The city’s comprehensive plan is starting to show its age. On Tuesday, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to approve a mixed-use zoning request, against staff’s recommendation, for three commercially zoned properties on the border of one of the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan’s “Job Center” nodes in Montopolis. Applicant John Stratton is requesting that 2507, 2509 […]
Joseph Caterine
Posted inAISD
AISD trustee reveals reasons behind resignation
In a sit-down interview with the Austin Monitor, Austin Independent School District Trustee Paul Saldaña opened up about the reasons behind his departure from the board, disclosing his fears of becoming bogged down in bureaucracy and describing a school district entangled in webs of distrust. Saldaña officially announced his resignation at a press conference last […]
Posted inPreservation
Planning Commission initiates historic zoning for Emancipation Park site
A week before the release of the Mayor’s Task Force on Institutional Racism and Systemic Equities’ 70-page report, the Planning Commission took a small step during its March 28 meeting in fixing what local historian Fred McGhee called a “broken historic preservation process” by initiating historic zoning for 2724 E. 12th Street, one of the […]
Posted inWhispers
District 6 trustee resigns from AISD board
Paul Saldaña, elected to the Austin Independent School District Board of Trustees in 2014 and to the position of vice president in 2016, announced his resignation Wednesday. The move comes after a fierce debate two days earlier over the Facility Master Plan update, a set of guidelines directing AISD’s structural management for the next 25 […]
Posted inAISD
AISD magnet school policy in turmoil
Emotions ran high as Austin Independent School District trustees, school alums and parents weighed in on the district’s magnet school policy at the board’s special called meeting April 3. The board deliberated for several hours before it voted to adopt the Facility Master Plan update Monday night, and one of the most contentious issues of […]
Posted inWhispers
Land use commission prepares for CodeNEXT mapping release
At the close of its meeting Tuesday night, the Zoning and Platting Commission discussed the upcoming April 18 release of the CodeNEXT mapping, which it will have the opportunity to review with consultants that night during its regular meeting. Chair Jolene Kiolbassa said that she and Planning Commission Chair Stephen Oliver have been collecting and […]
Posted inPlanning
Zoning and Platting Commission debates its role in deciding reasonable use
Opposing zoning philosophies came to a head at Tuesday night’s Zoning and Platting Commission meeting, resulting in a split vote over a conditional overlay removal request for a planned gas station project in Northeast Austin. Last year, City Council approved commercial mixed-use conditional overlay zoning for the property at 13007 Cantarra Drive. Agent Alice Glasco, […]
Posted inAISD
AISD board adopts Facility Master Plan update
Against the wishes of some trustees to postpone the item, the Austin Independent School District Board of Trustees worked into the early hours of Tuesday morning to adopt the Facility Master Plan update in a special called meeting. The master plan implemented in 2014 set in motion a 25-year trajectory for the city’s public education […]
Posted inAISD
Austin’s top magnet school may be dislocated from East Austin home
One of the top 10 high schools in the country, the Liberal Arts and Science Academy, may be relocated from its stomping grounds on the campus of Lyndon B. Johnson High School in East Austin to a more central location if the Facility Master Plan Update is adopted by the Austin Independent School District Board […]
Posted inHousing
Planning Commission unanimously votes to recommend Strategic Housing Plan
It would be a stretch to call Tuesday night’s vote a confident one, but the Planning Commission nevertheless unanimously passed a motion to recommend the Austin Strategic Housing Plan to City Council at its meeting Tuesday night. The plan, if approved, will become an appendix of the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan, providing an outline of […]
Posted inAISD
Draft AISD facilities update miscalculates root of underenrollment crisis, board trustees say
Tough conversations about racial segregation and economic disparity need to be had before the Austin Independent School District’s Facility Master Plan update is approved, some trustees said at the March 27 meeting of the AISD board. Monday night, members of the Facilities and Bond Planning Advisory Committee, formed in September 2015, presented the draft plan […]
Posted inLand Development Code
CodeNEXT consultants discuss the fate of conditional overlays and PUDs
Like magicians before a skeptical audience, the CodeNEXT consultants asked the land use commissioners at their March 21 joint meeting to suspend their disbelief and envision an Austin with very few planned unit developments and zero conditional overlays. Since they replaced conditional zoning site plans in the mid-1980s, conditional overlays have been used to tweak […]