The planning process seems quite similar to the neighborhood planning effort we recently completed.  The plan will address all 365 acres of the property, excluding the Reserve Center at the northwest corner (which is federal property).  They’re using the Austin consulting firm, H.W. Lochner, to lead the planning process which started with a “data collection” phase this past October, and will proceed through a draft plan presentation (Summer 2012), Revised Plan (September 2012), and Final Plan (Sept. 2012).

The materials distributed at the meeting included a listing of “Draft Goals” for an initial framework for the plan, as well as “Draft Policies” which may be refined/supplemented.  Lots of planning blah-blah mumbo jumbo re efficiency, sustainability, historical significance, natural features, artillery target practice area.  (Just kidding about that last one.)

During the meeting, there was an opportunity to provide comments and input, including the proverbial colored-sticker-on-map exercise.  Suggestions from community stakeholders included taking down the LED scrolling display sign on MoPac, returning the main entrance to its original location, and making sure there is a fire plan worked out with the City regarding wildfires on Mabry.

As for the presentation, it was very nice and efficient and “structured” presentation like you’d expect from the military.  My favorite touch was the powerpoint show they prepared which had two little boxes at the top and bottom of each slide which said “Unclassified.”  I’m dying to see the classified version.

Camp Mabry is asking for community input for their upcoming master planning for the next 20 years.  Please see the links below for more information.

December 6 or 13th from 7:00 – 9:00PM, Audie Murphy Building, 82

Comm Workshop Invitation-General-Map

FAQ Camp Mabry Master Plan Meetings Dec 2011

It is time to participate in the next step of the process to change Tarrytown Neighborhood Park:

Below is the copy of the application from the City of Austin:

NEIGHBORHOOD PARTNER PROGRAM

Applications Are Accepted By Invitation Only After Notice of Intent of Application Interest

Application Form

Please print clearly or type.  Please answer all questions and use the space provided.  Attach additional pages as needed.

Please consider us for:              ¨ NCSP Small Project Program (< $75,000)

¨ GAP Project                          ¨ NCSP Large Project Program ($75,000 to $150,000)

By signing this application, I certify that the information contained in the application is true and correct to the best of my knowledge.  I certify that the contact person will be the only contact person for the project, the only person who is able to submit or request funding, and is a member of our neighborhood or community organization.

If the project is approved, I understand that the City will enter into a contract with the applicant organization to ensure completion of the project as described in the application.

This section must be completed by the president or the vice-president of the neighborhood organization or officer of the community organization, or by the president or vice president of the Board of the Fiscal Agent- 501(c)3 organization or equivalent

PLEASE CONTACT SARA KRAUSE, PROGRAM COORDINATOR, NEIGHBORHOOD CONNECTIVITY DIVISION, PUBLIC WORKS FOR FURTHER INFORMATION AT sara.krause@austintexas.gov or 512-974-7182 FOR QUESTIONS OR FURTHER INFORMATION.

Please join us Monday, November 28tth, 6:00PM at Howson Library to discuss

• Traffic Calming Proposals
• Impact on the neighborhood
• Permanent change of the streets
• Safety of our children
• Future Initiatives

For more info, please see the following:

• Flyer
• 1 OPTION 1
• 2 OPTION 1
• 3 OPTION 2
• 4 OPTION 2

The Tarrytown Shopping Center is currently zoned for commercial use with a mix of LO, LR, GR, CS, and CS-1 zoning, and has historically provided valuable retail services to the neighborhood, including the Holiday House restaurant, Tarrytown Pharmacy, and numerous other beloved neighborhood institutions.  Unfortunately, the “animal friendly” agenda of the property owner (Jeanne Daniels) has run off these businesses and their retail services.

In the Neighborhood Plan, the recommended “land use” development designation for the property is “Neighborhood Mixed Use” (NMU).  The NMU land use category was chosen because it would reduce the scale, height, and intensity of what is possible under the current zoning at TTSC.  While the original intention was to require commercial/retail/office on the first floor and to limit the overall height of any development, this never happened due to a disruption in the neighborhood plan process. Without these limits in place, the NMU designation would allow the property owner (Jeanne Daniels) to convert the entire property to residential use (e.g., multifamily or residential).

If you don’t care what Jeanne Daniels does with the Shopping Center properties, or if every useful scrap of retail services disappear from these properties, then by all means, tell City Council that you like their decision to designate the property as NMU.

However, if you think that our neighborhood should be able to keep neighborhood commercial and retail services at this property, then LET COUNCIL KNOW!  This decision by Council can be changed or fixed if they hear from enough of us.  Tell Council that the “land use” should be “Neighborhood Commercial” using the Council Member email page http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/groupemail.htm or with the contact information posted here.

