by Steven Zettner, editor

For decades, Austin residents have paid county taxes that mainly fund infrastructure outside the city limits. That model made sense when growth was suburban. If growth is to be directed inward, the County’s investment model should adapt. Travis County candidates should speak to capital improvements priorities in their campaign messaging.
The existing arrangement is straight-forward: municipal areas like Austin “own” roads, bridges and parks within their boundaries, and Travis County “owns” roads, bridges and parks outside city limits. The county’s investment is mainly paid for by taxpayers inside city limits. But because the City is expected to annex outlying areas, it can be argued that urban taxpayers eventually recoup their investment.

That model is breaking down. Planners now see suburban growth as loss-making. They want development to occur back inside the city limits. Much of the new infill development is targeting suburban areas like North Austin that don’t have walkable infrastructure – sidewalks, plazas, parks, or smaller block sizes. To be successful long-term, these places will need enormous upfront investment.

The City of Austin alone can’t provide that upfront investment.

To give an idea of the scale of the problem, consider the City of Austin 2012 bond package. City departments identified $1.5 billion in needed capital improvements, much of that infrastructure like sidewalks needed to support the walkable urbanism enshrined in the Imagine Austin plan. But after a lot of soul-searching, the City could only ask for $380 million. (It seems Austin’s hard-pressed taxpayers are in a rebellious mood.)

North Austin desperately needs public space and transportation improvements to support the City’s planned growth. Yet Austin Parks Department in the 2012 bond package only asked for $4 million to buy new urban park space. That’s one or two urban parks over a 5-7 year period, not for North Austin, but for the entire city.

Meanwhile, Travis County has actually reduced its open space portfolio in the urban core. The county in 2007 sold off the Burnet Rd Farmer’s Market with no provision for public space, has gradually shrunk its open space commitment for a future redevelopment of its Airport Blvd facility, and is spending all of the $206 million 2011 bond money it raised for open space and transportation on projects outside of Austin. Click link to see map.

Open space is a special concern – if you don’t secure it BEFORE development happens, you’ll never get it. Just one policy suggestion – Travis County could help to get Austin through the current investment crisis by land banking urban properties suitable for parks, trails or transit plazas, then selling the space to Austin in the future.

All five county judge and District 2 candidates have been invited to discuss this topic on AustinDistrict7.org. No doubt there are some challenges with re-assessing a decades-old arrangement. Let’s have the candidates explain those challenges, and what can be done to address a major long-term risk that Austin and Travis County share together.

by Kat Correa, Crestview Park Committee

The Crestview neighborhood has been working for years to get a neighborhood park established. Crestview has no public parkland and shares park space with neighboring Brentwood and the elementary school. But Crestview is just one central urban neighborhood suffering lack of public green space, and to date the city leaders have ignored the problem.

Austin claims to be a “City Within a Park,” yet our parks system goes underfunded and understaffed. The National Recreation and Parks Association recommends one maintenance person per 15 acres of parkland. Austin has just one person per 175 acres. It is the reason our parks maintenance staff does little more than “mow and blow.” Aside from our substandard park maintenance, Austin ranks 45th out of 75 major cities for park funding. To put this into perspective, 90% of Denver, Colorado residents live within six blocks of a park. In Boston, 97% of children live with a quarter mile of a park.

Simply put, the city is growing but our parkland is not. Central Austin, where much of the development, density and infill is happening, is where parks and green space are needed most.

Three central Austin neighborhoods are so desperate for parkland that neighbors are rolling up their sleeves and working to claim small patches of land as green space.

Like Crestview, the Highland neighborhood east of Lamar does not have a park. Neighbors have claimed a small triangular traffic island and created Meadowview Park. It is 0.18 acres. They applied for and received grants, planted trees, installed benches and landscaping, and maintain it with volunteer workdays. It is the only park until you travel east of IH-35.

Hyde Park neighbors also claimed a traffic island to create Brunning Green. This green space is located on 51street. It is 0.20 acres and serves as the only park for that large and busy neighborhood.

Cherrywood Green on 34th street was transformed from an empty lot next to a creek into a tiny park. It is also just 0.20 acres and is the only open green space in that densely developed neighborhood.

Isn’t it clear that central Austin is desperate for public parks and green space? Neighbors are not asking for another Zilker Park in north Austin, but we are fighting for the few remaining scraps of land.

Thousands of people are moving to Austin in the coming years. They’re coming for a great economy, a steady job market, interesting culture and entertainment, quality education, and a diverse population. Parks and outdoor recreation are an integral part of our quality of life. Neighborhoods in central Austin must support each other, as well as advocate for and support the Parks and Recreation Department, the Austin Parks Foundation, the Austin Heritage Tree Foundation, Tree Folks, the Urban Forestry Board and any other groups working to build and sustain parks and green space.

