Downtown Austin Plan

Downtown Austin Plan

History

On December 12, 2005, the Austin City Council approved a resolution authorizing the development of a Downtown Austin Plan. The original boundaries of the Downtown Austin Plan were set as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on the north, IH-35 on the east, Town Lake on the south, and the west side of Lamar on the west.

A nation-wide request for qualifications was issued for a design team to lead the project. In October 2006, the ROMA Design Team was selected. In May 2007, Phase One of the Downtown Plan commenced.

On February 14, 2008, City Council received a presentation from the ROMA Design Group on Phase One of the Downtown Austin Plan. No formal action was taken by Council; however, direction was given to staff to expand the Phase One geographic transit analysis.

The Phase One report is designed to identify the challenges and opportunities facing downtown and to set the priorities for Phase Two, where the actual plan will be developed in detail. The Phase One report is broken into four parts:

• Physical Form and Place: Evaluate forming districts to help guide downtown development and encourage the use of density bonuses as predictable development regulations.
• Sustainability and Mobility: Improve regional and downtown mobility, as well as sidewalk, bicycle lane, and parking options. Increase focus on utility and infrastructure sustainability and improvement.
• Economic Viability: Encourage businesses to office downtown. Expand Austin's music market and encourage the development of more downtown retail areas. Involve UT and state government in utilizing all land effectively and in planning future downtown development
• Affordability and Diversity: Improve incentive programs, develop master plan for downtown affordable housing, identify potential tax credit programs, and public land to be dedicated for affordable developments.

The necessity for and magnitude of additional Phase Two funding will depend on Council's decisions with respect to Phase Two priorities. Planning services conducted pursuant to an approved amendment to the service agreement will be provided in two tiers, and will include:

Tier One:

• Review and analysis of prior transit studies
• Conduct a two-day transportation workshop examining mobility both within and outside of Downtown
• Develop an evaluation matrix including criteria issues such as transit mobility, bike, pedestrian, and vehicular circulation, as well as cost
  
• Analysis of transit "value capture" potential
  
• Downtown transportation options report
  
• Presentation to CAMPO Transit Working Group

Tier Two (to be conducted after the CAMPO Transit Working Group makes decisions on preferred routes and technology):

• More detailed cost analyses for the preferred routes and technologies

Council's direction on February 14, 2008 to conduct planning work outside the project boundaries triggered the need for an amendment to the service agreement. ROMA's work in this supplemental amendment will be tied directly to the CAMPO Transit Working Group's efforts to promote rail transit. On Thursday, February 28, 2008, the Austin City Council approved the negotiation and execution of an amendment to the professional services agreement with ROMA Design Group to provide additional transit planning services outside the original scope of the Downtown Austin Plan, in an amount not to exceed $250,000. The additional services and action items will include evaluating rail options in the downtown area extending to Mueller, the airport, 7th Street, Pleasant Valley, and Zilker Park. Go to RECA's Austin Urban Rail Corridors web page for more information about current proposals and to read about ROMA's proposal for a 14-mile light rail or "ultra" light rail route. Go to RECA's Inner City Rail web page for Capital Metro's street car plan.

Funding in the amount of $600,000 was approved for the original Plan, which was to be conducted in two phases. Funding for Phase One in the amount of approximately $250,000 resulted in the recommendations that were presented to Council on February 14, 2008. The remaining funding of approximately $350,000 was allocated for Phase Two, which will provide an implementation strategy of the recommendations identified in Phase One. Approval of this amendment will allocate $250,000  for transit, and therefore, approximately $100,000 will remain for other services in Phase Two.

The Austin City Council unanimously voted to begin Phase II of the Downtown Austin Plan on Thursday, March 12, 2009. This authorization will allow the Phase II services to build on the studies, findings, and preliminary strategies proposed as part of the Phase I effort. The Phase II effort will be organized into six principal tasks and will result in an overall Downtown Austin Plan and Implementation Program, as well as a Downtown Parks and Open Space Master Plan, and two District-specific plans. It is expected that the ROMA Design Team will present a document to the Council in the summer of 2010.

