I am the only one still on my block, me and a 92-year-old woman,” Nesby said. “I think it’s a terrible thing. You work all your life, almost pay off your house, think you have a secure place, and then you have to move because you can’t pay the taxes.”
Scott Fiebig has been an Austin resident his whole life. He is also the fairly new owner of Texas Sausage Company on 12th Street, and bought the 75-year-old business with the intention of preserving it, with its same walk-in and wholesale customers that it’s had in past years. Though a realtor has bought this property and more in the area, Fiebig has no knowledge of any immediate changes. He explains that all the possibilities are still undecided, but he worries that “they’re going to value the dirt and not the building.”
Fiebig said, “If you’re looking to see the changes that are happening, just look outside. If we had to move, I would try and have at least some kind of storefront on this street. If anything, just to keep the presence of this place in this area.”
The Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis published a brief in 2014, titled “Outlier: The Case of Austin’s Declining African American Population.” This study addressed the decline of African American residents in Austin. Following this publication, Eric Tang, professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and other contributors, researched and published a document that detailed not only the reason many residents moved away from Austin, but also how they felt about having to leave their long-time neighborhoods.
“What we found was that those who stay don’t really feel like they are the beneficiaries of these changes,” Tang said. “In fact, what they feel most is that with economic pressure, brought on by higher property taxes which accompany higher property value, they can’t afford to meet these taxes. In order to meet them they sacrifice things like health care, renovations on their home.”
While these residents and business owners have already discontentedly witnessed developmental changes on the east side, there is still uncertainty regarding the remaining few.
“I hope we have plenty of time left,” Fiebig said. “It’s just that world of unknown.”