The Crestview Park Committee is working to establish 5.6 acre neighborhood park located at 6909 Ryan Drive for the benefit of both Crestview and the Justin Lane /Lamar Boulevard Transit Oriented Development residents. www.crestviewna.org

See also:

The Domain in Photos – The Good, the Bad, the Ugly – documents lack of public space in North Austin’s future downtown, but also shows positive examples
Austin Needs A Different Way to Prioritize Park Space Gaps – problems with how Austin currently acquires urban park space

by Tom Linehan, Allandale

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.
Lao Tzu

The rewrite of the City’s Land Development Code could mean changes for Allandale. Our neighborhood is predominantly zoned single-family, SF-2, and our average lot sizes are larger than most Austin central city neighborhoods. If the goal for the City as presented in the Imagine Austin Plan is for a compact connected city, SF-2 zoning may be a thing of the past. My guess is it will be replaced with something less restrictive. This may not be a bad thing especially for those of us whose property taxes are rising faster than our paychecks. My fear is that unless we open the neighborhood up to more housing options, Allandale will evolve to become a high-priced exclusive neighborhood. I would prefer that it remain, and further evolve into, a mixed-income, mixed-age neighborhood.

Yes I know I am free to move out of the neighborhood if I am not happy here but hear me out. First, the threat of the Land Development Code rewrite that supports greater density is real. A recent Community Impact article quoted Dan Parolek, principal at Opticos Design Inc., the firm that is leading the code rewriting process, as follows: “This is really about coding for a compact, connected Austin, which is the goal that [residents] have established in the Imagine Austin plan.”

Allandale is not compact. An analysis of neighborhood density produced by Ryan Robinson, Demographer for the City of Austin, in November 2005, showed Allandale as one of the least dense and slowest growing neighborhoods in the City. Even though the analysis is a few years old, I doubt the neighborhood’s density has changed much even if you consider the 175 apartment units the AMLI 5350 development on Burnet Road added to the mix. An update on neighborhood density will likely come out of the City’s CodeNEXT process. CodeNEXT is the name given to the City’s initiative to revise its Land Development Code. Project staff are currently documenting the features of Austin’s 103 neighborhoods.

The fact that Allandale’s density is low relative to other Central City neighborhoods is not by accident. It is the result of a deliberate zoning rollback effort by the Allandale Neighborhood Association 33 years ago. At the time the neighborhood was frustrated by the zoning changes occurring in the neighborhood under the City’s interim zoning laws and set out to make sure the zoning for the neighborhood match the majority of homeowners’ deed restrictions. Most of the deed restrictions for the various subdivisions within the neighborhood limit development to single-family units.

The rollback was voted on and approved by the Austin City Council 6-1 under Mayor Carole McClellan in 1981. Mayor McClellan was the lone vote against it. The rollback was the largest zoning rollback in Austin’s history. As a result of it, much of Allandale’s interior is currently zoned SF-2, the City’s base zoning for single family, standard lots. Under that zoning, duplexes, townhomes, and multi-family uses are not allowed. Allan McMurtry, the person who took the lead on the rollback, recounted what it took to make it happen in an article he wrote for the “Allandale Neighbor” newsletter in 2007. You can read it here. It was an unprecedented accomplishment, the result of many volunteer hours from a dedicated group of residents looking to preserve the neighborhood’s property values and character.

I may be wrong about the outcome of the Development Code rewrite and its impact on our neighborhood. Whether it is called SF-2 or something else, the City’s “place-based” approach to zoning with the rewrite of the Land Development Code may end up preserving Allandale as a predominantly single-family unit, standard lot neighborhood. It is certainly one of Allandale’s unique characteristics. Under this scenario single family homes will continue to be all that you see in the neighborhood’s interior; any additional housing units will be built along the Burnet Road and Anderson Lane transit corridors as apartments. That is what was behind the City’s Vertical Mix Use (VMU) push in 2008. (You can read more about VMU and Allandale here.)

With this “leave-it-as-it-is” scenario, property taxes will continue their upward trajectory and the neighborhood mix will evolve to become mostly upper-middle-income and long-time residents; upper-middle-income because that is the income it will take for someone to afford to buy in the neighborhood. Allandale will have preserved its single-family standard-lot neighborhood but the income mix will be different, one that more often than not excludes middle-income families.

I am not sure this was the future envisioned by the neighborhood association when it pushed for the zoning rollback 33 years ago. That rollback has certainly served the neighborhood well all of these years but it may be hurting us going forward, and it is doing nothing to ease the City’s affordable housing problem. Upper-middle-class families will be able to buy and remodel existing homes or replace them with larger homes in Allandale. Young, single professionals will have $1,500 a month appartments to rent along Burnet Road, but what about middle class families? Will there continue to be a place for them in Allandale, or in Central Austin for that matter?

This concern about successfully preserving a single-family standard-lot neighborhood for middle class families is real. In the business news this past week, athenahealth signed a lease for office space at the former Seaholm Power Plant property downtown promising to create 600 jobs with an average salary of $132,000 over the next 10 years. Those are the kinds of salaries that will be needed to cover a mortgage on a house in Allandale, provided it is a two-income household. Websense, a San Diego-based technology company, is looking to relocate in Austin. They project creating 470 jobs with an average salary of $82,000. Another technology company, Dropbox, has an office in Austin and is looking to expand, adding another 170 jobs.

