The St. Johns community has been waiting a long time to see progress at the former Home Depot site that the city has promised to turn into affordable housing, retail, and community space. Now, the city has launched the next phase of its plan – gathering community input through a series of events, a survey, and forming a committee to oversee the process.
In 2008, the city used $6.9 million from a 2006 public safety bond to buy the 19-acre property, in order to turn it into a new Austin Police Department substation and home for the Municipal Court. But that didn’t happen, and, in the years since, the community watched as city officials proposed turning the site into everything from affordable housing to a homeless encampment. Last year, that paradigm shifted when the city entered into an exclusive negotiation agreement with Greystar Development Central to partner with the Housing Authority of the City of Austin to redevelop the site with new housing, retail, office, and green space. In April, the city executed that agreement.
For Thelma Williams, whose family moved into the neighborhood in 1947 back before its streets were paved and many of its houses had electricity, the city’s evolving commitment to the site and attention to the concerns of its residents has been remarkable. “The city was going to use the site for a police department,” she said. “Just for them to have gotten to this point, it’s a miracle, really.”
The next steps of the project will be focused on gathering more community input – a particularly critical step given the history of St. Johns, a historically Black and now largely Latino neighborhood that is wary of the threat of accelerating the pace of ongoing gentrification.
There are signals that the city is aware of that threat. The exclusive negotiating agreement stipulates that the developers seek to set aside at least half of the housing units as affordable rentals, and a council resolution passed in June declared that the development should “honor and respect the rich Black and Hispanic history of the St. Johns neighborhood” and support “a complete community in a historic neighborhood.” The city has also stated that it wants Greystar and HACA to identify partnerships that address the city’s “right to stay” and “right to return” policies prioritizing rental applications from current and former neighborhood residents.
Greg Casar, who represented the St. Johns neighborhood on City Council before resigning to run for Congress, said last year that the redevelopment plan could potentially be used as a model for other gentrifying parts of Austin – an approach that prioritizes keeping people in place in the development process. Chito Vela, who succeeded Casar on Council, agreed, telling the Chronicle that he “strongly supports” giving preference to applicants with ties to the neighborhood and that “the robust community engagement process and high level of affordability already make this a model project.” Williams agreed as well, noting that her grandchildren would struggle to afford to live in her neighborhood. “I don’t want to lose the history of this community just because they are developing something there,” she said.
Representatives from the city, Greystar, and HACA will hold a resource fair and discussion this Saturday, Sept. 10, at the neighborhood’s Virginia L. Brown Recreation Center, 7500 Blessing Ave., and the community can expect more events like it before the developers return to City Council with development terms in November. There’s also a Sept. 12 virtual community meeting (register at bit.ly/3x3Vqaj) and an online community survey (see bit.ly/3AQE1Tx). And finally, members of the community can apply to serve on the St. Johns Community Advisory Committee (see bit.ly/3QkWJZa).
This article appears in The Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival.