The Heritage Neighborhood Association unanimously passed this resolution at its June 5, 2017 meeting. It will be shared with the mayor, City Council, CodeNEXT staff, and land use commissioners.
Heritage Resolution on CodeNEXT
WHEREAS the Heritage neighborhood, located in central Austin and bordered by 29th Street, 38th Street, Guadalupe Street, and North Lamar Boulevard, is a diverse, walkable, urban neighborhood,
WHEREAS in 2004 the Austin City Council approved a Neighborhood Plan for the Central Austin Combined Neighborhood planning area, including the West University planning area that includes both single family neighborhoods such as Heritage as well as the University Neighborhood Overlay (UNO), and the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan specifies that the Neighborhood Plans be respected,
WHEREAS the neighborhood plan represented a careful compromise involving homeowners, renters, business owners, and students. That compromise established an overlay (UNO) for the West Campus area that allows dense multifamily development, mixed use developments along the corridors, and conditional overlays to protect the integrity, historic character, and safety of the single family neighborhoods, and
WHEREAS in 2014 the City Council passed and in 2016 made permanent laws that reduced the allowed occupancy of unrelated adults in newly constructed single family homes with the express purpose of discouraging demolitions in Heritage and other neighborhoods that had been affected by demolition for the purpose of constructing high occupancy houses, and
WHEREAS the proposed transect zoning in the Heritage neighborhood will dramatically increase the allowed density in the middle of the neighborhood and thus encourage demolition of existing affordable housing and redevelopment of more expensive properties, and
WHEREAS the proposed T4MS zoning along Guadalupe and Lamar does not promote affordable housing,
BE IT RESOLVED that the members of the Heritage Neighborhood Association respectfully request that for our neighborhood, CodeNEXT retain the existing zoning and conditional overlays consistent with the Central Austin Combined Neighborhood Plan and current occupancy limits on unrelated adults in single family homes. Further, if transect zones are used within the Heritage Neighborhood, they be limited to 38th Street, Guadalupe Street, and North Lamar Boulevard to allow residential density on those corridors.
Approved June 5, 2017, by unanimous vote by the Heritage Neighborhood Association. The Heritage Neighborhood Association Community Meeting was held at 7pm, June 5th, 2017 in the Pioneer Bank Community Room.
Gretchen Flatau, President
heritageaustin.org 