With more high-paid workers and the demand for housing outpacing supply, Austin could experience a variation of the class battle the San Francisco Bay area is going through now. The following is from a February 2014 Time magazine article, “San Francisco’s New Disruption,” by Katy Steinmetz:

Class tensions have settled over life in San Francisco like a dreary fog. Teachers, cooks and musicians are packing their bags as high-rises with two-bedroom apartments renting for $6,000 per month open their doors. A combination of exploding wealth and limited space has led to an affordability crisis.

We would all like to keep our teachers, cooks and musicians in Central Austin closer to their work and play, but current zoning laws that limit density will continue to make that difficult.

Austin is missing “middle housing.” The CodeNEXT presentation delivered at the listening sessions held around Austin in January (click here) points to “missing middle housing” as one of the culprits of the City’s housing affordability problems. In the presentation it was pointed out that Austin has single-family detached units and large apartments but very few middle housing units like duplexes, garage apartments, triplexes, fourplexes, townhouses, row houses, and courtyard apartments. That does not mean those types of units don’t exist here, there just are not enough of them. This is certainly the case in Allandale.

Limited housing choices hurts affordability. According to a recent article in the Austin American-Statesman, “An economic divide: As Austin’s mixed-income neighborhoods disappear, economic opportunities could suffer,” by Dan Zehr, the only neighborhood with a mix of housing for mixed income residents is the Mueller housing development, which came about as a result of the City’s direct involvement in the shaping of that development.

If we want to see more affordable housing closer in, the City will have to change the land development code to allow more mixed housing options, otherwise the only new construction in Central Austin neighborhoods like Allandale will be bigger homes replacing smaller older homes and the makeup of the neighborhood will consist predominantly of people who can afford bigger homes, individuals who rent rooms in stealth dorms (they’re not just for students), and older residents who bought their house years ago and can survive the tax increases.

The following posting went out to the Allandale list-serv recently:

[Allandalde NA] Looking for a garage apartment

Hi neighbors,
My partner and I have been living in Allandale for the past year and hope to stay in the neighborhood or anywhere near.
If you have a garage apartment or house for rent as of March 1st or March 15th, we would love to speak with you.

We are respectful tenants with good references.
Thanks,

I hope they find something but I am not optimistic. To start, there are not many detached garages north of Allandale Road. Most of the garages in that part of the neighborhood are attached garages. SF-2 zoning also does not allow garage apartments. Any of the ones you see are ones that were in place prior to the rollback. I would like to see this changed. My wife and I bought a small house in nearby Brentwood a couple of years ago with a garage apartment. We rent the two out and it has worked out well for all concerned. There is a young professional couple that lives in the house and a young student couple that rent the garage apartment in back. They like the location, the neighborhood, the fact that its affordable, and they like having a yard. And, if I were their neighbor, I would like having younger folks around. I have concluded from this one experience that there is demand for such housing, but you won’t find it in Allandale.

There is something appealing to living in a mixed income mixed age neighborhood. I think this has been one of the draws for people moving to East Austin. Allandale is not a mixed income neighborhood nor has it ever been due largely to its SF-2 zoning. What I see evolving is a gentrification of Allandale with middle-class families gradually being replaced by upper middle income people who can afford to buy a house here.

Another way to add more housing is to create smaller lots. That however is difficult to do in Allandale as well. Many of the deed restrictions in the neighborhood prohibit it. It is not impossible, just risky. If someone wants to buy a house and subdivide the lot, they risk a challenge from their neighbors, sometimes in court, for violating the subdivision’s deed restrictions.

According to a recent Stanford study, Austin ranked ninth highest in income segregation among the 100 largest metro areas. I bring this up because income segregation has a lot to do with zoning. For me it is a quality of life issue. I would prefer living in an area where there are mixed age mixed income families than one that is homogeneous. I think that is one of the driving forces behind the growth surge in East Austin.

Opening up the neighborhood to more middle housing options is not something that will occur without careful deliberation nor is it something I think will destroy the neighborhood. Allowing garage apartments, for example, adds another housing unit to Central Austin and provides the homeowner additional income to offset rising property taxes. That said, I don’t think you will start seeing a number of garage apartments popping up even if they are allowed because, as I said, there are not that many detached garages in the neighborhood and not everyone with a detached garage will care to have a garage apartment.

Most of Austin’s Central City neighborhoods have gone through the City’s neighborhood planning process where they have carefully reviewed and made decisions about future land use within their borders. The outcome of that effort is a Neighborhood Plan. Allandale has yet to go through that process but I imagine it will take something like it for the neighborhood to reconsider its predominantly SF-2 zoning, and that assumes those decisions will be available to us following the Land Development Code rewrite. I am aware that the Allandale Neighborhood Association has recently formed a Land Development Code committee but I do not know what the objective of that committee is.

Thirty-three years after the passage of the biggest zoning rollback in Austin’s history, it may be time to revisit Allandale’s single-family, standard lot (SF-2) zoning. Opening the neighborhood up to middle housing options like garage apartments, duplexes, or other housing types may serve current and future residents better. It is also time to reconsider lot sizes. Allandale is a great neighborhood thanks in part to the SF-2 zoning we have come to rely on all of these years; however, where we are today and where we are headed is keeping affordable housing options out of the reach of many families and turning Allandale into a neighborhood for the rich.

