Uncategorized

Chair Mandy Dealey will present the final report from the Waterfront Overlay Task Force at Council on Thursday and the bottom line is this: Every project that has been built or has site plans to be built on the waterfront of Lady Bird Lake confirms to the city’s current waterfront overlay ordinance.   The one […]

Council members expect to see some type of protest at today’s City Council hearing on the Central East Austin Homestead Preservation District, a dispute that some are attributing to a misunderstanding about just how the preservation district would function.   The distress traces back to Travis County, where Commissioner Ron Davis raised concerns about local […]

Attorney Richard Suttle gets another chance to work his zoning magic today, as his clients seek to upgrade the decades-old Terrace Planned Unit Development in order to add three new buildings. Developers of the PUD, originated in 1985, are asking to make changes to its plans and amend a public restrictive covenant in order to […]

Austin has lost a unique figure in the local political scene with the death of Jennifer Gale. She was discovered Wednesday morning outside a church near the University of Texas campus where she frequently camped. Firefighters performed CPR on Gale after receiving a 9-1-1 call from a staffer at the church but were unable to […]

Travis County may pick up the reins on another 827 acres of canyon lands in western Travis County, but it may not be what is needed to complete the county’s commitment to the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve. In essence – and not in fact, as the commissioners chose to put off the vote – Travis County […]

The City Manager could name a new Chief Communications Officer for Austin as early as today. The six finalists for the position were interviewed Tuesday at City Hall and participated in a question-and-answer session Tuesday night with local reporters and city employees. Officials with the City Manager’s office said they would likely narrow down the […]

The city has hired not one, but three, outside law firms to assist with problems arising from the BFI agreement discussed at last week’s Council meeting. Council members approved a resolution directing the City Manager to hire outside counsel to help the city resolve the legal problems involved in voiding the agreement, and to make […]

City Manager Marc Ott has turned down a continuation of the $4,500 per month payment he has been receiving to offset house payments he is making in both Austin and Fort Worth.   Mayor Pro Tem Brewster McCracken and Mayor Will Wynn were co-sponsoring a resolution on this week’s Council agenda that would have extended […]

A coalition of neighborhood leaders, environmentalists, and Democratic activists gathered at City Hall on Monday to show their support for Council Member Lee Leffingwell. The new political action committee, called Draft Lee Leffingwell,” will raise both money and awareness for the current Place 1 Council Member in case he decides to run for Mayor next […]

Republicans finally are getting some competition on straight party ticket voting, according to an analysis of November election results completed by Peck Young, director of Austin Community College’s Center for Public Policy and Political Studies. The center has analyzed straight ticket voting for 10 years. While 57 percent of Texans voted straight ticket during last […]

A developer seeking to build a small condominium complex in Southeast Austin ran up against a group of neighbors Tuesday night convinced that they had enough multi-family housing in their neighborhood. The project, four lots running 1406 through 1506 Parker Lane in the Riverside Drive area, eventually won a zoning recommendation, but not before some […]

Under a resolution approved by the City Council Thursday, developers with already approved site plans may be able to extend the life of those plans for an extra two years. Site plans currently have three-year limit but the shaky economy is causing developers to shelve some plans for the near future.   A number of […]