2005

Some members seek to avoid appearance of ‘rubber stamping’ decisions It didn’t take long on Wednesday for Council Member Brewster McCracken to learn that his Mobility Finance Steering Committee would have questions, and plenty of them, when it came to almost any action the committee intended to take into the future. The mood of the […]

County plans announcement on Reimers Ranch today A proposal to issue $62.2 million bonds to pay for parks and open space drew more than 126,000 Travis County to the polls in an election with one of the highest off-year turnouts in recent years. And a significant majority of those voters liked what they saw. The […]

Several citizens and some independent media producers sued the City of Austin in federal court Monday, claiming the Austin Police Department’s security procedures for the Ku Klux Klan rally on Saturday violated their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Attorney Jim Harrington of the Texas Civil Rights Project is demanding […]

Corps of Engineers' plan would cut back yards, trees along Williamson Creek Flood control plans along the Broken Bow area of Williamson Creek in South Austin have homeowners in the Western Trails Neighborhood Association (WTNA) in a dilemma: they acknowledge the need to rein in the creek during heavy rain events, but say plans proposed […]

Groups plan counter-demonstrations, but police plan to separate protesters Austin Mayor Will Wynn on Thursday urged residents to steer clear of City Hall on Saturday when a branch of the white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), has reserved the public plaza on the building’s south side for a rally in support of Proposition […]

Martinez argues it’s the right structure in the wrong place After a lengthy argument, the Zoning and Platting Commission voted Tuesday night to recommend to changing the zoning from downtown mixed use (DMU) to downtown mixed use-central urban redevelopment (DMU-CURE) for the proposed Gables Town Lake project. Under the proposed zoning, the project would have […]

Commercial zoning faces neighborhood opposition After a somewhat rocky start and some changes in their proposal, developers were able to persuade the Zoning and Platting Commission to recommend rezoning a former state building at 5717 Balcones Dr. to community commercial with a conditional overlay (GR-CO) for use by a group of optometrists. The case of […]

Commission wants neighborhood, staff to negotiate The Planning Commission, after more than five hours of discussion of the pros and cons of dueling neighborhood plans, decided last week to postpone consideration of the East Riverside/Oltorf Combined Neighborhood Plan, with the exception of a handful of consensus zoning changes. Zoning has dominated the goals of most […]

Ban would begin January 1 if Council approves ordinance A new city ordinance that would ban the use of coal-tar based pavement sealants on roads and parking lots passed its first hurdle last week, as the city’s Environmental Board voted unanimously to recommend the proposed ordinance. The measure, proposed by Council Member and former Environmental […]

Plan would allow Maverick-Miller House to assign building rights to another tract The Austin City Council Thursday took the first steps toward allowing the transfer of development rights to aid in the preservation of historic properties. If approved, the owners of the historic Maverick-Miller House in the West Campus area would be able to sell […]

Council Member Raul Alvarez, one of Austin’s youngest Council Members when elected in 2000, will turn 39 next month. On Wednesday, Alvarez announced his intention to move on when his term expires in June, 2006. In making his decision, Alvarez noted how hard it had been when he ran for re-election three years ago to […]

Block 25, Gables win commission's approval Members of the city Design Commission voiced approval for two downtown area mixed-use buildings Monday night, giving developers another positive recommendation when they go before the City Council seeking greater height than would be allowed under current zoning. Commissioners voted 8-0-1, with Girard Kinney abstaining, in favor of DMU-CURE […]