About 60 neighborhood activists from throughout North Austin gathered for a Town Hall meeting January 28 to discuss political priorities for the new City Council Districts 4 and 7.

Mary Rudig, editor of the North Austin Community Newsletter, organized the event.

“Don’t Imagine Austin, Imagine Solutions,” Rudig said in introducing the agenda. She then described North Austin as a place of great strengths and diversity, but also of challenges and risks that City government had been neglecting for too long.

Rudig said that districts 7 and 4 were siblings, sharing many of the same challenges thanks to a common street network and similar style of early suburban development. The districts also have the highest density of children and seniors in the city, she said.

Rudig, who has been collecting feedback on community issues over the last few months, shared an initial list of priorities for the two districts:

• Vehicle congestion, with both the highways and neighborhood streets at risk of failure in the coming years
• Hostile conditions for pedestrians and transit users on the big commercial streets – Burnet, Lamar, Airport – all of which need upgrades
• Crime, with District 4 suffering greatly, and District 7 on the edge
• Gaps in the region’s infrastructure – storm drains, erosion and flooding
• Age segregation, with new infill housing designed to exclude children
• North Austin’s public space desert, with few parks in support of the many growth zones between Walnut Creek and 45th.
• Restore Rundberg – a program to reduce crime, revitalize businesses, and raise quality of life in the blighted Rundberg area.

Mary Jo Hernandez from Heritage Hills then walked through the top 4 objectives of the Restore Rundberg program:

• Revitalize four key properties in the Rundberg area
• Establish a community center and health clinic, with the needs of the elderly a particular priority
• Enhance affordable after-school programs for children 10 and older, and vocational training for adults and teens
• Achieve accountability for enforcement of housing and property code violations

Following the presentation, Rudig went around the room, asking the other gathered leaders to share their own priorities, or to comment on those identified. Feedback included the need to define a 5-year strategic plan for the City, outreach to business leaders, especially near North Burnet Gateway, additional transit improvements to reduce congestion, tax-increment financing to pay for local improvements as growth occurs, targeted recruitment of non-IT businesses to North Austin, more police, more parks and trails, and engagement in the process of re-inventing the City’s volunteer boards and commissions to accommodate 10-1 redistricting.

Rudig told attendees that more action would be required over the coming year to bring attention to these and other priorities. District 4 leaders will be meeting again on February 17th at Showplace Lanes, 9504 N IH-35, at 7 PM. An online survey of community priorities is online at www.lovenorthaustin.com, and an overlapping survey is at a new site covering the District 7 election, www.austindistrict7.org

Rudig also stressed the need to register voters, especially in District 4.

Finally, the group will be promoting candidate forums to be held in September.

This just in from Ed English:

“I made a firm decision to run for Council, District 7 today. I will be suspending my part time business effective Monday in order to focus on the race on a full time basis.”

by Alex Blum
Candidate for City Council, District 7

Platform Snapshot:
Vote Blum this November for City Council District 7 to help make north Austin a GREAT place to live.

What does G.R.E.A.T. mean?
GREEN spaces are important to maintain Austin’s high quality of living, especially with the Parks and Rec mandate stating that all citizens should have green spaces to meet friends and build communities within walking distance (0.25 of a mile). We are no where close to that goal, especially in North Austin. That is why a project like
RESTORE Rundberg is such an important initiative. Restore Rundberg seeks to progressively reduce crime through education and employment rather than harsh enforcement, build sidewalks and crosswalks to make roads safer for school-aged children, and to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline that has become such an opportunity-killer for children within AISD. Our goal is to make Austin more
EGALITARIAN; because all Austinites deserve the chance to thrive regardless of their education or income level. It’s important that we as a city and a district provide opportunities to the less fortunate and give them the ability to legally contribute to the well-being of their families and communities. A large part of this is ensuring that Austin remains
AFFORDABLE; reasonably priced and conveniently located housing is essential to the continued healthy growth of Austin. Austin is the fastest-growing city in the United States as of December2013; in order to maintain a rich and diverse community we must strive to keep affordable housing available to citizens who seek it over the next decade. As the city grows, it’s important that we don’t forget about the
TRANSPORTATION infrastructure of the city. Our municipal funds should be used to ease traffic burdens by constructing new avenues for our citizens to get to work and school efficiently and inexpensively. As of 2011, Austin had the nations third-worst traffic, behind only huge cities like Los Angeles and the Washington D.C. area. We need aggressive and innovative solutions to resolve this problem, and we need them now.

Bio:
Alex Blum is a native Texan, born and raised in Houston and has lived in Austin for the last 6 years. He works in an administrative capacity for Amazon and will graduate from the University of Texas in May with a self-funded degree in Rhetoric and Writing with a minor in Psychology. This is his first campaign for public office; Alex plans to bring a mix of youth, energy and passion to his representation of the interests of District 7. Alex continues to be active in the community through various non-profit and civic initiatives.

City Council early Friday morning approved a conditional use permit for the Little Woodrow’s bar at 5425 Burnet Rd, in a 4-3 vote supported by Mayor Lee Leffingwell, Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole, and members Bill Spelman and Mike Martinez.