To submit a letter to the editor, click:

• http://www.statesman.com/search/content/feedback/lettersubmit.html (Austin American-Statesman)
• http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Info/email_directory?mailto=mail&name=General_Email (Austin Chronicle)
• http://austin.bizjournals.com/austin/contactus/contact_editor.html (Austin Business Journal)

CONTACT AUSTIN CITY COUNCIL AND STAFF

Email all City Council Members using the page at http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/groupemail.htm

Mayor: Lee Leffingwell, 974-2250, lee.leffingwell@ci.austin.tx.us Policy Director: Amy Everhart, 974-2250, amy.everhart@ci.austin.tx.us

Place 1: Chris Riley, 974-2260, chris.riley@ci.austin.tx.us Policy Aide: Lewis Leff, 974-6055 lewis.leff@ci.austin.tx.us

Place 2: Mike Martinez, 974-2264, mike.martinez@ci.austin.tx.us Policy Aide: Andy Moore, andrew.moore.@ci.austin.tx.us

Place 3: Randi Shade, 974-2255, randi.shade@ci.austin.tx.us Policy Aide: Glen Coleman, 974-1374 glen.coleman@ci.austin.tx.us

Place 4: Laura Morrison, 974-2258, laura.morrison@ci.austin.tx.us Policy Aide: Bobby Levinski 974-1626 robert.levinski@ci.austin.tx.us

Place 5: Bill Spelman, 974-2256, bill.spelman@ci.austin.tx.us Policy Aide: Barksdale English, 974-7985, barksdale.english@ci.austin.tx.us

Place 6: Sheryl Cole, 974-2266, Sheryl.cole@ci.austin.tx.us Policy Aide: Stephanie McDonald, stephanie.mcdonald@ci.austin.tx.us

Council Member Emails:  lee.leffingwell@ci.austin.tx.us; chris.riley@ci.austin.tx.us; mike.martinez@ci.austin.tx.us; randi.shade@ci.austin.tx.us; laura.morrison@ci.austin.tx.us; bill.spelman@ci.austin.tx.us; Sheryl.cole@ci.austin.tx.us

Policy Aide Emails:  amy.everhart@ci.austin.tx.us; lewis.leff@ci.austin.tx.us; andrew.moore.@ci.austin.tx.us; glen.coleman@ci.austin.tx.us; robert.levinski@ci.austin.tx.us; barksdale.english@ci.austin.tx.us; stephanie.mcdonald@ci.austin.tx.us

This exclusion prevents us from planning for additional development in the place where it is most likely to happen.  The exclusion also makes us look (to some) like a NIMBY neighborhood that won’t accept density, and undercuts our ability to prevail on the contested tracts referenced above, when in fact we were willing to add significant density and retail, albeit in a way that protects and buffers our existing residential neighborhood.

Some City Council members are concerned that this planning effort will offend the University, even though there is a binding Brackenridge Development Agreement between the University and the City that we would follow.  The City Council is reluctant to take a stand here, and needs to hear the neighborhood’s wishes.  We strongly believe that it is in the neighborhood’s interest to include the Brackenridge Tract in our Plan, especially in light of the Cooper Robertson proposal to add 12-15 million sq. ft of development to Brackenridge with up to 9,900 residents in 6,645 residential units, increasing our residential density by 124-164 percent!!!

If you don’t care what UT does with the land, or if you are not concerned about having the density of the WANG planning area more than doubled by UT’s proposed development, or if you would like to have twice as much traffic coursing through our neighborhood streets, then by all means, tell City Council that you like their decision to exclude the Brack Tract from our neighborhood plan.

However, if you think that our neighborhood should be able to include our objectives and interests in the plan for this tract to help prevent a doubling in density and traffic here, then LET COUNCIL KNOW!  We specifically want to include the Brackenridge Tract in the Future Land Use Map (as posted here), and also want to include the Planning Commission’s recommended Land Use chapter provisions regarding the Brackenridge Tract (posted at Land Use – WANG Brack Tract Amendments1).

Council Members Morrison and Riley have been very supportive of our planning efforts, but you can convey your desires to Council members to let them know your position from the http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/groupemail.htm or with the contact information posted here.

• Sara Madera, Turnquist Partners Realtors, Email:  Email: Sara@SaraMadera.com;
• Sybyl Dyke, Avenue One Properties, Email: Sibyl@sibyldyke.com;
• Laura Gottesman, Gottesman Residential Real Estate, Email:  lauragottesman@gmail.com
• Flo Ann Randle, Amelia Bullock Realtors, Email:  floann@ameliabullock.com

City Council Says “No Thanks” to Neighborhood Plan for Brackenridge Tract

By Martha DeGrasse

After three years of hard work, negotiation and compromise, the West Austin residents finally saw the proposed Central West Austin Neighborhood Plan put before the City Council last week. Although the City Council approved the neighborhood’s requested limitations on new development, some parts of West Austin were excluded from the plan. Most notable of these is the Brackenridge Tract, which includes the West Austin Youth Association and Lions Municipal Golf Course. The Brackenridge Tract is currently owned by The University of Texas, which has made clear its intention to increase the revenue it receives from the property.

Throughout the West Austin Neighborhood Group’s three years of meeting with city planners, the Brackenridge Tract was part of the neighborhood plan. The neighbors’ stated goal from the outset was to help plan for “intelligent” development of the Brackenridge Tract.  So many members of WANG were very disappointed at what they saw as the eleventh hour exclusion of the Brackenridge Tract from the plan. “We are concerned that the Council’s decision to exclude the Brackenridge Tract could have a dramatic and adverse impact on our neighborhood since it would allow an immense and unplanned development,” says Michael R. Cannatti, secretary and past president of WANG.

