Sitting in Limbo
Upholding Tradition
By Jenny Staff, Fri., May 7, 1999
A partnership with the Austin Housing Finance Corporation would provide for incentives on both ends of the deal -- for developers through the TND ordinance, and for residents through the finance corporation. "The idea is to bring middle-income people back to Central Austin, and East Austin, in particular, without gentrification," Burns said. Specific details of the project are still under wraps but Burns said the area targeted for the TND is east of 183, and between US 290 and Martin Luther King Blvd. The mixed-use development would include some 900 single-family homes, along with multi-family and condo developments. "This would be the largest subdivision development in East Austin in decades," said Burns. "We want to attract builders who rarely come east of MoPac, let alone I-35. Burns added that the project will be one of a few TNDs in the country designed to appeal to middle-income residents. Most TNDs, such as those in Florida and Maryland, are geared toward the upper-income set.
New Power Coalition?
This week in council will mark the first public outing for a nascent coalition within the still-united green council. This new coalition, between the offices of councilmembers Bill Spelman and Jackie Goodman, has joined forces with Beverly Griffith to craft an agreement allowing city sewer service to West Lake Hills, a proposal which will face council action today, Thursday, May 6. The measure is intended to provide a balance of competing interests, specifically by not encouraging extensive West Austin build-out, while still respecting the sovereignty of West Lake Hills.
This coalition does not indicate a rift among council offices. On the contrary, it is a response to the general harmony among councilmembers, which sometimes resulted in a lack of direction. It's too early to tell whether the Spelman/Goodman coalition will grow in numbers, or whether it will take on councilmembers on a freelance basis, depending on the issue. What's certain is that it will seek to combine Spelman's detached intellectual approach, with Goodman's more holistic, politically savvy one, to achieve progress on stalemated issues like the Westlake sewer quagmire.
Police Story
Another of the new coalition's initiatives, a proposed citizen-run Police Oversight Focus Group, which would study the police department's accountability procedures and make recommendations for improvement, has been greeted with uneasiness around the city. The proposal appeared concurrently with Austin Police Chief Stan Knee's initiatives to increase accountability in the Austin Police Department, which could be interpreted two ways: One, Knee may have been trying to forestall independent action by the council that would impede the APD's ability to manage its own affairs. On the other hand, it may be that the accountability citizens want from the APD is already being voluntarily implemented.
Mike Sheffield, president of the Austin Police Association, said that news of Knee's Internal Affairs initiatives had been floating around the department for months, and were not cooked up as a result of the council proposal, which is being sponsored by councilmembers Spelman, Goodman, and Lewis. He also said that any recommendations of an oversight focus group should be ratified at the police officers' annual "meet and confer" bargaining process. "This initiative has to not infringe on the chief's ability to manage the police department and it cannot endanger the rights of police officers to a fair hearing," Sheffield said.
Two of the item's council sponsors said they would be open to some form of meet-and-confer ratification by the police association. Nonetheless, according to a couple of council sources, and judging by the tense faces of City Hall types surrounding the proposal, rocky sailing may be ahead for the seemingly innocuous measure.
More 1704
Also this week will be the first public airing of Austin's post-1704 dirty laundry. The S.O.S./ RECA/GACC coalition has soldiered on despite their crushing defeat at the Lege. The enviro-business-development groups have revised their agreement in an attempt to salvage their months of difficult negotiations. S.O.S. chair Robin Rather said the group has firm agreement that the following goals should be pursued: land conservation, the implementation of Smart Growth policy goals, and a land-use plan for the Barton Springs Zone. The sections still under dispute are a voluntary mitigation program for grandfathered developments, and a "go forward" mitigation policy similar to the one under development by the city, whereby the city would give an automatic green light to proposed developments that meet a given list of criteria. Rather said S.O.S. still considers "go forward mitigation" to be the "how to get out of S.O.S." strategy, and will not support such a policy.
The good news, Rather said, is that a sea change has occurred in Austin politics, with the RECA board voting to move forward with the land conservation plan, with or without S.O.S. "They truly believe it's the right thing for Austin," she said. "The most spectacular upshot of the last 10 to 12 months, all things considered, is the success of Prop. 2 and the widespread alignment on land conservation. The holy grail is really putting the land away once and for all" in a way that is acceptable to everyone.
The public hearing on the S.O.S./RECA/GACC agreement and the city mitigation policy will be tonight, Thursday, May 6, at 6pm.
This Week in Council: In addition to the aforementioned items, council will also consider annexing the currently undeveloped 588-acre Balfour Tract, off Bee Caves Rd. in West Austin.
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