Central Austin Plan: Love Is All Around!

Nearly an hour into last week's proceedings, it fell to North University Neighborhood Association co-president Jerry Roemisch to actually utter the K word – "Kumbaya" – to describe the consensus reached over two years to spawn the proposed Central Austin Combined Neighborhood Plan. But by that time, the City Council had already been treated to stunning live love acts between some of Austin's orneriest neighbors and the developers they (used to) most revile, displays that should come with a disclaimer on the replay: "Warning to citizens: It doesn't always work like this. Your results may vary."

The City Council heard several hours of testimony but took no action on the CACNP and its marquee proposal, the University Neighborhood Overlay – a zoning strategy intended to transform West Campus into an urban high-rise neighborhood (up to 175 feet tall in places) and thus create much-needed housing close to campus for UT's swollen student population. The rezoning cases that would implement the CACNP – which would affect thousands of individual properties in seven different central-city neighborhoods – have already been postponed to June 10 due to a technical posting error. Votes on the CACNP and UNO themselves will likewise have to wait, likely also 'til June 10, after the council, amid some confusion, kinda-sorta granted a postponement request from the recently formed West Campus NA, organized to fight the UNO as currently proposed. The WCNA was represented by consultant Jeff Heckler.

"We heartily support the Central Austin Combined Neighborhood Plan," Heckler told the council in his de facto rebuttal to the 70-minute presentation given by plan backers. "But we have significant concerns about the UNO" – ranging from the impact on West Campus' tired infrastructure to the prospect of new high-rises blocking city views of the UT Tower. However, the CACNP is premised on a grand bargain – protecting the single-family character of older UT-area neighborhoods by putting the area's fair share of density into West Campus via the UNO. Without one, the other fails – a fear shared by players on all sides of the planning game. "We're placing our trust in the city," said West University NA leader Barbara Bridges, "that the surrounding neighborhoods actually will be protected."

Bridges, along with Heritage NA's Al Godfrey and Shoal Crest NA's John Foxworth – all from the small and increasingly threatened neighborhoods that adjoin West Campus proper – emphasized that the concept of the UNO originated with them, not with the developer interests in the University Area Partners who stand to profit from West Campus' greatly increased development potential. "We asked ourselves what a great city would and should have in this area," said Godfrey, "because right now, West Campus is an embarrassment and it really needs help." (Not everyone agrees, of course; the West Campus NA, detractors charge, is largely anchored by property managers who benefit from the artificial housing shortage and lack of reinvestment one finds in today's West Campus.)

However, it was the UAP who took the lead (for example, by hiring Cotera+Reed Architects to draw up design guidelines) to turn the concept into the actual UNO – an incentive-based overlay that would allow property owners increased height and density if they meet a lengthy list of conditions regarding urban design, mixed use, and affordability. The list wasn't lengthy enough for members of the Planning Commission (and some in the West Campus NA); both have recommended pumping up the UNO's provisions to ensure that some of the new high-rise units are actually affordable to actual students, and the city housing office is studying Austin's options. However, UNO backers – including the UT-area housing co-ops – note that simply increasing the number of units, and making it easier for property owners to rehab and expand, should have a positive effect on currently ridiculous campus-area rents.

The PC also recommended that, to really drive home the new-urban message here, parking requirements be substantially reduced from those originally proposed for properties within the UNO. On this issue, the West Campus NA and the other CACNP NAs are united in opposition. Nobody disputes that, once you add as many as 10,000 new housing units to the area, traffic will be problematic if the students all choose to bring and drive their cars, which UNO opponents assume is inevitable and UNO backers hope is not. But the neighbors, loath to see the pursuit of urban perfection get in the way of the UNO actually being put to use, decided to recommend leaving parking requirements at current levels. (For his part, Council Member Daryl Slusher noted that "there's going to be a lot more traffic unless we get a train or streetcar through here" – a shot across the bow of both neighbors and UT-area commercial interests, as well as of the university itself.)

Judging from the preliminary reactions of the City Council, there seems little fear that the CACNP or UNO will fail to pass, although there's likely still more tweaking to be done to respond to both West Campus NA and council members' own concerns. "This is not some kind of railroad job," said Mayor Pro Tem Jackie Goodman, who two years ago authored the resolution that forced the campus-area neighborhoods to the negotiating table with bitter enemies like the UAP's Mike McHone. "We were terrified, but it worked," said NUNA's Mary Gay Maxwell, whose neighborhood spent months in bitter combat with McHone over the Villas on Guadalupe (a project the CACNP leaders refused to mention by name at last week's love fest). "And now Mike McHone is my new best friend."

It gets better. Even developer lawyer Richard Suttle, the most hated man in much of Central Austin, earned praise from Eastwoods NA neighbors for his work resolving their disputes with the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest as part of the CACNP process. An emotional Suttle later told the council that "when I started in this business, it was civilized, and somewhere along the way, it got ugly and personal. So for me, this effort has been a healing process."