SRCC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING – MINUTES
TUESDAY, February 1, 2022 7:00 PM
Zoom Teleconference
MINUTES
Only members may vote. As an officer, you should be a member. Please confirm by emailing membership@srccatx.org, and we’ll let you know.
CALL TO ORDER/APPROVAL OF MINUTES
The meeting was called to order at 7:03
1. 7:00 Executive Meeting Welcome
Presenter throughout: Wendy Todd, President, unless otherwise noted (5 min)
2. 7:05 Membership report & voting. Reminder that SRCC current dues status is required to participate in SRCC business and actions such as voting and making motions. (5 min)
3. 7:10 Approve minutes from December 2021 Executive Committee Meeting (5 min)
Meeting dates in 2022: GM Feb 15; EC Mar 1; EC Apr 5; GM Apr 19; EC May 3; GM May 17; EC Jun 7; GM Jun 21; EC Aug 2; GM Aug 16; EC Sept 6; GM Sept 20; EC Oct 4; GM Oct 18; GM Nov 15; EC Dec 6;
No comments or revisions were provided. Carol/Noah motion to approve, motion passes.
4. 7:15 Treasurer’s Report. All reports available upon request to the Treasurer @ treasurer@srccatx.org
Presenter: Will Andrews, Treasurer (5 min)
The Feb report, YTD through January. Net income for the month was positive, mostly from dues with a few expenses.
5. 7:20 Standing Committee check-ins on events/goals/issues.
Presenters: Committee Chairs: 1) Planning and Zoning; 2) Historic Preservation; 3) Finance; 4) Mobility; 5) Public Safety; 6) Parks and Environment; 7) Schools; and 8) Communications (10 min)
- Planning & Zoning – There is a zoning case coming up at 1100 Manlove, which SRCC opposed a year ago, in agreement with EROC NPCT.
- Historic Preservation – Last time the Landmark Commision met, 3 homes in the neighborhood were set for demolition. Since these are in the NRHD, they need to present their plans prior to getting a demolition permit. Unfortunately the NRHD doesn’t stop them from getting a demolition permit, but we can still oppose the demolitions. Also, showing that some of historic significance lived in a home, then it can get recognized as such.
- Finance – Nothing to report
- Mobility – I-35 proposed changes to Woodland – one of the alternatives includes bike and pedestrian bridge only (with a lot of vertical climb), and the other alternatives include car traffic. Some of the alternatives include the ability to get across 35 using U-turns; this may make it easier to deal with the closure of Woodland. At Riverside the intersection will include a Single Point Urban Interchange (SPUI). It was suggested that the potential closing of Woodland would be worth discussing at a future SRCC meeting.
- Public Safety – Still patrolling and looking for additional patrollers as part of Neighborhood Watch. Though there is an overall uptick in crime during the pandemic, our area has fared fairly well.
- Parks and Environment – The February Blunn Creek workday was cancelled. There is also interest in getting a playscape installed at Heritage Oaks Park.
- Schools – There are still cases being identified at schools, but there doesn’t seem to be the quantity that would indicate community spread. Right now there are not a lot of events going on at the schools. There’s currently a lot of discussion in PTAs about proposed budget cuts by the district. It was mentioned that in the past people would print out flyers to go home with the kids, in order to alert parents about the potential impacts on the school routes.
- Communication – See later item
6. 7:30 Check-ins on events/goals/issues
Presenters: Committee Chairs/Representatives: 9) Norwood; 10) GSRC NPCT; 11) EROC, NPCT; 12) ANC; 13) SCC; 14) South Central Waterfront; 15) St. Edward’s; 16) S. Central Affordable CDC; 17) Ad-hoc Land Development Code Revision. (10 min)
- Norwood – Nothing to report
- GRSC NPCT – The NPCT is still interested in getting support from SRCC in opposition to the development at 200 Academy. There is a chance that the second reading at Council may occur before the next SRCC GM meeting. See item #9 below.
- EROC NPCT – Nothing to report, other than the issue at Manlove.
- ANC – ANC met last week with several presentations, including on the SCW TIRZ (it was called a $278M tax giveaway). Recognition of Carol Gibbs’ several years of service at the City (interface with neighborhoods and the City). The ANC president had to step down as they moved outside of Austin due to rising costs and gentrification, and a new president was elected.
- SCC – Nothing to report
- South Central Waterfront – There was a meeting in December, the next meeting in late February. Council is meeting this week to discuss the TIRZ. We are looking for a new volunteer to be the SRCC representative to the SCWAB.
- St Ed’s – Nothing to report.
- South Central Affordable CDC – Nothing to report – no meetings.
- Ad-hoc Land Development Code Revision – There is a lot of “stealth” Code Next, for instance in that proximity to Project Connect is resulting in upzonings. There is discussion about allowing residential usage in commercial buildings. There is a concern about the property taxes going up as a result of addition of ADUs.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS (none)
NEW BUSINESS
7. 7:40 Technology Discussion re: SRCC Website, including who owns it and pays bills; hiring someone to clean up and update the website; phishing and other email scams. Betty Weed, Communications Chair and Dan Fredine, Secretary (10 min)
We are interested in making some changes to the website, but it would require more WordPress knowledge than we have. We checked in with Dan Galewsky (SRCC resident) to help us. Marc Davis and Garret Nick originally helped to set up the website, and Mark has been paying for the hosting and Garret has been paying for the domain registration. It might be most beneficial to the neighborhood association to get both of these moved over to SRCC’s control. Betty contacted the domain registration people and it would cost about $50 per year; the hosting company has not yet responded. It is our understanding that these can be transferred to an organization with officers and with a bank account, and don’t need to be associated with an individual.