Council members Laura Morrison, Kathie Tovo and Chris Riley opposed.

Cole offered the motion to approve the permit. The motion included several conditions for operation. Thursday, Friday and Saturday closing hours were set at 1 AM, rather than the 2 AM requested by bar owner Rick Engel. The bar and restaurant will need to provide 52 parking spaces, of which 11 can be leased from adjacent businesses. Several requirements to reduce on-site noise were imposed.

The owner, Rick Engel, said the 4,753 sq ft bar and restaurant is a good fit for the new demographics emerging along Burnet Rd from mixed use development. Adjacent residents argued the venue is less than 200 ft from family-friendly housing, has grossly insufficient parking, and will disrupt neighborhood sleep late at night, like similar venues have done on South Congress. Residents also detailed numerous irregularities in the appellant’s filings and negotiation.

The case has been winding its way through approvals for over a year. Council approved a zoning change to CS-1 last March. Planning Commission in December failed to approve the conditional use permit, which is also needed to run a bar and which can impose conditions on the bar’s operation. The Planning Commission’s non-approval normally constitutes a denial, but Engel and property owner Jimmy Nassour appealed the case to Council. They also obtained a liquor license from the State of Texas, which normally happens after permit approval.

Discussion of the case Thursday night ran nearly three hours. Engel and Nassour spoke in support. About 50 area residents attended in opposition, with 17 people presenting.

Difference of Opinion on “A Very Exciting Place”

Engel in introducing his project emphasized the ideal conditions for a new bar at this part of Burnet. “This section of Burnet Road has become a very exciting place,” Engel said, “one of the more growing and developing neighborhoods in Austin right now.” He said hundreds of neighbors supported the project, which along with the bar included a pizza restaurant welcoming to neighborhood families.

David Mintz, president of the Allandale Neighborhood Association, disputed Engel’s assertion that hundreds of residents supported the bar. “I have not heard from a single neighbor in Allandale who has told me affirmatively that they support this project as it stands,” he said.

Rob Robinson, an Allandale resident, said that residents do not oppose development or even a bar, but the type of bar. He compared the Little Woodrow’s with Billy’s, a small local bar farther down Burnet, and with Little Ginny’s, an old bar right across from the Little Woodrow’s site, both of which are smaller in scale.

Dale Henry, president of Brentwood Neighborhood Association, said the appeal of the site was “location, location, location. This is bad location, bad location, bad location – too near residential homes where people have families, where a late night establishment does not mix well.” Henry said his organization had supported many projects along Lamar and Burnet. “This is not one of them. It’s not about Little Woodrow’s, not about a bar, it’s about this location, this piece of property is wrong for a bar.”

Insufficient Parking

Most of the arguments involved the site’s parking, which neighbors emphasized was grossly insufficient and too close to residential. Staff said the code requires the site to have 41 spaces for the bar and restaurant. Participation in a Car2Go program, announced a few days before the hearing, would reduce the requirement to 31 spaces. However, Engel said the plan would still provide 41 spaces. But even this amount would be insufficient to prevent chronic traffic and parking on nearby residential streets, residents argued.

Joe Reynolds told Council members that few of the spaces on the property were compliant with City code, because they were within 200 ft of residential housing. This included the spaces fronting Burnet Rd.

Reynolds noted that the site plan describes three different uses (bar, restaurant, corporate office) at just the right sizes to avoid triggering more stringent parking, yet the three uses taken together clearly will draw more cars than a small venue would.

Nearby resident Chris Hayden said the site’s 8,000 sq ft of office space in two rear buildings remained an ongoing risk, because the property owner would have a huge financial incentive to try to lease them. Hayden confirmed that the earlier plans showed the two office buildings as storage for parking purposes. He showed a slide of the ad signs seeking tenants for the buildings, which the property owner had pulled earlier that day. “they’ve now pulled it back, but I want to point out this is an example of where they say one thing and do something else.”

Nassour, the owner of the property, confirmed that these buildings had been taken off the market, and would remain storage until additional parking could be arranged.

At Council Member Tovo’s request, staff confirmed that even if one of the office buildings were razed to provide additional parking, that parking would need special permission to be used because the space was within 200 ft of residential.

Don Leighton-Burwell, an architect and representative of the Brentwood Neighborhood Association, said that to meet the parking requirements, the bar would have to provide compact parking spaces, which in practice rarely work well. The appellant’s last minute participation in the Car2Go program to reduce 10 more spaces made the proposal even less workable than the one that Planning Commission considered, and failed to approve. “If this were my client, I would tell them not to take this site,” Leighton-Burwell said.

Engel said a recent change to the plan that reduced the parking on Burnet from 11 pull-in spaces to 4 parallel spaces was a safety requirement from the Transportation Department. He said the plan also lost two spaces in order to implement a request from the neighbors for one-way exit to Burnet on Clay Ave.

