As the Austin Monitor has previously reported, the Zoning and Platting Commission was considering recommending that the city initiate a planning process for the area west of Loop 360 on the north side of the Colorado River. Well, on August 5, the commission passed a motion making just such a recommendation by a 7-1 vote, with chair Hank Smith as the lone ‘nay.’
“I’m gonna oppose, not strongly,” Smith said. “I think this is something that needs to be looked at in the overall comprehensive plan and looked at on a more broad basis to give us the guidance with the budget constraints we have now.”
The idea came from a 2023 recommendation from the Planning Commission that former Planning Commissioner Jennifer Mushtaler spoke about during the meeting we covered back in June.
“We felt that the lack of a regulatory plan, as this area is growing, could result in human and property damage,” she said.
At the time, Zoning and Platting Commissioners including Lonny Stern and Betsy Greenberg had concluded that more tweaking was needed on their recommendation to make sure the commission wasn’t encouraging development in the area, which has been noted to be at high risk for wildfire damage.
In the recommendation that ultimately passed, much of the language of the original Planning Commission recommendation was preserved. There were a few subtle tweaks, though, along with an amendment from commissioner Christian Tschoepe addressing fire mitigation specifically.
A few of the significant changes were the removal of language asking the city to “improve” roadway capacity and transit service to the area, and the addition of language asking the city to “ensure safe delivery of city services such as fire evacuation.”
“The concern we had there was with some of the language that may have inadvertently suggested that we were asking them to maximize the development potential in this part of town,” Stern said. “And we wanted to send a more development-neutral message.”
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