The university is in the process of considering many proposals for development of the Brackenridge Tract, but the one that has gotten the most attention is a plan from Cooper, Robertson & Partners, a New York-based architect group. That proposal would add up to 6,600 new residential units to the neighborhood, more than doubling the number of homes in the part of West Austin that is west of MoPac.

The decision to exclude the Brackenridge Tract from the Central West Austin Neighborhood Plan was not made by the entire City Council. The council’s integrity officer asked asked council members Laura Morrison and Chris Riley to recuse themselves from the decision. They both have relatives who work at The University of Texas, and UT could clearly be affected by the Brackenridge Tract’s inclusion in the plan. Council Member Bill Spelman also recused himself because he is a professor at UT. Ironically, WANG members suspect that these Council members who have ties to UT may have been more supportive of the neighborhood group than some of the other council members.

Although this is a disappointing time for WANG, the group’s members realize that they have made some good progress. The neighborhood plan calls for restrictions on development along Windsor Road, Exposition and Enfield, areas that were once considered likely to be heavily developed with many more apartments.  “To the extent that we have avoided that, we have had some success,” says Cannatti.

In general, we believe that the draft chapters reflect a lot of work and captures many of the points the community made during the process.  However, there are two very significant omissions because the planning process failed to meaningfully address the Brackenridge and Austin State School tracts in terms of how they fit within our vision for the future of our neighborhood.  Therefore, the draft chapters must be improved if this plan is to help us preserve our neighborhood.  Those of us in the neighborhoods on both sides of MoPac who have been working on the Plan for the last several years have submitted detailed comments and have proposed changes to the  draft plan during the process.  For example, our revisions to the “Transportation” chapter are posted at Neighborhood Stakeholder Revisions to Draft Transportation Chapter _March, 2010_, and our revisions to the “Land Use” chapter are posted at Neighborhood Stakeholder Revisions to Draft Land Use Chapter.

Without attempting to capture all of the details, here are some basic points the City needs to hear regarding the “Vision Statement” and the “Land Use” chapter.

1.  The Staff’s “Vision Statement” language in the Plan — that “new office, commercial, retail or multi-family development should be located along the edges of the neighborhood” — sounds safe enough, but “edges” is too vague to provide a meaningful guideline, and to the extent its meaning can be gleaned from the Plan it includes locations most of us would not want to see new development, such as “Lake Austin, Lady Bird Lake and 35th Street,” Lake Austin Boulevard, Lions Municipal Golf Course, WAYA, Johnson Creek Trail, Eiler’s Park and Deep Eddy Pool, “the medical district located between 38th and 31st Street between Lamar Boulevard and Shoal Creek,” and  Shoal Creek Hike and Bike Trail is the edge of the neighborhood as well as Lamar Boulevard.  We most certainly do not envision “new office, commercial, retail or multi-family development” being located at these “edges.” It is also unclear whether “new” means a commercial or multi-family use on a property not now being used as such or whether it refers to redevelopment of existing commercial sites. We spent months developing a Future Land Use Map to establish the location of future land uses.  Accordingly,  we recommend  that development or redevelopment of existing commercial or multi-family property should be in accordance with the Future Land Use map  adopted by the community.  Any new commercial or multifamily development should  be located on the State School or the Brackenridge properties if they are developed (as opposed to existing residential areas).

2. The current draft of the Land Use chapter is a good first step but it needs to do a more complete job of reflecting neighborhood interest in preventing increased traffic and parking on neighborhood streets and in guarding against potential negative effects of future redevelopment of  W. 35^th Street properties on the abutting single family homes. We also need additional language to more fully express our concern about the impact of  redevelopment of the commercial properties between 34^th and 35^th Street on the school and the neighborhood.  The language in the Plan should be revised to more fully and clearly make these points.

3.  Another major problem with the current draft of the neighborhood plan is that City Staff has not allowed the Brackenridge Tract to be included in the Land Use chapter, and has provided very limited planning options for the Austin State School tract.  In the current draft, the Land Use chapter would appear to allow multi-family along the Exposition side of the Austin State School tract, contrary to the overwhelming weight of opinion of the neighborhood.  In addition, the Land Use chapter entirely fails to address the community’s stated preferences for the Brackenridge Tract.  The first preference is to encourage UT to keep the Lions Municipal Golf Course, West Austin Youth Association, and Field Research Laboratory uses in place with consideration made for additional recreational opportunities on site, and to otherwise comply with the parameters established by the 1989 Brackenridge Tract Development Agreement.  The second preference is that, in the event that the Brackenridge Tract is (re)developed, it should be done in harmony with the adjacent neighborhood, transportation system, and natural resources, as set forth in the neighborhood’s proposed revisions to the Land Use Chapter.

Please attend the Open House to provide feedback on the drafts.  You can also take an on-line survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XQ3GVZ8 where you will be shown a summary of the Plan and given an opportunity to comment.