We want to create a backup of the website content, and possibly incorporate this into our practice of publishing to the website. We will need to get access via the hosting company to really make significant changes. Some of the potential changes to the website were discussed, which included modernization of the navigation and overall layout, general updating, making some site security and performance improvements, and cleaning up the list of people who have logins to the website.
There is a concern that some people have been getting phishing emails that appear to come from the president. We may want to remove non-SRCC email addresses off of the website, and potentially use a drop-down list to select who to send email to, instead of showing email addresses (using a webform to send an email to committee members or area coordinators).
8. 7:50 Nominations for Upcoming SRCC Annual Elections SRCC annual elections will be held in April. Several officers will be running for re-election, but there will be vacancies including Representative to the South Central Waterfront Advisory Board (this could be filled prior to the annual election) and President.
Presenter: Dan Fredine, Chair, Ad Hoc Nominating Committee (10 min)
With upcoming elections, we will be holding a Nominating Committee to identify potential candidates (especially president, SCWAB representative, Planning & Zoning Chair, Coordinator for Area 1). Anyone who is interested in volunteering for any of these positions (or others), please contact Dan Fredine at secretary@srccatx.org.
The nominating committee will meet, identify potential candidates, assign committee members to contact those potential candidates and talk to them about the open positions, and then will vote to make recommendations to the membership. Anyone interested in participating in the nominating committee should contact Dan as well.
Also, this year SRCC is turning 50!
9. 8:00 200 Academy re: update from Nikelle Meade or representative.
Presenter: Nikelle Meade, Attorney at Law (10 min)
Nikelle Meade was not in attendance.
SRCC supported the NPCT in their opposition to the proposed development. Recently there have been negotiations between the NPCT and the architect/owner. It seems likely that the NPCT would support the plans if the venue were to be reduced from 17000 sf to 3000 sf, though the architect/owner indicated that was a non-starter. This is a very complicated case, between the housing, the historic preservation issue, and the music venue. It is unclear what the positions are of the different Council members. The developer will need a Conditional Use Permit for nearly any development that goes on at this site, and that will be part of where the neighborhood can negotiate for better terms.
There are a number of building permits on this property that have already been filed, both pending and active. Someone had been told that the stage has already been moved. It would be worth looking into our previous negotiations with the Hotel Magdalena (which had events with way fewer people), and the agreements that were made on that project.
10. 8:10 305 S. Congress PUD re: updates from Planning & Zoning.
Presenter: Russ Fraser, P&Z Committee Chair (10 min)
A preliminary financing plan (the TIRZ) was shared. This is a “zone” that is set up to allow public funding for development, in order to allow for public benefit on a project that might not otherwise provide them. Kathie Tovo is sponsoring the TIRZ for this project. There is some discussion about what parcels to include and exclude from the TIRZ, though CM Tovo is proposing the entire South Central Waterfront District (District) be included in the TIRZ, as part of the “Financial Framework” to fund the public realm improvements and affordable housing opportunity, described in the 2016 SCW Vision Plan (SCWVP).
The SCWVP describes and estimates the value of the Public Realm benefits in the entire District; these include parks, plazas, roadway improvements, and other public realm improvements presented in the physical framework chapter. Affordable Housing is also an opportunity to be included in the District with a goal of 20% of future housing units, in a range of incomes depending on rental or ownership. Financing both the public realm and the affordable housing will require a shared contribution from the public and private sectors according to the SCWVP.
The Statesman PUD is about ⅓ of the SCW area by acreage, and fronts the water. The concern is that the developers might not provide road improvements, trails, open spaces, etc. without the benefit of the TIRZ.
A Tier 1 TIRZ has a timeline of 1-10 years (which would cover the Statesman PUD), which is about $81M. There are also tiers 2 & 3, with a total of $278M. The TIRZ would take a portion of the incremental amount of taxes coming from the waterfront area, capture a part of those tax increases due to the new development. After a period of time (about 10 years) the TIRZ goes away.
There was a question about the use of City debt to fund development. The public contribution was always going to be a public contribution to the project, and was originally going to be the parking lot at One Texas Center. Over the 10 years since the waterfront was initially envisioned, the land values have changed considerably. This has resulted in the projects changing from the original intent. The addition of public infrastructure to the private development will require public funds.
SRCC has taken a position to support the recommendations from the boards and commissions regarding entitlements, but requested in 2019, “…that the Planning Commission defer action on the project until it implements a Regulating Plan and necessary financial tools for the project.” This position was reaffirmed in the recent SRCC public statement, approved by the general membership at the 1/18/2022 meeting.
11. 8:20 ANNOUNCEMENTS
The neighborhood ListServe is on the Groups.io platform. Find everything you need to know about SouthRiverAustin group here: https://groups.io/g/SouthRiverAustin
The meeting was adjourned at 8:53 pm
The next SRCC General Membership meeting is Tuesday, February 15, 2022
The next SRCC Executive Committee meeting is Tuesday, March 1, 2022
*Frequently used acronyms: ACF: Austin Community Fund; ANC: Austin Neighborhood Council (https://www.atxanc.org/); BoA: Board of Adjustment; SF: Single Family zoning category; FLUM: Future Land Use Map; GSRC NPCT: Greater South River City Neighborhood Planning Contact Team; NCCD: Neighborhood Conservation Combining District; NHPA: National Historic Preservation Act; PC: Planning Commission; PUD: Planned Unit Development; SCC: South Central Coalition of NAs; ZAP: Zoning and Platting
Agenda Prepared by Noah Balch, vicepresident@srccatx.org