The six tasks are:

• Policy Analysis and Draft Recommendations
• District Goals, Objectives, Issues, and Priorities (for all Downtown districts)
• Parks and Open Space Master Plan
• District-specific Plans (for two districts)
• Downtown Austin Plan and Implementation Program
• Final Plan Documentation

As part of Phase One of the Downtown Plan, the Austin City Council asked the ROMA consultants to provide recommendations for creating Downtown districts, and creating district goals, objectives, priorities, and addressing district-specific issues. At a Town Hall meeting on Saturday, October 10, 2009, ROMA unveiled the following proposed seven Downtown districts:

• Waterfront/Core District – This is the largest potential Downtown district, made up of Congress Avenue, Sixth Street, and the waterfront. Along with the designation of 14.7 million square feet in potential development, ROMA also set other goals, such as restoration of the city’s original squares, encouraging a better mix of ground-level uses, and encouraging live-music venues.
• Northwest District – This is one of Austin’s first residential neighborhoods of Austin, and the goal will be to preserve neighborhood characteristics, while promoting mid-rise development that is compatible with older residential buildings. About one million square fee of additional space has been identified for potential development.
• Uptown/Capitol District – This section of downtown is largely state-owned land, and ROMA envisions at least six million square feet of development potential. This district is unique in that it has an abundance of parking, mainly state-owned garages to the east of the Capitol. The key changes to the district would be streetscape improvements, more open spaces, a broader diversity of uses beyond office space, and mid-rise development along Congress heading north towards the Capitol. 
• Market/Lamar District – This area presents many opportunities, given the growth of the Lamar corridor, but also many challenges given its proximity to the Old West Austin neighborhood. ROMA identified 1.4 million square feet of development potential, with an emphasis on mixed-use buildings that focus on ground level shops, pedestrian activity, and orientation towards Shoal Creek, where applicable. 
• Lower Shoal Creek District – This district a higher-density district along Shoal Creek and the Lady Bird Lake waterfront that includes current developments such as Austin City Lofts, the Monarch, and Spring. The district would also extend over to the Seaholm redevelopment and new library site. ROMA envisions an additional three million square feet in development. Access and mobility is a key concern in this area, especially the lack of a grid and the discontinuation of various streets towards the lake. The Seaholm and Green developments will need to address the connectivity of the street grid, as well as the inclusion of the Lance Armstrong bikeway route and transit into the plan.
• Waller Creek District - A separate planning process is already underway for Waller Creek that would free up land not being used because it sits in a flood plain. ROMA envisions 7.6 million square feet of development that includes a mix of public and private land. The district should include a mix of higher density buildings that do not obstruct Capitol view corridors, open spaces, potential affordable housing projects, centralized parking, cultural spaces, and superior bicycle and pedestrian routes that enhance the creek-side experience.
• Rainey Street District – This district has already experienced intense redevelopment as it transitions from a downtown single-family neighborhood to a Commercial Business District with condos, restaurants, and bars. ROMA identified just under three million additional square feet of development potential, assuming the district can address infrastructure challenges, such as roadways, utilities, and a lack of connectivity to downtown, the Convention Center, and Palm Park.

Also, as part of Phase One of the Downtown Austin Plan, the City Council asked the ROMA consultants to provide recommendations about the potential for a Downtown density bonus program, as well as recommendations for a Downtown affordable housing strategy. These recommendations have gone through one round of public input, and based on feedback, ROMA consultants presented revised density bonus recommendations and affordable housing recommendations on July 6, 2009. RECA's letter with preliminary recommendations was sent to City Council and ROMA Design Group in August 2009. Click here for RECA's final recommendation.

On Tuesday, December 8, 2009, the Planning Commission postponed a trio of items regarding Downtown development recommendations after taking more than two hours of testimony. In addition to the density bonus recommendations and affordable housing recommendations, the Commission postponed the Central Urban Redevelopment (CURE) overlay amendment. CURE zoning is available for redevelopment that seeks to promote the stability of neighborhoods in the central city. Commissioners revisited these items at their meeting on January 12, 2010, and determined that they needed to review them in much more detail before making a recommendation.

The Planning Commission asked City Council for an additional six months to host a series of stakeholder meetings pertaining to different aspects of the proposed density bonus plan. Council granted the Commission’s request, and those meetings began in February 2010 and continued through May 2010. Based on feedback from the stakeholder meetings, the Planning Commission made a series of recommendations on the Downtown density bonus plan to Council in June 2010.

On Wednesday, November 17, 2010, Austin City Council members received a briefing on a final draft of the Downtown Austin Plan at a special-called meeting. City staff in conjunction with the consultant team of McCann Adams Studios and HR&A Advisors unveiled the downtown plan and detailed their vision for the next 10 years in downtown Austin development. Following a Town Hall meeting in December 2010, the draft plan was presented to nine City Boards and Commissions from January through April 2011.

