20260520-004, City Land Acquisition of Montopolis-Fairway Properties Draft Recommendation — original pdf

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RECOMMENDATION TO COUNCIL WHEREAS, the Environmental Commission acts in an advisory capacity on all projects and programs that affect the quality of life for the citizens of Austin, and to make recommendations for standards and recommend and initiate specific studies; and WHEREAS, the Environmental Commission reviews and analyzes the policies relating to the environmental quality of the City; and WHEREAS, community-based organizations, People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources (PODER), have brought forward a recommendation to Austin City Council to purchase the properties at Montopolis and Fairway to secure them for future low-income single-family housing; and WHEREAS, in 2001, the Austin City Council adopted the Montopolis Neighborhood Plan, which called for sustaining its single-family zoning in the heart of Montopolis; and WHEREAS, the 2018 report, “Uprooted: Residential Displacement in Austin’s Gentrifying Neighborhood and What Can be Done About It,” commissioned by the Austin City Council and completed by University of Texas experts recommended that the city make strategic, anti- displacement investments in Montopolis to protect it from further gentrification; and WHEREAS, for years, the Montopolis Neighborhood Plan Contact Team, along with other supporters, have been fighting to sustain its single-family zoning; and WHEREAS, Montopolis already has the highest concentration of multifamily, commercial, and industrial zoning of any planning area in the city, and building under these zoning categories have been constructed at the permitted restriction of 80% impervious coverage, worsening the urban heat island effect, erosion of the Colorado River, and flooding without natural drainage from green spaces that once made Montopolis the most undeveloped neighborhood in East Austin; and WHEREAS, the 1.9 acres, known as the Montopolis-Fairway Zoning case, is currently zoned for single-family housing and includes properties at 6202, 6204 Caddie Street; 6205, 6211, 6215 Fairway Street; 1600, 1604, 1606, 1608, 1612, and 1614 Montopolis Drive; and WHEREAS, while the zoning request from the developer to change the zoning from single-family to vertical mixed-use was denied, the property remains vulnerable to future gentrifying developments; and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Environmental Commission recommends that the City of Austin purchase the property included in the Montopolis-Fairway zoning case to build low- income single-family housing and protect the neighborhood from future gentrification.