After eight months, the project at 8528 Burnet Road is moving forward. City Council voted Thursday to grant developer Sackman Enterprises MF-6 zoning, with a conditional overlay that limits the height of the building to 60 feet and the number of units to 300. That’s more than was approved on second reading, which limited the units to 225. Council Member Greg Casar presented the prevailing motion with the 300-unit cap. That motion also had an increase in affordable units. Instead of the planned 34 affordable units, the project will now include 45, which will be available at 80 percent of the Median Family Income. The new agreement also stipulates a mix of units, unlike the terms of the second reading. The developer agreed to create 20 studio, 15 one-bedroom, seven two-bedroom and three three-bedroom affordable units. Council voted 7-4 to approve the change, with Council Members Leslie Pool, Ann Kitchen, Kathie Tovo and Ora Houston opposed. A last-ditch effort by Pool to change the zoning to CS-V was not successful. Though that zoning change had not been discussed before, Pool suggested the switch as a way to ensure affordable housing. Though the developer in this case agreed to affordable housing under multifamily zoning, under state law Council cannot require affordable housing in that zoning category.

County Commissioners approved the new Travis County Master Plan on Tuesday with an amendment that allocates proceeds from its more than $500,000 sale of properties toward paying down bond debt, with a priority given to paying down debt on a new courthouse. With a possible $30 million generated in one-time real estate sales, County Judge Sarah Eckhardt said it could potentially cover 10 percent of the proposed $291 million Civil and Family Courthouse. Commissioners approved a concept and space program in January for the new facility. Plans for the proposed courthouse provide for approximately 520,000 square feet of building space and a four-level underground parking facility with over 500 spaces. The courthouse would be 14 stories and provide 28 courtrooms in the initial build-out, according to Travis County documents. Eckhardt also asked commissioners to propose suitable properties listed in the master plan that could be converted into affordable housing units.

Tuesday, the Travis County Commissioners Court put off taking action on Mass Gathering permits, specifically action involving permit review and standards for orderly conduct. The court will take it up at a later meeting. Mass Gathering permits are commonly issued in areas where there are no zoning regulations. The permits became an issue after residents around Carson Creek Ranch, a farm-turned-venue near the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, complained about the noise and security during the venue’s recent festivals. At the court’s April 14 meeting, Brent Johnson, an organic farmer adjacent to the ranch, said the venue’s recent Euphoria Fest resulted in noise until 4 a.m. as well as several cars parked on his private property. Johnson said he received little help from the Travis County Sheriff’s Office regarding his issues. TCSO had several officers contracted for event security. Commissioners said they were under the impression that Euphoria Fest stopped at 2 a.m. on Saturday, but Scott Davison, representing SFX LLC, the event promoter, said his permits stipulated 4 a.m. on certain stages. The venue is set to host Levitation Festival and Life in Color, among other events, in the upcoming weeks.

MobilityATX will discuss Austin’s growth and its challenges Monday in a live-streamed, interactive discussion that will take aim at how to work through those challenges as a community. Panelists include Austin City Council Member Ellen Troxclair, RideScout CEO Joseph Kopser, Downtown Austin Alliance CEO DeWitt Peart and AURA Board Member Brennan Griffin. Austin Monitor Publisher Mike Kanin will moderate. The event will be broadcast on www.mobilityatx.com/ at 2 p.m. Viewers are invited to submit questions for the panel via @MobilityATX on Twitter.

City Council members will be doing something of a doubleheader today. The Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee, whose members include the mayor and all 10 Council members, meets at 9 a.m. at City Hall. The committee will discuss a number of Austin Energy-related topics, including the Austin Energy Resource, Generation and Climate Protection Plan to 2025 and the Austin Energy business model. The committee will adjourn when it has completed its work and members will reconvene at 11 a.m. as the Austin City Council, moving on to the day’s Council agenda items.

At Tuesday’s Travis County Commissioners Court meeting, TxDOT’s Carlos Swonke defended his department’s work on State Highway 45 Southwest’s environment impact study. Swonke, the Texas Department of Transportation’s Environmental Affairs Division director, said top scientists helped put together the findings, and he believed their efforts were on par with federal studies. In public testimony, Swonke presented a three-pronged argument to commissioners. He said the city and county enacted the Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan with the expectation that SH45 SW would eventually cut through the land. He pointed out that they approved the BCCP in 1996, but the SH45 SW project was approved in 1989. Swonke also argued that TxDOT’s use of modern environmental road improvements on SH45 SW would have less of an effect on the Edwards Aquifer than if it funneled traffic through older roadways. Citing past City of Austin projects involving BCCP caves, Swonke said, “No one has shown us any evidence that anything bad happens to a cave when you build a road 350 feet away from it,” referring to the distance SH45 SW would be away from the federally protected Flint Ridge Cave. Pct. 2 Commissioner Brigid Shea asked if the SH45 SW’s environmental impact study took the proposed connection to I-35 into account, or the recent addition of four toll lanes in the MoPac South project. Swonke said they did not mention I-35 in the study because it is not yet formally approved. He said he did not remember if the EIS included two or four toll lanes on the MoPac South project. County Judge Sarah Eckhardt pointed out several flaws in Swonke’s arguments. An advocate of SH 45 SW, Pct. 3 Commissioner Gerald Daugherty said the issues now are really about “just not building this road.”

