The council’s 8-3 vote against the rezone followed a failure by the city's Historic Landmark Commission, or HLC, to render a final and procedurally adequate—by some council members’ standards—decision on the property’s fate in October. Those involved in Thursday’s discussion highlighted the procedural failure as part of a broader issue within the HLC and questioned the commission’s ability to adequately perform its function.
Steve Sadowsky, an officer with the city’s Historic Preservation Office, did not return requests for comment by press time.
How we got here
The owners of the Old West Austin property, 1618 Palma Plaza LLC, applied for a demolition of the property’s four-plex structure in July. The application was reviewed by the city’s preservation office, which wanted the HLC to make a determination as to whether the structure was historic. Old West Austin is listed in the National Historic Register as a contributing historic district, but is not zoned as a local historic district.
Due to an early resignation, the 11-member HLC has been conducting business with 10 members for most of the year. When they met in September, the present commissioners voted 6-0 to initiate a process to rezone the property as historic. The property owner objected to the rezoning because if approved, it would have blocked the demolition. According to city code, if a property owner objects to a local historic designation, the HLC needs a supermajority two-thirds approval, or 8 of 11 members, to overrule the objection.
When the HLC conducted a public hearing on the historic designation in October, only seven members were present, yet the commission deliberated anyway and listened to testimony. The motion to rezone the property failed 2-4 with one commissioner abstaining.
Teamed up in support of the historic designation were the Old West Austin Neighborhood Association and Preservation Austin, a nonprofit organization aimed at preserving the city’s history. The property owner, represented by Tom Terkel of FourT Realty, objected to the historic designation.
According to Terkel, after the HLC’s resolution failed, he thought the property owner was cleared to get a demolition permit. However, District 10 Austin City Council Member Kathie Tovo said the resolution did not receive a “fair hearing” since only seven members of the HLC were present at the October meeting.
Tovo, in the wake of what she called a “variety of procedural issues,” within the HLC, brought the decision to Austin City Council.
“There should be at least as many commissioners present the night of the meeting as are required to actually pass a recommendation,” Tovo said at the start of Thursday's discussion.
Backroom negotiations prevail
However, in a twist of events, all three sides—the property owner, the neighborhood association and the historic preservation nonprofit—negotiated an agreement prior to Thursday’s meeting that dropped all objection to the demolition permit. According to Terkel, in exchange for dropping their objection to the permit, the applicant agreed to work with the neighborhood association to locate and retrieve the funds necessary to improve Old West Austin Park, and create Palma Plaza Park.
“This has been reduced to writing and has been initialed by both parties today,” Terkel said. “We’re pleased to be a part of a proactive partnership with the neighborhood to create what we believe is a win-win for the neighborhood.”
Maureen Metteauer, a representative of the Old West Austin Neighborhood Association confirmed this agreement to the council on Thursday. However, while Metteauer said she hopes the agreement will be of mutual benefit going forward, she said the neighborhood association “vehemently takes issue” with the operation of the HLC.
“There needs to be an amendment made to the code concerning the way HLC is functioning; it’s been dysfunctional,” Metteauer said. “We’ve had numerous cases in our neighborhood of properties that have been lost because of inconsistent information, lack of quorum and really, lack of training on the part of the members of HLC."
“We are losing the history of our city piece by piece,” she said.
Council Member Tovo said she believed there was significant evidence that the four-plex structure on the property was contributing to the historic value of the city, and while she was glad there was an agreement reached between the two sides, it did not change the circumstance of whether or not the property should be preserved.
“The fundamental point whether this structure deserves a fair consideration of its historic, architectural and community value remains,” Tovo said. “We are losing the historic fabric of our city when we approve demolitions, or make it easy for demolition, of historic structures to come through here. I believe we need to look at community value differently.”
District 6 Austin City Council Member Don Zimmerman said he would enthusiastically vote no to the rezoning initiation and suggested the city start to look at property rights as a real thing instead of governing based on subjective terms.
“Instead of thinking about the rule of law and what that means and people’s property rights, what we talk about is ‘historic fabric’ and ‘community value,’” Zimmerman said. “The city cannot be governed in this way. This is chaos.”
The council voted down the historic designation resolution, with Tovo, Ora Houston (District 1) and Leslie Pool (District 7) dissenting. Terkel said there are no plans in place for what is to be built on the property following the demolition.
