With Project Connect and city rezoning to accommodate it on the horizon, the city of Austin has $300 million in the project’s voter-approved “anti-displacement” funds to spend on land acquisition and affordable housing around the project area, which includes Southeast Austin’s Riverside neighborhood, over a 13-year period.
On Jan. 31, the city held an open house to ask Riverside residents what new housing, amenities, and commercial services they want to see in their neighborhood, their first community outreach effort toward their goal to adopt a long-range plan for the area by the end of 2026.
“Our planning efforts focus on equitable, transit-oriented, and walkable development,” reads the East Riverside Corridor Planning Initiative public input page, with development projects focused around the five planned Austin light rail transit stations in Riverside.
Across 10 stations, city of Austin and CapMetro representatives spoke with local residents about transit, affordable housing, desired story height of development, and a big question mark: what to do with the Grove-Riverside site, 125 acres that include a large corporate office, purchased by the city in 2024.
One of the options on the table for the Grove site is a mixed-use development that incorporates affordable housing, “neighborhood-serving” commercial services, and the city’s transportation and emergency services offices, according to Nicole Joslin, housing and community development officer at the city of Austin.
“We’ve got to somehow protect this end … so people don’t have to uproot and move out of there.”
Casey Powell, a Riverside resident
On the transit side, Riverside is “one of the highest transit-demand corridors in the city,” said Tim McCarthy, senior planner for the city. “We’ve heard complaints that the 20 bus, which goes around East Riverside, is sometimes so full it has to drive past people waiting.” As part of CapMetro’s Transit Plan 2035, more frequent rapid service buses and upgraded bus routes are planned in Riverside alongside the light rail, city officials said.
During the open house, city officials got mixed messages from residents on the level of the development they’d like to see: Some asked for more density, health and food services, and green spaces, while others worry that better transportation and denser development will threaten the affordability of the neighborhood.
“Especially on this end of Riverside, by Montopolis, families have lived here a long time,” Casey Powell, a Riverside resident, said. “We’ve got to somehow protect this end, make it better and keep it affordable, so people don’t have to uproot and move out of there.”
Long-range city planning aside, Riverside residents told the Chronicle that they’d like to see more immediate improvements to their neighborhood within the next few years. “We’d love to see some cleanup,” said David Green, who has been a Riverside resident since 2011. “We have a lot of litter all the time. … That would be a major face-lift for the area.”
This article appears in February 13 • 2026.