A tract of land in east Bee Cave is on its way to becoming a ball park, but there are still concerns from neighboring residents to address.

Bee Cave City Council approved a development plat for the approximately 26 acre-property owned by Eanes ISD during its May 14 meeting. City documents state 12 Fields Foundation and Western Hills Little League are funding the development of the baseball complex, which will be called the Baldwin Sports Park.

A site development application for the ball park is under review by the city, according to Bee Cave city documents. Because the property would be accessed from Ashley Worth Boulevard, traffic improvements associated with the proposed complex will be considered with the development’s site plan.



Before approving the development plat, City Council members, acting not as council but as the city's Zoning Board of Adjustments, discussed several requested variances for the property that will affect future site plan discussions. Those variances could be acted on at a later council meeting.

During the zoning board meeting, members of the public raised concerns centered on light pollution and parking, specifically spillover into bordering neighborhoods Lake Pointe and Lake's Edge. Several residents of both neighborhoods addressed the zoning board and said parking and congestion were already problematic due to construction, among other reasons.

Western Hills Little League representative Chris Ellis told the zoning board that his organization requested a variance for fewer parking spaces than typically are required by code because the diverse topography of the site make it a tight space. The plan includes 64.6 parking spaces for each field. With five baseball fields, that amounts to 323 total parking spaces.

"We are trying to get as much onsite parking as possible," Ellis said.

Bee Cave City Manager Clint Garza said issues such as a shared parking agreement will have to be agreed upon at upcoming City Council meetings.

"The development plat [portion of the advancement of the athletic complex project] is just the legalization of the lot," Garza said. "Now they get to move forward with the site plan and come back [at a later meeting] and discuss all of the intricacies of the parking and everything else."