06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 2 - Staff Report — original pdf

Backup

Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 NEIGHBORHOOD PLAN AMENDMENT REVIEW SHEET NEIGHORHOOD PLAN: South Congress Combined (Sweetbriar) CASE#: NPA-2025-0020.04 DATE FILED: September 16, 2025 PROJECT NAME: Congress Views PC DATE: April 28, 2026 March 10, 2026 ADDRESS/ES: 6111, 6113, & 6119 S CONGRESS AVE DISTRICT AREA: 2 SITE AREA: 8.03 acres OWNER/APPLICANT: Congress Corner, LLC AGENT: Alice Glasco Consulting (Alice Glasco) CASE MANAGER: Maureen Meredith PHONE: (512) 974-2695 STAFF EMAIL: Maureen.Meredith@austintexas.gov TYPE OF AMENDMENT: Change in Future Land Use Designation From: Mobile Home and High Density Single Family To: Mixed Use Base District Zoning Change Related Zoning Case: C14-2025-0096 From: MH-NP To: GR-DB90-NP NEIGHBORHOOD PLAN ADOPTION DATE: April 18, 2005 CITY COUNCIL DATE: TBD ACTION: PLANNING COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION: April 28, 2026 – (action pending) 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 21 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 March 10, 2026 – Postponed to April 28, 2028 on the consent agenda at Staff’s request. [B. Bedrosian – 1st; N. Barrera-Ramirez – 2nd] Vote: 11-0 [C. Haney absent. One vacancy on the dais]. STAFF RECOMMENDATION: To support the Applicant’s request for Mixed Use land use. BASIS FOR STAFF’S RECOMMENDATION: Staff supports the Applicant’s request for Mixed Use land use because the property is located along South Congress Avenue, which is identified as an activity corridor in the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan where mixed use developments are encouraged. South Congress Avenue also has existing public transportation and is proposed for a light rail line. There is Mixed Use land uses to the north, east, south, and west of the property. The applicant proposes to build a mixed-use development with ground-floor retail with approximately 350 apartment dwelling units. The development will provide either 12% of the units affordable at 60% MFI or 10% of the units affordable at 50% MFI. The proposed development will help to meet the Austin Strategic Housing Blueprint’s goal of creating 135,000 housing units throughout the City by 2027 with 60,000 designated as affordable for households at or below 80% of medium family income (MFI). 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 22 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 EXISTING LAND USE: High Density Mixed Use - An area that is appropriate for a mix of residential and non‐residential uses with floor‐to‐area ratios of 3.0 or higher. Purpose 1. Encourage dense, pedestrian‐ oriented development in downtown, areas near downtown, and sites with exceptional transportation access; 2. Provide a transition between the central core and surrounding districts; and 3. Encourage redevelopment of sites in or near the center city. Application 1. Applicable to most mixed‐use/commercial sites in the Central Business District; 2. May be applied to other central areas, such as the Central Urban Redevelopment Area, where existing population and infrastructure can support higher‐density development; 3. May also be applied to areas outside of the central core where higher densities can be supported and neighborhood impacts are minimal; and 4. Can be used to accommodate Transit‐Oriented Development at existing or proposed transit stations. Mobile Homes (discontinued land use) Areas reserved for mobile home residence parks and mobile home subdivisions. Purpose 1. To accommodate the development of existing or planned mobile home parks. Application 1. Generally applies only to existing or proposed mobile home uses; and 2. Typically not appropriate in urban areas with limited land available for residential development. Areas of Application 1. The Mobile Home land use category is recognized in the Govalle/Johnston Terrace Combined, North Austin Civic Association, South Congress Combined, and Southeast Combined Neighborhood Plans. 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 23 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 PROPOSED LAND USE: Mixed Use - An area that is appropriate for a mix of residential and non‐residential uses. Purpose 1. Encourage more retail and commercial services within walking distance of residents; 2. Allow live‐work/flex space on existing commercially zoned land in the neighborhood; 3. Allow a mixture of complementary land use types, which may include housing, retail, offices, commercial services, and civic uses (with the exception of government offices) to encourage linking of trips; 4. Create viable development opportunities for underused center city sites; 5. Encourage the transition from non‐residential to residential uses; 6. Provide flexibility in land use standards to anticipate changes in the marketplace; 7. Create additional opportunities for the development of residential uses and affordable housing; and 8. Provide on‐street activity in commercial areas after 5 p.m. and built‐in customers for local businesses. Application 1. Allow mixed use development along major corridors and intersections; 2. Establish compatible mixed‐use corridors along the neighborhood’s edge 3. The neighborhood plan may further specify either the desired intensity of commercial uses (i.e. LR, GR, CS) or specific types of mixed use (i.e. Neighborhood Mixed Use Building, Neighborhood Urban Center, Mixed Use Combining District); 4. Mixed Use is generally not compatible with industrial development, however it may be combined with these uses to encourage an area to transition to a more complementary mix of development types; 5. The Mixed Use (MU) Combining District