Riverside PUD gains second-round approval

Although a neighboring property owner tried to prevent Thursday’s vote by seeking a postponement of the second and third readings on rezoning of a property at 200 E. Riverside Drive, attorney Richard Suttle convinced City Council to move forward with second reading. The new Planned Unit Development zoning would allow for a 500-foot-tall office and commercial development on nearly 4 acres of land as well as a Project Connect rail station.

The Garwald Company Inc. is asking for rezoning to develop a multiuse project that would include two high-rise buildings with approximately 1,377,787 square feet of office uses and 29,318 square feet of ground floor commercial/retail uses, with a maximum height of 500 feet. Council gave the project first-reading approval in December for a change from Lake Commercial-Neighborhood Plan (L-NP) combining district zoning to Planned Unit Development-Neighborhood Plan (PUD-NP) combining district zoning.

Suttle, who represents the company, expressed extreme frustration with the slow pace of the case, arguing against the next-door neighbor’s request to put off any consideration of the case on Thursday.

“I’m so mad I can’t see straight,” he told Council.

He also told Council that failing to take any action last week could jeopardize the entire project, including the fee-in-lieu payment for affordable housing his clients are offering. If they did not get the zoning they were requesting, he said, they could simply build a 96-foot high rise and not participate in the fee-in-lieu program. He also said they were willing to pay more than the currently expected rate. He offered $9 a square foot, saying the current fee-in-lieu is $8 a square foot.

In asking Council to move forward with the case, Suttle explained that the neighbor was asking for the delay because of the many references in staff’s report to the 60-foot-wide private access easement adjacent to the western property line. Suttle said his client is not expecting to use the neighbor’s road and wants staff to remove the many references to that road before third reading.

According to the city’s report, 200 E. Riverside “is currently developed with a 92,892 square foot two-story vacant office building, with surface parking, that was constructed in 1970.” This tract of land has driveway access to East Riverside Drive, and Suttle said his client did not intend to use the neighbor’s private road.

The property owner will also be required to provide “9,000 to 11,000 square feet of unfinished space” for the Austin Fire Department and Austin Travis County EMS within the ground floor and the floor above, the report says.

Suttle explained that his client is having difficulties with the Austin Transit Partnership, which has indicated it wants right of way and a spot for a station, but has not provided enough details for the property owner to know whether the station would be at grade or above grade.

Mayor Kirk Watson made the motion to grant Suttle’s request by approving the zoning change on second reading. He added, “by that passage we are letting the applicant know that the fee-in-lieu is something that is seen in a positive light by the Council.” He added that staff should be “shooting for March 27 to bring it back.”

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