Council Member Spelman asked Engel to clarify the maximum occupancy of the bar and restaurant. “I bet there are going to be at least a few of those Saturday nights when it’s standing room only and you end up with more than 93 people in the bar, and you have some people sitting in the restaurant and you end up with 150, maybe 200 people in the bar. Is that conceivable?” Engel said no. “There is no way you are going to get 200 people in this bar.” He said his bar isn’t the type where they pull chairs out to squeeze people in. “It is a place to gather with groups, happy hours, meet your friends, those kinds of things.” He said space was also needed to service tables.

Hours of Operation, Late Night Noise, Leffingwell’s Mom

Several residents, including parents, spoke to their concerns that the bar would disrupt their lives. Jordan Harmse said the likely noise would disrupt sleep for his two five-year-olds. “My wife was seriously talking, saying we would just have to leave that neighborhood.”

Mary Long Geil, who lives across from the site, said the noise from Little Longhorn forced them to build a bedroom in the back of their house for their daughter, and Little Longhorn is on the far side of Burnet. Jackie Doyle, another resident directly across from the site, said she felt even 1 AM would be too late to prevent serious disruptions. “It is worrying a bar can be plunked down on the corner.”

Barbara McArthur, another nearby resident, said Engels operates some of his other bars with expired sound permits. She said neighbors visited another Little Woodrow’s. “We stopped at least 100 ft from a Little Woodrow’s and there was loud noise. And I thought, I could call the police because this is against the sound [ordinance] – but is that a good use of police?”

Cynthia Keohane teased Mayor Leffingwell on his past promise to oppose late night bars. “He said, and this is pretty close to a direct quote, ‘My mother always said that nothing good ever came after midnight.’” This drew laughter, and Leffingwell said the quote was actually ‘after 10:00 PM’. “I like your mom even more, thank you,” Keohane responded.

Mintz said no businesses along this part of Burnet currently operate past 1 AM.

Engel told Council members he had hoped to get 2:00 AM hours, but would accept 1:00 AM hours if necessary.

Residents Say Little Woodrow’s Manipulated Process

Speakers in opposition to the bar hammered a number of examples where they felt the Little Woodrow’s appellants had manipulated process.

Bill Spiesman accused the appellants of misrepresenting facts on their appeal. He disputed the appeal’s assertion that parking met code, saying that only 3 parking spaces were compliant, because most parking was too close to residential.

Spiesman said the appellants had not in fact made a serious effort to work with the neighborhoods, except when prompted by staff.

Allandale’s Mintz said Engel had not reached out to Allandale until the association invited him, and had agreed to meet only a few times after that.

Joan Bates, a former deputy general council for the Texas Alcohol and Beverages Commission, said that the TABC had issued a late night liquor license to the appellant earlier in the month. She said TABC requires the appellant to provide notice to adjacent neighbors, but that only one of the nearby neighbors received notice. She said the TABC application must contain certification from the City clerk that the City allows liquor sales on the site. This would require the issuance of a permit, Bates said. “The applicant had actual knowledge of the lack of his compliance with city code regulations at the time he submitted his application to TABC,” Bates said.

Mayor Pro Tem Cole asked a City attorney to weigh in on Bate’s finding. The attorney said past practice for the clerk’s office was to determine suitability based on zoning, which the site had. The attorney said Bates’ interpretation that a permit was needed first would need to be evaluated.

McArthur said that the appellant had represented the bar as a family-friendly venue. “It turns out they don’t allow children in the bar. It’s a bar. It has no kitchen.” The appellant had also stated that they had an agreement with the adjacent Episcopal ministry for extra parking. “They said that publicly. That wasn’t true.” Then the site was presented as a retail store, “Burnet Bazaar. They attempted to get a site plan exemption for the site, pretending to be a retail store.” She said the appellant applied for a significantly larger CS-1 zoned area than they needed. It was reduced from 8,000 sq ft to around 5,000 sq ft, but not to the 2,487 sq ft that they actually needed.

Engel in responding to the residents expressed frustration that they had characterized him as acting in bad faith. He said he had a strong reputation around town after 25 years in the restaurant business.

Engel noted that he had reached out to the neighborhoods early on, met multiple times, and had addressed their concerns, except closing earlier than 2 AM on weekends. “That was the one thing that I felt strongly about because it does impact my business, giving up that one hour.” He said he finally offered to compromise on this, closing at 1:30 AM. He said he would even accept 1:00 AM, if need be.

He recalled negotiations arranged by Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole at the March 2013 rezoning vote, where adjacent neighbors had agreed on terms. Those terms included a reduction in the CS-1 envelope, agreement on 2 AM weekend hours, and changes to the site plan to reduce risk of traffic and noise to residents on Clay Ave.

He said Brentwood Neighborhood Association agreed to conditions at one point, but withdrew its support on the night of the Planning Commission meeting.

In response to a question from Council Member Morrison, Engel said his attorney had arranged notification for the TABC license to all homes and businesses within 100 ft of the property.

Council Discussion and Motions

Spelman asked staff if there was a test to determine if the bar could meet the conditions of a permit, in particular adequate parking. Staff responded that the only measure of adequate parking was square footage for parking on the site plan.

Spelman then asked if the permit could be modified or revoked if subsequent evidence pointed to customers parking in the neighborhood. Staff said the permit once issued could not be changed significantly.

