The former Rosedale School building, which served students ages three to 22 with special needs, was vacated in 2022 and has been used as a law enforcement training facility since February 2024. (Elle Bent/Community Impact)
Austin City Council was supposed to decide Sept. 10 whether to let a developer build a large apartment complex on the old Rosedale School property. Instead, the vote got pushed back two weeks, to Sept. 24, the third time the vote has been delayed since May.
What’s happening
Austin ISD officials agreed in 2025 to sell the closed campus to developer OHT Partners for $26 million as the district works to close a budget shortfall, according to previous CommunityImpact reporting. Rosedale is one of several AISD properties the district has moved to sell or repurpose amid a wave of campus closures driven by declining enrollment and tightening finances.
The sale depends on the city approving the rezoning and on AISD winning a lawsuit it filed against more than 100 Rosedale-area homeowners over a 1938 deed restriction the district said blocks the project.
Council was set to vote on rezoning the 4.62-acre former Austin ISD campus at 2117 W. 49th St., Austin, from single-family to high-density multifamily zoning, which would clear the way for a 435-unit, six-story apartment complex, city documents show.
Austin City Council members met Sept. 10, where they voted to postpone a decision on rezoning the former Rosedale School site until Sept. 24. (Jessica McLaren/Community Impact)
What they're saying
Neighborhood organization Play Fair With Rosedale posits that OHT's design is too dense for a site surrounded by single-family homes on streets with no sidewalks. Per its website, the organization has proposed a smaller "missing middle" alternative with 150-225 units—a mix of duplexes, townhomes and cottage courts designed to fit the neighborhood's scale rather than one large complex.
The development is projected to add around 1,580 daily vehicle trips to the area, according to previous Community Impact reporting. At a February Zoning and Platting Commission hearing, Rosedale resident and retired real estate developer Scott Morledge said the city's traffic study understated existing conditions in the neighborhood.
"I don't think there's any way around this other than postponing, getting better data and information that we can all make a decision on. That includes the developer," he said.
On its website, Play Fair With Rosedale called the case's second postponement in May "a huge victory that creates space for Rosedale and the Austin Independent School District to find a compromise.” The group had not posted a public reaction to the most recent postponement as of press time.
District 7 Council Member Mike Siegel has previously explained his push to delay the case as a matter of avoiding wasted effort, saying at a Feb. 11 community meeting that it would "be a waste of city resources" if the court ended up preventing the project altogether, according to previous Community Impact reporting.
