Public Notice: Being a Good Host

Austin is having a pretty good South by Southwest so far. The Chronicle is pleased to have Mayor Steve Adler onstage for both the Austin Music Industry Awards last Monday, and tonight's Austin Music Awards show. In between, hizzoner got to pal around with President Barack Obama on Friday, which was probably pretty cool, too. And yeah, that junket – which included a much-publicized drop-in at Torchy's Tacos – was mostly photo-op, but on the other hand ...

Having the president here certainly drew more mayors to town; after a spate of late confirmations brought the count to over 20 big-city mayors from across the country participating in SXSW Interactive's Mayoral Sessions, which ranged from the Urban Housing Challenge to Metro Mobility Revolution, along with plenty of discussion about how to work with – or fight back against – tech disruptors such as HomeAway and Uber. It's strange to hear politicians sit down and talk about issues, and solutions, but by and large, as the U.S. Conference of Mayors has shown over the past few years, most of the wisdom we're likely to find in the body politic these days is going to come from this group. One sign of a possible early success, especially for Austin, came in a SXSWedu conference session about what cities can do for education (see Richard Whittaker's "Fixing the Gap," p.16). Another came on Saturday, as Austin was selected (as I kind of predicted in last week's "Home Field Advantage?") as one of the finalists in the U.S. Department of Transportation's Smart City Challenge, which promises awards of up to $50 million in funding for one city to develop an "advanced data and intelligent transportation systems (ITS)" program. The seven finalists – two more than anticipated, due to the quality of the entries – now each get a $100,000 grant to flesh out their proposals, before U.S. DOT makes a final decision in June. Win or lose, it should be exciting to see what Austin's transportation gurus come up with, especially as we simultaneously gear up for a possible mobility bond election in the fall.

Meanwhile, U.S. DOT reps at the SXSW trade show are telling people that by 2020 – just four years from now, while this year's high school graduates are still in college – all manufacturers in the U.S. will be offering automated driving systems (though what that means exactly can be a little fuzzy (see "Driving on Autopilot," March 11).

City Council remains on spring break; they'll be back March 24, with about two-thirds of the 43-item draft agenda focused on zoning. Notable among those is the Lenox Oaks apartment proposal in Monto­polis, which would displace some 50 low-income households in duplexes and the Cactus Rose Mobile Home Park, to make way for a mixed-use development with 356 apartment units, plus retail and restaurants. It's the poster child for the density vs. affordability dilemma that Council faces with increasing frequency, and should make for interesting discussion – especially as the change requires an amendment to the Montopolis Neighborhood Plan, and is opposed by the plan's Contact Team.

The Zoning and Platting Commission did not get the memo; they're meeting Tuesday evening as we go to press, to consider, among other things, the long-controversial Austin Oaks PUD proposal at MoPac and Spicewood Springs Road.

Park Plans

• The Austin Parks and Recreation Depart­ment is holding a couple of community engagement meetings next Wednesday, asking for public input regarding a couple of valuable near-north city properties.

• If Highland Neighborhood Park and Reznicek Fields sounds like an awkward name for a property, that's because it reflects the awkward dual nature of the property itself. The city first acquired the 7-acre tract, off of St. John's Ave., just west of Guadalupe, to be a retention pond. But that has never happened, and since 1971, the city has leased the site to University Hills Optimist, a nonprofit that provides low-cost sports programs for kids ages 4-18. Meanwhile, since at least 2003, the Brentwood/Highland Neighborhood Plan has envisioned the tract as a park, and in 2012, the city unveiled a plan that resurfaced the pond idea (see Richard Whittaker's "Park, Pond, or Ballfield?" Sept. 27, 2013). Now, after two-and-a-half more years of polling and drafting, PARD has pretty much boiled it down to two very similar options, both incorporating a pond, two ballfields which could also be used as one soccer field, and some separated park areas. Attend the Final Public Workshop to take a look, or weigh in on the options, on Wed., March 23, 6:30-8pm, at Reilly Elementary School, 405 Denson Dr. Or get a preview of the presentation at www.austintexas.gov/department/highland-neighborhood-park-master-plan.

• At that exact same time will be the first of three community engagement meetings regarding program elements for Shipe Pool – a treasured neighborhood landmark in Hyde Park, but also a pool identified as "critical" in the 2014 Aquatic Assessment – that is, a "facility that has the potential to functionally fail within the next five swim seasons." Weigh in on "program elements" you'd like to see at Griffin School Auditorium, 5001 Evans Ave., Wed., March 23, 6:30-8pm. See more info at www.austintexas.gov/department/shipe-pool-improvements.

The Elgin Agrarian Community is a 24-acre development just outside downtown Elgin, that will have 80 cottage units for sale, a five-acre working farm with a historic farmhouse, and small-scale commercial including what they claim will be the nation's first women-owned microbrewery – all operated on a cooperative basis, by folks with a long history of co-op activism in Austin and nationally. Want to hear more? The EACO March Membership Meeting will be Monday, March 21, at 6:30pm at TreeHouse Inc., 4477 S. Lamar #600. They'll be presenting the first rounds of renderings for the new homes, sharing information about joining the co-op, and ending with a craft beer and fresh ginger-ale tasting. RSVP through www.elginagrarian.com.

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Take my remarks on South by Southwest with a grain of salt: I'm a co-director of the event.