December 2011 Update

In April 2011, RECA submitted a letter to the Planning Commission stating a position on specific aspects of the DAP and listing recommended changes. RECA is requesting the following modifications to the DAP:

• RECA is opposed to eliminating CURE as a zoning option for downtown. Instead of eliminating CURE, RECA supports the collaborative position taken by RECA, HousingWorks, Urban Land Institute, and the Austin Area Research Organization in the "Building and Retaining an Affordable Austin" report (BRAA report) issued in June 2010. The position on which all organizations agreed states that "CURE zoning should remain as a zoning tool; however, in order to support afford­able housing, it should be modified to match the downtown (or other particular area) density incentive affordability program but also have provisions allowing City Council to alter those requirements in its discretion."
• Fees-in-lieu paid by developers to support affordable housing and/or other community benefits should be assessed not only on residential development projects, but also com­mercial and mixed-use developments receiving density bonuses or incentives. 
• Fees-in-lieu paid on downtown developments should be prioritized for (1) downtown affordability; (2) affordable housing within a two-mile radius of downtown; (3) Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs); and, finally, (4) Vertical Mixed-Use projects on Core Transit Corridors.
• The Affordable Housing Incentives Task Force should be reconvened to address multifamily incentives outside of downtown and to help resolve remaining inconsistencies between city density bonus and incentive programs.

RECA advocated for its position in advance of the Austin City Council's Thursday, November 3, 2011 meeting. At that meeting after nearly six years of debate, Council approved the Downtown Austin Plan (DAP) on first reading only.

The main issue surrounding the DAP concerns Central Urban Redevelopment (CURE) zoning. Some advocates asked that CURE zoning remain intact as a tool to promote downtown density, while others asked that it no longer be used. Opponents of CURE believe it does not do enough to promote downtown housing. The Council approved the following first reading amendments:

• Replace CURE with a modified zoning tool that will provide "CURE-like flexibility" for sites downtown. This new zoning tool will allow an applicant to either pursue administrative approval for their site by including fee-in-lieu for affordable housing or on-site affordable housing as prescribed by the density bonus program, or the applicant can go before Council and demonstrate the monetized community benefits the applicant will provide in the project that are equal to affordable housing benefits. RECA advocated for a similar position in its comments to Council. 
• Under the density bonus program, the bonuses awarded for any three or more bedroom units shall be granted only when those units conform to established affordability targets for downtown.
• Modify the density bonus program to allow a fee-in-lieu for open spaces.
• Adjust density bonus requirements for non-residential projects depending on evolving market conditions.
• Protect the character of historical properties that seek density bonuses.
• Direct staff to explore modifications to restrictive height limitations in the Warehouse District (Council Members Morrison, Spelman, and Kathie Tovo voted against this amendment).
• Direct staff to explore other creative mechanisms for supporting affordable housing downtown.
• Direct staff to explore ways to encourage non-cocktail lounge uses in downtown entertainment districts.
  

On Thursday, December 8, 2011, Council approved the amended DAP on final reading. The DAP includes the downtown area bounded by Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the north, Lady Bird Lake to the south, Interstate 35 to the east, and Lamar Boulevard to the west. The plan outlines zoning changes in the urban core, infrastructure and transportation improvements, and an economic development corporation that would focus on implementing certain components of the plan and being a proactive resource for downtown development. Additionally, the plan calls for increased pedestrian activity, better parks and open spaces, tighter regulations on cocktail lounges regarding conditional-use permits, introducing form-based code zoning to downtown, preserving the warehouse district, and replacing CURE zoning, as described above.

The price tag to implement the plan could be as high as $350 million broken down into the following eight components: historic preservation; affordable housing; creative culture; parks; streetscapes; transportation; utility and infrastructure; and leadership and implementation. The DAP does not include recommendations for how to raise that money, but options could include new fees, issuing bonds, or forming partnerships with private firms.

In addition to passing the plan, the City also launched "Downtown Austin Connects," an awareness campaign dedicated to implementing the vision of the DAP. Downtown Austin Connects outlines several connections provided by a vibrant downtown, connections such as education and research; technology and health care; commuters and employers; families and parks; and artists and audiences. This community awareness effort builds on the Plan’s adoption tying together the many planning efforts that have taken place over the last several years. Those plans call for collaboration among a wide set of partners. Downtown Austin Connects is a collaborative effort of the City of Austin, the Downtown Austin Alliance, the Texas Facilities Commission, the University of Texas, and the Seton Healthcare Family.

Resources

Downtown Austin Plan Approved by Austin City Council (December 8, 2011)

Downtown Austin Plan final draft (November 2010)

RECA's Final Recommendation on the July 6, 2009 recommendations (September 2009)

Density Bonus preliminary recommendations (May 11, 2009)

Affordable Housing preliminary recommendations (May 11, 2009)

Draft Transportation Framework Plan (November 25, 2008)

Streetcar Proposal Presentation (July 24, 2008)

Downtown Austin Plan: Phase One Report (revised February 14, 2008 draft)

Downtown Austin Plan Website

Downtown Condominum Study by Charles Heimsath, Capitol Market Research (April 2, 2008)