Action Items

Faith Cathedral of God and Christ Church Development at 12th St. & Harvey

Faith Cathedral of God and Christ Church seeks to change the zoning of 5 lots on the north side of E. 12th St. just east of Harvey to allow them to rebuild the church there and construct parking lots. An RNCT vote on whether to support this change took place (18 May 2006). The majority in attendance elected to issue a letter from RNCT to the City Council to let them know that RNCT is not yet in support of the project, and would like to have ample time--at least 30 days--to consider any changes to the church's plans prior to official actions.

Mabson/Downs Field Improvements

A meeting was held (9 May 2006) at Carver Library to discuss improvement projects. While not a Rosewood-area resident, Mike Dunn is a fan of both baseball and history. He offered to craft a resolution in support of improvements for the Austin City Council to endorse, as well as a cover letter. At a recent RNCT meeting (18 May 2006), Dunn brought in the baseball coach of Huston-Tillotson University to meet all in attendance. HTU uses Downs Field as their "home turf." Long story short, the school gave the property to the City back in the day. After the plea was placed, there appeared champions on the Austin City Council (Cheryl Cole and Lee Leffingwell) and sympathetic parties at the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department (PARD): PARD will re-level the parking lot; put in a drain south of the ballfield; and install an ADA parking spot, providing access to the trail and ballfield from there. According to Tony Arnold, presumably a PARD employee:

The work will consist of renovating the existing parking lot using a re-cycled concrete Base Course material as the wearing surface. One ADA parking space will be added in the SW corner of the parking lot with a connection to the sidewalk along 12th street. The parking lot will be bordered with a planting bed with a mixture of shrubs and rock boulders (if funding allows). Re-cycled poles will be used to separate the parking lot from the planting area. The lot will be surfaced to drain.

Also, there will be a written agreement between the city and HTU for maintenance of the ballfield and storage. An efort will be made to divert some money from the upcoming bond election for the improvements of this park, which has some historical significance for the city and for baseball.

Redeemer Presbyterian Church Deveopment, 2105 Alexander Ave.

City hearing on re-zoning postponed, further discussions pending. RNCT met to generate ideas for Redeemer on Thursday, July 6, 2006 at Lyons Gardens; a unanimous vote was taken to ask the church to create a PUD, and situate the church proper toward the middle of the tract, surrounded by parking and an outer-most layer of mixed-used buildings.

The church seemingly embraced our recommendations, and the new building was dedicated on Sunday, March 28, 2010.

12th and Hargrave Development

The development team and their representative gave their presentation to RNCT on 18 January 2007. Their ultimate plan is to develop the entire corner, including the Austin Sausage Co. and four small residential plots on 12th, into a high density mixed-use development supporting 153,327 sf of residential, and 32,749 sf of commercial space. Phase 1 of this plan is the purchase and development of the property that is the tire shop at 12th and Hargrave, the four residential lots on Hargrave (only two have houses on them), and that land running behind those properties. Currently this property sits on both residential and mixed-used zoning. They asked for our support to change zoning on the part of the property that faces Bedford Street from SF-3 to SF-6 to allow the construction of condominiums/town homes, and to change the SF-3 zoning that faces Hargrave to CSMU-NP in order to merge that property with the rest of the site that is currently mixed use. After extended Q&A, a motion to support their request for zoning change from SF-3 to CSMU-NP passed by a majority. Unfortunately for the development team, they seem to have lost the support of their investors and have abandoned this project.

Verticle Mixed Use Opt-in/Opt-out

Voting on VMU Opt-in/Opt-out was conducted at the 17 May meeting in order to meet the deadline for community input. While most properties given consideration were elected for "opt-in," there was occasional agreement on some singular pproperties within the realm of the planning team. These are the minutes from that session. More information about VMU can be found at the City of Austin web site.