After hearing public testimony on the item, Austin City Council postponed a vote early this morning to change the unzoned property at 4205 Bull Creek Road to a planned unit development, or PUD. The property, originally the site of the Texas Blind, Deaf, and Orphan School built in 1887, was never zoned because it was a state-owned site.
"It's going to be impossible for us to work on this substantively," Mayor Steve Adler said at 10 p.m. Thursday as a public hearing for which 179 people signed up to speak was set to begin. "We will be back here again. There will be a public hearing opportunity when the issues that are actually being dealt on are more defined than they are today."
The development is proposed not to exceed 210,000 square feet of office space and 150,000 square feet of commercial and retail space. The project would also include 18 acres of open space, according to city documents.
Affordable housing
Affordable housing proposed in the plan was among the main talking points among council members Thursday.
According to city documents, the development is proposed to include 5 percent of housing for permanent ownership affordable to households at 80 percent or below the median family income and 10 percent of units for rent at 60 percent or below the median family income.
But some council members spoke about what they believe is an inadequate amount of affordable housing proposed within the development.
Amendments proposed to the ordinance in the upcoming meeting or meetings could include a higher percentage of affordable housing units as well as larger units to accommodate more families, according to statements made by council members Leslie Pool and Kathie Tovo to staff.
Bull Creek Road Coalition
A group of nearby neighborhood associations formed the Bull Creek Road Coalition, or BCRC, in 2012 when the then-state-owned property was sold for potential redevelopment. The group fears The Grove project will worsen an already congested intersection at 45th Street and Bull Creek Road and contribute to traffic issues throughout the area.
Despite those concerns, the project passed a city of Austin traffic impact analysis earlier this year. Traffic and safety have been at the heart of the debate even after the traffic impact analysis was approved, yet the city’s Zoning and Platting Commission also gave The Grove the green light.
BCRC proposed a set of changes to The Grove proposal, including changes to the maximum amount of retail and office space from 360,000 square feet to 215,000 square feet and other efforts to mitigate traffic concerns.
BCRC President Sara Speights said the group supports affordable housing but hopes to see the commercial development decreased to lessen the traffic impact.
“We would like for the City Council to understand that if they want their goals like affordable housing and dense housing in Central Austin then they should work with the neighbors—at least get us some mitigation on the things that are our biggest problems,” Speights said.
Traffic implications
ARG Bull Creek LTD, which is developing the project, announced the development will implement traffic-demand management, a set of strategies and policies meant to reduce the use of single-occupancy vehicles or redistribute demand for such transportation. If the development does not meet its goals for managing travel demand, ARG could then face penalties.
The improvements ARG would make are set to make would reduce wait times at the intersection of 45th Street and Bull Creek Road by an average of 60 seconds per vehicle during peak traffic time in the afternoon, according to the city's traffic impact analysis. The development is also proposed to add bicycle lanes, pedestrian improvements and a trail connection to Ridgelea greenbelt among other improvements.
ARG also announced Sept. 14 the acquisition of a property at the corner of 45th and Bull Creek in an effort to add additional bike and turn lanes. The firm said this intersection expansion will address concerns residents had about the southeast corner of the intersection.
“The Grove is the solution—not the problem,” said Jason Meeker, spokesperson for the development. “And taxpayers have an opportunity to let a private developer fix this public infrastructure.”
