Fredericksburg's Dilemma

Fredericksburg Texas has what surely is one of the most schizophrenic real estate markets in the country.  As evidenced in earlier posts, the market is clearly in a “correction”, yet the median home price is still on the increase.  Short of a long, boring dissertation on statistical analysis and the road-blocks currently in place in the MLS reporting system that makes such accurate analysis problematic, I’ll talk about the “schizophrenia” and the challenges it presents to the future of our community.

The battle royale in Fredericksburg is raging on whether or not we want to be a tourist town, a ritzy tourist town, a retirement haven, a wealthy enclave of vacation homes or a quaint farm and ranch community.  Of course, at the moment, we are all of the above.

The forces and planning that have brought us to this point are too lengthy to mention, however, they have placed us at a critical junction and are forcing us to answer the question: “What does Fredericksburg want to be when it grows up?”  Until now, that question has mostly been posed as the negative “we know what we don’t want to be.”

The downside of the “ritzy tourist town” / “wealthy enclave” trend has been that “Moms and Pops” are being priced out of shop spaces downtown and the average wage workers can’t afford to live in the community.  The upside is that every property owner has benefitted from substantial increases in the value of their primary asset(s).

The number one complaint of any business owner you care to question is the lack of “affordable” employees.  Combine this with the fact that Gillespie has about the lowest unemployment numbers in the state and you can see the problem we face is, increasingly, the all-encompassing “affordability gap”. “Affordable” housing is non-existent if you earn the average Gillespie county wage.

Mom and Pop built this wonderful community and we sure don’t want to see them go.  The recent drama of the proposed “no chains on Main” ordinance is but a symptom of the overall dilemma.  You certainly can’t stop “progress” but you definitely need to know what it means to you in the long-term

We have serious decisions to make and those decisions will set the trends for years to come.  Do we want to be Aspen or Santa Fe, or Branson?  Do we step back and revert more to the Mason/Llano mold?  The decision/implementation process will be long and (in many respects) painful.  Not everyone is going to like where we end up.  Such is the price of growth and vitality.