should be applied to existing residential uses to avoid creating or maintaining a non‐conforming use; and 6. Apply to areas where vertical mixed use development is encouraged such as Core Transit Corridors (CTC) and Future Core Transit Corridors 4 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 24 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 Yes Yes Imagine Austin Decision Guidelines Complete Community Measures Imagine Austin Growth Concept Map: Located within or adjacent to an Imagine Austin Activity Center, Imagine Austin Activity Corridor, or Imagine Austin Job Center as identified the Growth Concept Map. Name(s) of Activity Center/Activity Corridor/Job Center: • South Congress Avenue is an activity corridor Yes Mobility and Public Transit: Located within 0.25 miles of public transit stop and/or light rail station. • Bus routes along South Congress Avenue • South Congress Avenue is proposed for future light rail Yes Mobility and Bike/Ped Access: Adjoins a public sidewalk, shared path, and/or bike lane. Yes Connectivity, Good and Services, Employment: Provides or is located within 0.50 miles to goods and services, and/or employment center. Yes Connectivity and Food Access: Provides or is located within 0.50 miles of a grocery store/farmers market. • 0.5 miles from H & R Grocery, 6400 S Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78745 • 1.3 miles from Casa Grande Supermercado, 500 W William Cannon Dr #518, Austin, TX 78745 • 3.1 miles from H-E-B, 2400 S Congress Ave, Austin, TX 78704 Yes Connectivity and Education: Located within 0.50 miles from a public school or university. • 0.4 miles from Pleasant Hill Elementary School, 6405 Circle S Rd, Austin, TX 78745 Yes Connectivity and Healthy Living: Provides or is located within 0.50 miles from a recreation area, park or walking trail. • Near Pleasant Valley Creek Greenbelt No Connectivity and Health: Provides or is located within 0.50 miles of health facility (ex: hospital, urgent care, doctor’s office, drugstore clinic, and/or specialized outpatient care.) Yes Housing Affordability: Provides a minimum of 10% of units for workforce housing (80% MFI or less) and/or fee in lieu for affordable housing. Yes Housing Choice: Expands the number of units and housing choice that suits a variety of household sizes, incomes, and lifestyle needs of a diverse population (ex: apartments, triplex, granny flat, live/work units, cottage homes, and townhomes) in support of Imagine Austin and the Strategic Housing Blueprint. • Proposed for 380 apartment units Yes Mixed use: Provides a mix of residential and non-industrial uses. • Proposed for a mix of residential units and ground floor retail No Culture and Creative Economy: Provides or is located within 0.50 miles of a cultural resource (ex: library, theater, museum, cultural center). • 0.8 miles from Pleasant Hill Branch, Austin Public Library, 211 E William Cannon Dr, Austin, TX 78745 No Not known Not known Culture and Historic Preservation: Preserves or enhances a historically and/or culturally significant site. Creative Economy: Expands Austin’s creative economy (ex: live music venue, art studio, film, digital, theater.) Workforce Development, the Economy and Education: Expands the economic base by creating permanent jobs, especially in industries that are currently not represented in particular area or that promotes a new technology, and/or promotes educational 5 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 25 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 opportunities and workforce development training. Industrial Land: Preserves or enhances industrial land. No Yes Not located over the Edwards Aquifer Contributing Zone or Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone Number of “Yeses” 11 Proximity to Imagine Austin Activity Centers and Corridors 6 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 26 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 Proximity to Public Transportation 7 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 27 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 Proximity to Public Parks IMAGINE AUSTIN GROWTH CONCEPT MAP Definitions Neighborhood Centers - The smallest and least intense of the three mixed-use centers are neighborhood centers. As with the regional and town centers, neighborhood centers are walkable, bikable, and supported by transit. The greatest density of people and activities in neighborhood centers will likely be concentrated on several blocks or around one or two intersections. However, depending on localized conditions, different neighborhood centers can be very different places. If a neighborhood center is designated on an existing commercial area, such as a shopping center or mall, it could represent redevelopment or the addition of housing. A new neighborhood center may be focused on a dense, mixed-use core surrounded by a mix of housing. In other instances, new or redevelopment may occur incrementally and concentrate people and activities along several blocks or around one or two intersections. Neighborhood centers will be more locally focused than either a regional or a town center. Businesses and services—grocery and department stores, doctors and dentists, shops, branch libraries, dry cleaners, hair salons, schools, restaurants, and other small and local businesses—will generally serve the center and surrounding neighborhoods. 