The Grove & Austin Oaks, as proposed will create roughly five times more traffic around them. They need serious cutting back to reduce the traffic and environmental impacts.
Lions Municipal Golf Course (Muny) needs to be donated to the Citizens of Austin.
1. The Grove PUD
The Grove development will add 1,700 dwelling units and 360,000 sq ft of commercial space in the midst of a well-established neighborhood bounded by relatively narrow streets. The intersections at 35th and Mopac and 45th and Bull Creek are already badly backed up at rush hour. Imagine what they will be like after the full build-out as proposed by the developer.
The parkland offered by ARG Bull Creek is inadequate and substandard, in part because a good portion is sloped. The flood control measures offered by ARG do not allow enough margin of error if there is an unusually high amount of rain or if debris gets caught in the storm water diversion pipes. The possibility of ARG paying a fee in lieu of on-site storm control measures is completely unacceptable. At the very least, ARG Bull Creek needs to pay linkage and impact fees that we taxpayers are having to cover.
Where the children who would be living in 1,700 dwelling units at The Grove will attend school is up in the air. The local grade school, Bryker Woods Elementary, is already at capacity including its portables. At the very least, ARG needs to pay an impact fee to AISD for the cost to provide the additional classroom space and facilities that will be needed for those children.
I support the Bull Creek Road Coalition (BCRC) reasonable, scaled-back proposal that makes more sense. Yet I would like to see the City refuse to permit anything more intensive than the BCRC’s proposal in the hope that it would encourage ARG to offer the 75 acres back to Austin as a northern Zilker Park.
2. The Austin Oaks PUD
I am against the Austin Oaks development as proposed by the developer, and I support the work of the Northwest Hills Stop the PUD effort. Not only will it quintuple traffic in the vicinity, it will remove 44 of the heritage and protected oaks that gave it its name. This is an unprecedented move!
The intersections at Spicewood Springs and Mopac and Steck and Mopac are already badly backed up at rush hour. The unsignaled intersection at Greystone and Mopac is already dangerous. Multiply that traffic five times, and you have a traffic disaster.
The developer initially offered $10 million in traffic mitigation work. That has now been reduced 93% to $700,000. The developer needs to pay linkage and impact fees that we taxpayers are otherwise being expected to pay.
3. Lions Municipal Golf Course (Save Muny!)
Lions Municipal Golf Course (Muny) needs to be preserved for its historical significance, beauty and location (between Lake Austin Blvd and Enfield Rd). I am against the University of Texas leasing the land to developers. It needs to remain a golf course and green space in perpetuity. Muny was the first desegregated golf course in the south, and it was just named as one of our nation’s “most endangered historic places” by the National Trust for historic preservation.
I am donator to the Save Muny cause and have signed and donated to the Save Muny Petition drive. I hope you will follow suit. It’s an historically significant, beautiful golf course and hiking and picnicking area, and I will do my best to convince UT to donate Muny to our City. UT has been blessed with billions in endowment, and I will work hard to convince the regents that such an act of generosity will greatly benefit the university in the long run.
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