The appellant offered to guarantee up to 51 off-street parking spaces if needed in the future, as a condition of the permit. Martinez proposed that if some of this parking was off the site, that it be within 500 ft of the property.

Riley asked Brentwood representative Leighton-Burwell if the neighborhood had considered residential permit parking for the area. Leighton-Burwell said this would have to be a requirement. But upon further questioning by Riley, Leighton-Burwell said that regardless of the appellant’s willingness to agree to numerous conditions, the neighborhood would still oppose the project.

Riley agreed. “This is not the site. If these other two buildings were gone and they could park 100 people on their site and have no access to the residential areas and it fronted only on to Burnet Rd – those are the kinds of properties along Burnet Rd that are appropriate for this kind of use.”

Tovo pointed to the mixing of uses – restaurant and bar – to get half the parking that would otherwise be required if there were just one use. Runners from the restaurant would be bringing food to patrons of the bar, who would have access to the patio. She asked why staff wasn’t more concerned that the resulting synergy would draw more cars. Staff said the presence of a wall between the two uses meant that the arrangement met code. Tovo also expressed concern about the proximity to and impact on the residential neighborhood.

Morrison concurred. “Trying to put a square peg in a round hole, or whatever. It just doesn’t feel like it’s going to work.”

Morrison moved to deny the appeal, with Tovo seconding.

Martinez expressed frustration with the residents for identifying parking and hours as the two main objections, and then dismissing those even when they were addressed. “Tonight I hear one of the speakers say it just doesn’t matter – this just doesn’t work.”

Cole then offered the substitute motion to approve, with 52 required parking spaces within 500 ft of the site, 1 AM weekend closing hours, the conditions that were previously negotiated during the CS-1 hearing, as well as conditions on noise agreed to in a meeting with residents and Engel in November.

Cole said she found the case difficult, striking a balance between the needs of residents and the area’s commercialization. “But it’s one of those cases that I feel like we need to move forward.”

by Jeb Boyt
Candidate for City Council District 7

Running for District 7, I will talk about three issues facing Austin: affordability, transportation, and accountability.

Affordability is our big challenge. Without affordability, much of what we value about Austin is in danger. We can’t keep Austin weird if we can’t keep it affordable. The old model of “drive until you can buy,” does not work anymore, at least not for everyone. Many folks today want to live in the Central City. As a result, property values in the Central City are rising, and many folks are finding it hard to find a home that they can afford or are concerned that they may not be able to afford to stay in the home that they have. Other folks are finding that where they can afford to buy, they can’t afford the time it takes to make the drive. People need to be able to find places to live that are convenient to work so that they can spend more time with their families and less time in their cars.

In order to have more affordable housing, we’ve got to build more housing, and we’ve got to make it less expensive to build housing. The City’s CodeNext process gives us an opportunity to look at how we build housing. We can also look at lands owned by the City and other public entities for opportunities to construct affordable housing. We can do this while protecting the cores of our single-family neighborhoods that contribute so much to Austin’s character.

On transportation, I have been working for many years to improve Austin’s streets, transit, and bikeways. I served on the 2012 Bond Advisory Commission, and I have worked in support of every City and County bond election since 1997. With the Alliance for Public Transportation, I have worked to improve Austin’s transit and transportation. With Austin Metro Trails & Greenways, I have worked to improve Austin’s parks, trails, and bikeways.

Transportation and affordability are linked. Providing people with housing opportunities closer to where they work will cut down on how far they have to travel. Providing housing opportunities along transit corridors will allow people to commute via transit. In addition, we’ve got to move forward with major transportation projects. Work is now underway to add managed lanes to Mopac. Planning is underway to build urban rail and rebuild I-35. We need to move forward with those projects, and we need to move forward with Lone Star Rail to link Austin and San Antonio and to take cars off of I-35.

Our new 10-1 city council offers new opportunities for our government to be accountable to the people. As your council member, I will be your council member. You will know that you can contact me if you have problems and concerns. As your council member, I will track bond projects and other public projects in District 7 to make sure that they are on track and that people are aware of what is being planned and what is being built.

In addition, our new 10-1 city council will offer an opportunity for us to find new ways to work together. The new council districts are likely to be represented almost entirely by people who have not been on council and who have not held public office. The new council will have the opportunity to set the tone for Austin’s government going forward. I will work to make sure that our work is cooperative, effective, and of benefit to all of the people of Austin.

Bio

Jeb Boyt has lived in Austin for more than 20 years. He is an attorney, and a native of Liberty County. Currently in private practice, he has worked as an attorney for the Attorney General of Texas, Texas General Land Office, Railroad Commission of Texas. Jeb has served on the City of Austin’s 2012 Bond Advisory Committee, Parks Board, Downtown Commission, and Waller Creek Commission. He currently serves on the boards of the Hill Country Conservancy, the Alliance for Public Transportation, and the Austin Environmental Democrats. He and Nada Lulic have been married for 22 years. They have lived in Allandale since 1995, and before that they lived in Crestview and Brentwood.

Two more potential District 7 City Council candidates expressed interest in seeking election this evening, at a Town Hall forum organized by the North Austin Community Newsletter. They are Ed English and Alex Blum.