8 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 28 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 Town Centers - Although less intense than regional centers, town centers are also where many people will live and work. Town centers will have large and small employers, although fewer than in regional centers. These employers will have regional customer and employee bases, and provide goods and services for the center as well as the surrounding areas. The buildings found in a town center will range in size from one-to three-story houses, duplexes, townhouses, and rowhouses, to low-to midrise apartments, mixed use buildings, and office buildings. These centers will also be important hubs in the transit system. Regional Centers - Regional centers are the most urban places in the region. These centers are and will become the retail, cultural, recreational, and entertainment destinations for Central Texas. These are the places where the greatest density of people and jobs and the tallest buildings in the region will be located. Housing in regional centers will mostly consist of low to high-rise apartments, mixed use buildings, row houses, and townhouses. However, other housing types, such as single-family units, may be included depending on the location and character of the center. The densities, buildings heights, and overall character of a center will depend on its location. Activity Centers for Redevelopment in Sensitive Environmental Areas - Five centers are located over the recharge or contributing zones of the Barton Springs Zone of the Edwards Aquifer or within water-supply watersheds. These centers are located on already developed areas and, in some instances, provide opportunities to address long-standing water quality issues and provide walkable areas in and near existing neighborhoods. State-of-the-art development practices will be required of any redevelopment to improve stormwater retention and the water quality flowing into the aquifer or other drinking water sources. These centers should also be carefully evaluated to fit within their infrastructural and environmental context. Job Centers - Job centers accommodate those businesses not well-suited for residential or environmentally- sensitive areas. These centers take advantage of existing transportation infrastructure such as arterial roadways, freeways, or the Austin-Bergstrom International airport. Job centers will mostly contain office parks, manufacturing, warehouses, logistics, and other businesses with similar demands and operating characteristics. They should nevertheless become more pedestrian and bicycle friendly, in part by better accommodating services for the people who work in those centers. While many of these centers are currently best served by car, the growth Concept map offers transportation choices such as light rail and bus rapid transit to increase commuter options. Corridors - Activity corridors have a dual nature. They are the connections that link activity centers and other key destinations to one another and allow people to travel throughout the city and region by bicycle, transit, or automobile. Corridors are also characterized by a variety of activities and types of buildings located along the roadway — shopping, restaurants and cafés, parks, schools, single-family houses, apartments, public buildings, houses of worship, mixed-use buildings, and offices. Along many corridors, there will be both large and small redevelopment sites. These redevelopment opportunities may be continuous along stretches of the corridor. There may also be a series of small neighborhood centers, connected by the roadway. Other corridors may have fewer redevelopment 9 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 29 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 opportunities, but already have a mixture of uses, and could provide critical transportation connections. As a corridor evolves, sites that do not redevelop may transition from one use to another, such as a service station becoming a restaurant or a large retail space being divided into several storefronts. To improve mobility along an activity corridor, new and redevelopment should reduce per capita car use and increase walking, bicycling, and transit use. Intensity of land use should correspond to the availability of quality transit, public space, and walkable destinations. Site design should use building arrangement and open space to reduce walking distance to transit and destinations, achieve safety and comfort, and draw people outdoors. BACKGROUND: The applicant proposes to change the land use on the future land use map (FLUM) from Higher Density Single Family and Mobile Home land use to Mixed Use. The applicant proposes the change the zoning on the property from MH-NP (Mobile Home district – Neighborhood Plan) to GR-DB90-NP (Community Services district – Density Bonas 90 combining district – Neighborhood Plan) to construct a mixed use project with ground-floor retail and approximately 350 apartment units. With the DB90 combining district, 12% of the units will be affordable to people with 60% MFI or the development could provide 10% of the units at 50% of MFI for 40 years. For more information on the proposed rezoning, please see case report C14-2025-0096. PUBLIC MEETINGS: The ordinance-required community meeting was held on November 20, 2025. The recorded meeting can be found here: https://publicinput.com/neighborhoodplanamendmentcases. Approximately 570 meeting notices were mailed to people with utility accounts (renters) and property owners who live within 500 feet within the subject property, in addition to neighborhood and environmental groups who requested notification for the area. Three staff members from Austin Planning attended the meeting, Maureen Meredith, Mark Walters, and Chase Gonsoulin. Alice Glasco, the applicant’s agent attended and seven people from the neighborhood. Below are highlights from Alice Glasco’s presentation: • Property is approximately 8.03 acres • Property has been vacant for the last three years. There used to be mobile homes on the property. • The zoning request is for GR-DB90- NP. The development will have ground-floor retail, and apartments above. • Approx. 