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Neighborhood planners to steer traffic studies The Planning Commission is scheduled on Tuesday to consider a bundle of changes to development ordinances designed to make Smart Growth ideas easier to implement. One of those ordinance amendments governs requirements for traffic impact analyses (TIA), which the city now requires only on projects determined to generate more […]

Would end lawsuits, annex land, and provide water and wastewater service City staff Thursday unveiled a 46-page draft agreement between the city, Gary Bradley, and other entities that will end lawsuits between the city and Bradley and ensure city water and wastewater service, along with limited-purpose annexation to a broad swath of land in northern […]

Will market follow the signals to build in the Desired Development Zone? The City Council will soon be dealing with another big bundle of Smart Growth incentives to nudge development away from the Drinking Water Protection Zone (DWPZ) and into the Desired Development Zone (DDZ). Last night the Water and Wastewater Commission voted 8-0 to […]

Area residents ready to begin neighborhood planning The City of Austin has agreed to buy the Brown Distributing Co. building at 411 Chicon St. to house the city's Building Services Division. Eastside neighbors of the property, which served as a beer warehouse and distribution point for many years, say they favor the city's purchase of […]

Goal to retrieve documents from computers instead of file cabinets City Clerk Shirley Brown's restarting an image program that has nothing to do with makeup and hair color but everything to do with making more than a million documents readily accessible to city staff and indirectly to citizens. This is a massive project to convert […]

MUD will provide better treatment in return for variance on holding pond The City of Austin appears ready to settle its differences with Travis County Municipal Utility District No. 4 over TCMUD 4's application to double the capacity of its sewage treatment facilities from 250,000 gallons per day (GPD) to 500,000 GPD. TCMUD 4 disposes […]

Council gives neighbors and church five weeks to talk and a mediator to help During an hour and a half in executive session last night, the Austin City Council significantly rewrote a proposed ordinance with interim development controls for the Hyde Park Baptist Church (HPBC). An abbreviated public hearing on the proposed ordinance that started […]

Reformers Appalled at Kirk's Ethical Transgressions (RAKET) One of Austin's chief hell-raisers is at it again. Linda Curtis has founded a new political action committee (PAC) aimed at drumming up someone to run against Mayor Kirk Watson, who is seeking a second term and has only two homeless opponents at present. The PAC is called […]

Capital Metro undecided whether to pair road and light-rail election Karen Rae, general manager of the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said Tuesday that she and Mayor Kirk Watson discussed the idea of putting highway bond funds and a light rail question on the same ballot only in a "brief conversation" Sunday morning, the day the […]

Office tower at 300 West 6th and residential tower at 5th and West Avenue Two downtown high-rise projects were reviewed by the Austin Design Commission last night, one a major new office building and the other a proposed residential project on the banks of Shoal Creek. Architect Larry Speck of Page Southerland Page is the […]

Turnpike chief says the idea originated with him Pete Winstead, chairman of the Texas Turnpike Authority, told In Fact Daily that the idea to couple highway bond funds with the light rail election as a package for voters was an idea he presented to an aide to Mayor Kirk Watson a year ago. He said […]

Election day just 15 weeks away but you wouldn't know it from the action If you think the 1999 City Council elections were a yawn, with just 8.36 percent of the 408,891 registered voters casting ballots and all three incumbents winning reelection without a runoff, wait till you hear about the 2000 races. Positions on […]