The Northcross Wal-Mart bubbled up before City Council at noontime citizens communications yesterday. A Northcross neighbor voiced her concerns that traffic-calming measures planned years ago were cut years ago and never replaced, a charge City Manager Toby Futrell quickly chalked up to the city’s post-9/11 downturn. Noting that neighborhoods are “under siege” from traffic, she promised traffic calming would be revisited in the next budget.
But that was all the opening needed to revisit conflicting opinions of the traffic-impact analysis of the proposed supercenter at Northcross. Assistant City Manager Laura Huffman said that in light of a recent article in a scholarly traffic journal, the “traffic-impact number needed to be higher.” Brewster McCracken further clarified that according to these new findings, the traffic draw of 200,000-plus-square-foot supercenters is 5.5 trips per 1,000 square feet, compared to 3.9 trips per 1,000 for smaller stores.
With new trip projections, McCracken said even with the new, slightly smaller store size of 219,000 square feet (vs. the original 225,000), “Under this new data, there’s 50 percent more traffic than the bigger store would have had in the old data.” Noting the discrepancy, he elaborated, “It is within the city’s authority to have a number of traffic-mitigating measures. … [If] the traffic numbers are that wildly off … the city has the authority to require mixed-use or smaller store size” to mitigate the traffic. “The next step is to find out what the truth is.”
While Responsible Growth for Northcross likely applauds McCracken’s statement that higher traffic may give the city more leeway, the group was then dissed by City Attorney David Smith. Alluding to RG4N’s displeasure with the city hiring outside legal counsel, Mayor Will Wynn defended the decision, saying, “We went the extra length to bring in some outside legal advice to see how much flexibility we have to require a change.” Smith then said, “It’s an incorrect characterization to say we went to outside counsel to fight the citizens of Austin. … I won’t call them threats, but different groups and people have indicated their clear intention to sue the city regardless of how this turns out. [Outside legal counsel Casey Dobson] is on board with the city to prepare for this litigation, wherever it comes from.”
This article appears in April 6 • 2007.