350 apartment units, 12% of the units under the DB90 ordinance would be affordable for people at 60% of MFI or 10% of the units will be at 50% MFI for 40 years. Q: We live on North Bluff Drive and would like to know how this will affect us and what will be built on the property near North Bluff Drive? Will we be able to give input on the site plan? A: The site plan has not been designed yet. The way the city process works is, you get your zoning first and then after you get the zoning, then you get a civil engineer to prepare the 10 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 210 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 plans and an architect at the same time. Yes, you will get the notice when the site plan is filed. Q: Do you know where the mobile home residents moved to? A: They moved to various locations. Q: Do you have an idea of what the rents were for those mobile home sites? Would it be possible to get that from the owner? A No, I don’t know what the rents were, but I can find out from the owner. Note: A participant in the meeting said the rents at the mobile home park were in the range $400 - $600 a month. Q: Will a traffic study be done? A: A traffic study has not been required at this time, but maybe one will be required at the time of site plan. Q: Who gets to choose if the affordable units will be at 12% at 60% of MFI or 10% at 50% of MFI? A: It is up to the developer. Q: We would like to make sure the development does not have light pollution that affects the nearby residential homes. We also want to make sure the development has commercial uses and doesn’t sit dormant for years. A: Sometimes there is an over-abundance of commercial uses or, like right now, there is an over-abundance of office spaces, so the market gets to dictate if commercial uses will be built. Q: Will there be an ingress or egress from the site onto North Bluff? A: All driveway entrances and exits will be determined by the City’s Transportation Department staff. The Fire Department likes to have two ingress and egress points, so my assumption is there will be an entrance on South Congress and an entrance from North Bluff for fire safety. However, at this point since you haven't gone through the site planning process, I really don’t know for sure. Comments: • The rents on mobile homes that were previously on the property were deeply affordable. I hope with the new apartments will also be deeply affordable units because we lost 48 affordably units when the mobile homes left. 11 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 211 of 19 Applicant Summary Letter from Application Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 12 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 212 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 13 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 213 of 19 Letter of Recommendation from the South Congress Neighborhood Plan Contact Team Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 No letter as of April 21, 2026 From: Meredith, Maureen Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2026 3:52 PM To: gsadams2003@yahoo.com; sdadams64@gmail.com; catbacon@gmail.com; balcomboone@msn.com; kittybest406@aol.com; mariocantu@atxnative.com; paulgaither@pobox.com; cynthia_gaona1@yahoo.com; keena.miller@gmail.com; achookem@aol.com; alixhorton@gmail.com; fayez@civilitude.com; rajukota@yahoo.com; george.comm@hotmail.com; Krugalug@MAIL.com; emily@emilylaytondesign.com; nlworldc@yahoo.com; jmiddleton@ieee.org; paul.m.montgomery@sbcglobal.net; walter.moreau@foundcom.org; elpattie@aol.com; jfsalinas@SBCglobal.net; alan.sears@gmail.com; vanhorn1060@att.net; zvega@austin.rr.com; klataske@gmail.com; bewhiteside@gmail.com; gregsteinberg@hotmail.com; hcurtistx@gmail.com; steven.p.apodaca@gmail.com Cc: Estrada, Nancy <Nancy.Estrada@austintexas.gov> Subject: SCC NPCT Ltr Rec?: NPA-2025-0020.04_Congress Views Importance: High Dear South Congress Combined NPCT: Cases NPA-2025-0020.04 and C14-2025-0096_6111, 6113 and 6119 S. Congress Ave (Congress Views) are on the Tuesday, April 28th Planning Commission hearing date. If your team would like to submit a letter of recommendation to be included in our staff report, please email it to me and Nancy Estrada, the zoning planner, no later than Tuesday, April 21st by 5:00 pm. If we received the letter after this date and time, we will submit it as late material to the Planning Commission. If you were unable to attend the virtual community meeting on November 20, 2025 to hear the Alice Glasco discuss her applications, the recorded meeting is here: https://publicinput.com/v11723. Please let me know if you have any questions. Maureen Maureen Meredith (she/her) Senior Planner Austin Planning 6310 Wilhelmina Delco Dr. Austin, TX 78752 512-974-2695 maureen.meredith@austintexas.gov 14 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 214 of 19 Site Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 15 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 215 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 16 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 216 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 17 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 217 of 19 Alice Glasco’s Presentation at the Community Meeting Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 18 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 218 of 19 Planning Commission: April 28, 2026 Correspondence Received No correspondence received. 19 06 NPA-2025-0020.04 - Congress Views; District 219 of 19