The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority’s board of directors has unanimously approved two policy changes that will prohibit some vehicles from toll roads while providing free access to others. At Wednesday’s meeting, board members decided to prohibit vehicles with more than two axles — like shipping trucks or a towing trailer — from using variably priced toll lanes. For now, the only variably priced toll lanes will be included in the MoPac Improvement Project, but staff requested the policy because larger trucks would affect the shifting toll prices. CTRMA will adjust prices by using roadside equipment that monitors real-time traffic conditions and adjusts the price periodically throughout the day, based on the average speed and number of drivers using the express lanes. Board members also approved a policy change that would waive fees for Capital Metro’s MetroAccess Program for persons with disabilities and its Vanpool or Carpool programs, which are aimed at commuters. The current fee exemption includes “public transportation vehicles with a carrying capacity of 16 or more individuals that are owned or operated on behalf of the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority or the Capital Area Rural Transportation System.” The proposed amended exemption applies to “a vehicle used exclusively to provide transportation to a member of the public under a transit program established and managed by the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority or the Capital Area Rural Transportation System.”

The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority’s Executive Director Mike Heiligenstein said no on Wednesday to the Travis County Commissioners Court’s request for a comprehensive environmental and traffic study. The requested study would look at the planned State Highway 45 Southwest, a proposed portion connecting to Interstate 35 and the proposed MoPac South Improvement Project as a “loop,” measuring its cumulative impacts. Heiligenstein told the Austin Monitor that he takes everything from the commissioner’s court seriously, but the transportation agency will not do the cumulative studies. “When we do traffic modeling for a project, we actually do look at the entire network. But, as far as a study, I don’t have money in my budget,” he said. “If another entity wanted to fund that, we could do the work.” CTRMA board members requested an attorney consultation before providing a response to the county. The board will hear a briefing on the indirect and cumulative effects of the proposed roadways in an environmental review at its next meeting, Heiligenstein said.

Council Member Kathie Tovo reminded her colleagues at Tuesday’s Council work session that some of them have yet to appoint members to the Austin Integrated Water Resource Planning Community Task Force created in a December resolution. She noted that Austin Water is waiting for the task force to meet before issuing a solicitation to hire a consultant that would help craft an Integrated Water Resource Management Plan for the city. “It’s my understanding that the integrated water task force was not able to meet because it can’t reach quorum, so I was just going to add a plea to Council members who haven’t appointed their task force member, if you would consider doing that, that would be great,” Tovo said. “It was really a value of the community to have a community-based task force in place to work with the utility and so … I really want to honor that commitment and make sure that we have community members who are working with our utility in that way.” She noted that there is a list of recommended appointees on the Council message board. Task Force liaison Danielle Martin confirmed with the Austin Monitor Tuesday that Council Members Don Zimmerman, Ellen Troxclair, Sheri Gallo and Ora Houston have yet to make appointments. The next meeting is scheduled for May 5 at Waller Creek Center.

On May 6, the City of Austin is inviting the public to discuss the process of creating a new master plan for the south shore of Lady Bird Lake. The event, titled “Remaking the Urban Waterfront,” will feature speaker Alex Krieger, an architect and expert on riverfront planning as well as a Harvard University professor. Krieger will discuss the principles for creating “vibrant, beautiful and welcoming waterfronts.” The free talk is open to the public and begins at 7 p.m. on May 6 at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center, 600 River St. Free parking is available. More information about the event and the South Central Waterfront Initiative can be found here.

With the recent changes to how City Council does business, we at the Austin Monitor have also had to shift how we do business. Specifically, we are in the process of reworking our tip sheets in order to provide our readers with a comprehensive guide to Council meetings and Council Committee meetings for the week. We expect that those new tip sheets will be up and running in May, and appreciate you bearing with us in the meantime.

You may remember that the Austin Police Department began enforcing its Don’t Block the Box campaign back on April 6, and it has released results from the first two weeks. The idea behind the program is to keep cars from pulling into busy intersections and then getting caught by the light, blocking cross traffic. According to APD, during Week 1 (April 6-10), 360 moving violations and 106 nonmoving violations were issued. In Week 2 (April 13-17), 293 moving violations and 47 nonmoving violations were given. Over the two-week period, 90 warning citations were issued. The goal of the campaign is to reduce traffic congestion on Austin’s major arterial roadways and in the Downtown Central Business District. APD stationed officers at key intersections during the peak travel times of 7 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 6:30 p.m. The monitored locations were along Cesar Chavez Street where it intersects Guadalupe Street, Lavaca Street, Colorado Street and Congress Avenue. The campaign is part of the city manager’s Traffic Congestion Action Plan. APD has not said whether it intends to expand enforcement of the program to other intersections.