As has been the case lately, the real City Council action this week looks to be in the numerous zoning hearings. Aside from gathering the loose ends of the Greater South River City Neighborhood Plan – three cases contentious enough not to be approved earlier with the bulk of the plan – the elephant in the room is the proposed rezoning of the Champion Sisters’ tract in northwest Austin. Tracts, actually – the land, named for the three sisters whose family has held it since 1866, comprises five fields at the intersection of Loop 360 and FM 2222. Eager to develop the land with retail, restaurants, and residences, the sisters have butted heads with the city for well over a decade, first suing the city in 1993.
Very long story very short, the sisters’ longstanding ownership of the family plots has raised sticky questions regarding grandfathered development – for instance, the settlement on their original suit allowed for development under 1970s regulations. The legal wrangling has continued since, culminating most recently in August. A ruling on a separate suit leveled at the city added the caveat that trips along the already clogged intersection be limited. Cut to this summer, when the city attorneys – never ones to back away from a fight when they can just run – decided that those limitations should be abandoned, lest the city risk losing its pending suit, along with those Seventies regulations. Council approved the new terms in August, allowing for 11,000 vehicle trips per day, with only Council Members Raul Alvarez and Brewster McCracken voting no.
That thumbnail history brings us to today’s items Z-16 through 18, converting three parcels of the tract to mixed-use development. The terms are unacceptable to the groups like the 2222 Coalition of Neighborhood Associations, expected in full force at council chambers today. They are calling for a traffic impact analysis, along with an environmental review of the proposed development, which lies in the Bull Creek and West Bull Creek watersheds. Regardless of whether council approves the zoning changes, delayed from Nov. 17, the sore feelings (and likely the lawsuits) will linger. As will the traffic.
The clock winds down on federal assistance for Hurricane Katrina‘s evacuees (remember them?). Jan. 7 is the likely new cut-off date for hotel and motel housing, sparing us the Dickensian sight of increased holiday homelessness (don’t worry, next week’s vote on Austin’s homeless ordinance will suffice), but the feds are treating Austin a little better than the average strandee. Council approves a $21.65 million grant from FEMA this morning, reimbursing the city for some 4,500 units of interim housing, creating a project to track evacuees and “help them become successful in either returning to their former place of residence or in establishing themselves in permanent housing … here in Austin.”
Other business today includes ratification of the Austin Association of Professional Firefighters contract, the first negotiated under collective bargaining talks with the city – a $4 million-plus contract making Austin’s flame-dousers the highest paid in the state, and a mighty notch in the belt of (just announced, no coincidence) Place 2 candidate, AAPFF president Mike Martinez. Toll road fun is also scheduled to resume in earnest with the appointment of McCracken and Betty Dunkerley to the transit love-in that is the Mobility Plan Study committee created to “study” tolls in Central Texas. Lastly, council is doing it for the kids this week – at 5:30pm, winners of the city’s Mayor for a Day contest orate their winning entries. No word whether Danny Thomas can compete.
This article appears in December 2 • 2005.