Blum told community leaders that the N Lamar area needs more police on the beat, and not just for “hotspots.” He noted that APD officers are being used as loss-prevention personnel for WalMart, at the same time that the adjacent and unpatrolled John B Connally High School has no crosswalk or sidewalk or lighted intersection.

Blum said Austin is the country’s fastest growing city, he said, and government needs to become more responsive to local communities to manage that growth.

English, a retired sales and marketing professional who lives in Milwood, was active in Austinites for Geographic Representation (AGR), the group responsible for the 10-1 redistricting amendment passed in 2012. During the redistricting process he helped organize the Northwest Austin Coalition to advocate boundaries for a far northwest Austin district (District 6). English says he is a centrist, unaffiliated with any party.

In recent public meetings, English has identified affordability and transportation as key issues. He said Austin Energy heavily subsidizes the City budget, and that this subsidy should be capped and gradually reduced so that Austin Energy can lower rates to consumers. He also favors “targeted employment opportunities”, whereby the City recruits non-tech employers to North Austin. This, English says, would broaden the job base.

By Steven Zettner, Editor, AustinDistrict7.org

This Thursday, Little Woodrow’s will request City Council to approve a destination bar and restaurant at 5425 Burnet Rd with weekend hours until 2 AM, few noise restrictions, and insufficient parking. On those merits, City Council should either deny the request outright, or impose careful conditions to address the project’s flaws.

That Council may actually approve the bar with few conditions speaks to the power of the South Congress development model in the minds of policymakers. A bar on Burnet, one with outdoor seating right on the street, will draw pedestrians and activate the corridor. It’s classic New Urbanism.

Bar Districts in Child-Friendly Communities

But many residents argue that the bar, and others that are sure to follow, will come at a high cost to the livability and child-friendly character of the surrounding neighborhoods. Planning Commissioner and south Austin resident Danette Chimenti told the commission last month that most visitors drive to her neighborhood off South Congress and treat it as a parking lot. “You have venues serving alcohol until midnight, 1 AM, 2 AM. Then you get people coming back to their cars drunk, partying, making a ton of noise. And it is difficult for seniors, for families, for anyone, who’s trying to sleep.” Walkability on S Congress itself has improved, Chimenti said. But off the corridor, pedestrian safety has sharply declined.

Over the last year, APD filed 27 alcohol-related crime reports for the 500’ area around 1400 S Congress. For 5500 Burnet there was just one such report.

Bigger than Trudy’s, Half the Parking

The Little Woodrow’s case has gone through several iterations over the last year (see Timeline). The most recent proposal retains 2 AM weekend hours and fails to adequately address noise concerns. But perhaps more important, it gets by with grossly insufficient parking.

If you went to UT, you probably know the Trudy’s on 30th Street north of campus – a destination restaurant in a pedestrian-oriented area. It’s 4,091 sq ft. Trudy’s relies on about 64 parking spaces, including an overflow lot across the street. That’s not enough – more cars park on area streets, which fortunately are mostly under-utilized.

The Little Woodrow’s bar and restaurant at 4,753 sq ft is larger than Trudy’s. But thanks in part to a 20% parking reduction for retail in the urban core, plus a just-released announcement that Little Woodrow’s will participate in a Car-to-Go program that waives the need for 10 spaces, the new Little Woodrow’s plan only needs to provide 31 parking spaces.

A site bigger than Trudy’s will have less than half of Trudy’s parking.

This at a site a quarter mile from the rapid bus station. In fairness, the reduction allows Little Woodrow’s to replace 11 pull-in parking spaces along Burnet with 4 parallel spaces. That improves pedestrian safety along Burnet. But Clay Ave, which has residential housing right across the street from Little Woodrow’s, including children, will face a chronic increase in traffic and on-street parking. Pedestrian safety there and on other nearby residential streets would decline.

Live-Work-Play-Sleep

Many residents, including myself, want transit-oriented AND age-balanced. We want to preserve the existing child-friendly character of the Burnet Rd area. But we’ve grown up in the age of global warming, and a walkable Burnet Rd makes sense to us. We’re planting shade trees, getting bond funding for sidewalks, and pondering the trade-offs of new kinds of housing along the corridor. We recognize that Austin needs new housing or it will be like San Francisco – a childless play-zone for millionaires. Something is needed, but SoCo doesn’t look right. Some bars and certainly alcohol-serving restaurants are fine, but Burnet already has them. If there’s no policy to limit bars, where does it stop?

Can those of us in the middle trust the City of Austin to get the details right, to guide Burnet towards a ‘live-work-play-sleep’ vision that is not too hot and not too cold? How far should we trust Imagine Austin, which clearly calls for infill development suitable for people of all ages, including children?

Imagine Austin is about balancing trade-offs, and getting the context right. There are several appropriate places in Austin for destination bar districts. A business this far from the rapid bus station and this tightly intertwined with medium-density residential housing should be sized appropriately to reduce traffic and parking impact, and should reflect the age-balanced character of what’s already there. Longer-term, it could be rezoned as medium-density or live-work housing. In weighing the trade-offs of this case, Council should err on the side of the residents.

We’ll learn more about City Council’s vision for Burnet on Thursday.