Cedar Park City Council rejected a developer’s plan July 23 to change the intended future use of a piece of land in the northeastern corner of the city from commercial to residential.
The context
Three Creeks Development, which owns the land on the northwest corner of New Hope Drive and Ronald Reagan Boulevard, sought to convert roughly 18 of the plot’s 31 total acres from commercial to residential future use.
Under the proposed plan, the portion of the property adjacent to New Hope Drive would have remained commercial, while the portion further back from the road would have become a 68-home residential development.
The item considered by City Council members included an amendment petition to the city’s Future Land Use Plan, or FLUP, which guides long-term planning and development in the city. If the petition had been approved, the project would have had to go through a process involving the Planning and Zoning Commission and multiple public hearings, eventually coming back to City Council for final approval of the FLUP amendment.
The action taken
City Council rejected the amendment petition by a vote of 4-3. Council members Anne Duffy, Kevin Harris, Darron Jurajda and Michael Endres voted to reject the proposal.
Duffy said she was concerned that moving forward with the residential development would mean losing valuable commercial land and keeping more of the city’s tax burden on residents.
Several council members echoed that concern, noting that the city already has a great deal more land designated for low-density residential use than for commercial use. Low-density residential areas make up about 51% of the city’s land in the current FLUP, compared to about 7% of the city’s land that is designated for local office, retail or commercial, city documents state.
Council member Kevin Harris said he was also worried that splitting the plot of land and making most of it residential would limit what could be done with the remaining commercial area.
“If you lessen the commercial footprint, which now lessens the commercial options, it changes the whole dynamic of what this is,” Harris said.
Mayor Jim Penniman-Morin and council members Shweta Padmanabha and Alexis Frezza voted not to reject the petition, indicating that they were open to the developer’s plan.
“I’ve supported this project in the past, and I’m still inclined to do so,” Penniman-Morin said. “It’s not like it’s this marquee chunk of contiguous land like we have across the street from it. ... I also really like the way that doing it this way allows that residential area to blend into the other [neighboring] residential [area] without having this stark heavy commercial area right next to a neighborhood.”
