Betty Baker

Planning Commission chair

By David Ansel

Betty Baker is known to most Austinites as the Chair of the Planning Commission, but she spends most of her workday at the Austin Convention and Visitor Bureau (ACVB). . “Contrary to what people think, I’m not a native Austinite,” Baker wryly admits. “I was born in Georgetown and moved here before I was a year old.” Having worked in the 70’s for the Historic Landmark Commission, Baker knows Austin’s history inside and out, making her an inspired Director of Heritage Marketing and Visitor Centers. “I would almost work here free, I enjoy it so much. It’s a fantastic job, and it entails everything I’ve done for the city since 1974.”

Few Austinites are aware of the ACVB Visitor’s Center on East 2nd St., but over 65,000 visitors to the city come through its doors every year looking for information on how best to spend their time and money. “We want people to come visit, spend their money, and go home,” Baker plainly says. The ACVB markets the city for its heritage and cultural amenities. The most visible displays of their work are the banners that hang along Congress and East 6th which highlight different aspects of Austin history. Of course, their marketing efforts range far wider than that. Advertisements in Texas Monthly, Southern Living, and Reader’s Digest promote Austin in the highly competitive U.S. city tourism business. ACVB has also partnered with the Texas Department of Economic Development to advertise internationally. Tourism is the second biggest industry in Texas, and Baker notes that it is a clean industry. Austin is the fourth most visited city in the State, ahead of Ft. Worth, El Paso, Galveston, and Corpus Christi.

Baker’s passion for Austin is infectious. She describes the Smoot House on West 6th St. to be her favorite. “You can see the workmen’s fingerprints in the bricks.” Her connection to people like the Smoot family and her connection to places like that old house fuel her commitment to historic preservation. Baker is most proud of her work with the Sheeks-Robertson House at 6th and West Lynn. The house was left ruined with a leaking roof and floorboards torn away for firewood. It was left in a litigious will to nonprofits such as an orphanage and a religious assembly. Putting together a deal that would satisfy all parties and preserve the property was arduous. She said, “When you’re dealing with orphans and God, it’s not easy.”

Complementing Baker’s work at ACVB is her work on the Planning Commission. “Austin is such a grand city. I know we’re doing an excellent job marketing it, and I hope we also do a good job protecting it.” There’s pragmatism in Baker’s approach to protecting Austin, a balancing of idealism and realism. She lives in a south Austin neighborhood and, like all her fellow citizens, wants its fabric to be preserved. “If I didn’t want it next door to me, I wouldn’t want it next door to everyone else.” On the other hand, she wants to be realistic about how neighborhoods should be balanced. Referring to several neighborhood plans, “You have the idealism of neighborhoods that everything should be residential. The realism is that it cannot be. Somewhere between idealism and realism, the planning commission council can find the right compromise. I don’t want Austin to get to the point that there are no neighborhood grocery stores, banks, dry cleaners. Otherwise, we’ll be contributing even more to the pollution and construction of the city.”

Striking the idealism/realism balance has been hard work for the Planning Commission with respect to the Bennett Tract. Baker is optimistic about the outcome of the negotiations. “I think the committee spent lots of hours considering it, and listened to lots of dialogue. Things were weighed very carefully, and there are several alternatives for the future of the tract.” Addressing the neighborhood, Baker warned, “Be careful what you pray for, because your prayers might be answered. If the neighborhood’s requests become unreasonable or not economically feasible, the developer will go away. The next person who comes and looks at the tract may not be quite as cooperative.” Referring to the developer of the tract, she said, “ Riata has certainly gone the second mile.”

Baker feels that Austin’s biggest problem is the rapidity of its growth. “I think we’re going to have to bite the bullet in some arenas where we’d rather not go, such as roadways and mass transit. People are coming here and working here, though they may not be living here. Things are going to get more hectic unless we do those things. We can’t all live downtown. We’ve got to coexist.”

In her spare time, Baker likes to read and travel. She has one daughter, two grandsons and one great-grandson.

Downtown Commission wants city

To build pedestrian-friendly garage

City officials deny having selected final site

By Doug McLeod

Last week, the Downtown Commission agreed to send a letter to city staff expressing serious concern about a proposal to build a non-pedestrian-friendly facility in an area that they say desperately needs to be not just friendly but inviting to pedestrians.

The project at issue is the Convention Center parking garage and district chilling plant. The proposed location sparking the Commission’s reaction is Block 38, bounded by Red River Street and Sabine Street between East Fourth and Fifth Streets.

Vice Chair Chris Riley, who drafted the memo, said, “You couldn’t really pick a worse block to do this on.” Considering where the Convention Center is located, pedestrians would have no choice but to walk along that block, and “it’s going to be a very unfriendly place to be walking,” he said.

The memo to Assistant City Manager Roger Chan states “An inviting pedestrian environment is especially critical on Block 38, which is located directly between the Waller Creek Greenway and the future site of the Convention Center Hotel.”

The memo continues, “Preliminary plans indicated that the district energy plant would occupy almost one-third of the block, with no room for retail at the ground level. One entire side of the block, and much of each adjacent side, would have no human activity at all.” Riley is also president of the Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association.

Chair Robert Knight noted that exhaust blowing from the cooling plant would add to the unpleasantness pedestrians would experience. “The concern is this is a freight train going down the track and nobody’s been able to stop it,” he said. Thus, he noted, it’s important to “get on record that we’ve got some very serious concerns.”

Such a project would actually be going against city ordinances and the advice of numerous consultants, Riley said, so “it seems incumbent on us to point it out.” He said he wanted to tell the City Council to pick some alternate sites.

Originally Riley wanted to send the letter to Mayor Kirk Watson and the City Council, but the Commission agreed it would be best to tread more lightly by sending it to Chan first and wait for his response.

Riley told his fellow commissioners the city was “moving pell-mell forward” on plans without getting public input. “I couldn’t even get a review of plans by the architect because Roger Chan wouldn’t allow it,” he said.

Chan told In Fact Daily Friday the issue was moot because a site had not yet been chosen for the facility. “We don’t have a site yet,” he said. “I’ve tried to plead to them to be patient,” he said of the Commission.

He said the site at Red River and Sabine was a possibility, but his staff was still looking for an appropriate location. “We’ve not been able to secure anything.” As of midday Friday, he had not yet received the letter from the Commission, he said.

In the letter, the Commission says the group believes that the city intends to condemn the block in order to construct the parking garage and district energy plant. However, Sue Edwards, director of Redevelopment Services, told the Commission, “We’re not going to condemn for the site.” She said the city lost a lawsuit on that issue and condemnation was not an option.

The city is looking for alternate sites, she said, adding that she had come to the meeting on Chan’s behalf. Chan has not yet addressed the Commission because there is no definite plan, she explained.

Edwards said she agreed with Riley that pedestrian traffic was of vital importance. “We’re the city and we put forth those ideas because we think it’s important,” she said.

The memo to Chan points out a section of the City Code that specifically refers to the situation at issue. “City ordinances address this area in particular by establishing a Convention Center Overlay District, one purpose of which is ‘to promote pedestrian activity and vitality in the Convention Center area.’ (25-2-166(A). To that end, regulations for this district state that a commercial off-site parking use must be separated at ground level from an adjacent street by an enclosed space designed for a pedestrian-oriented use. (25-2-644).”

“We need to work on improving the pedestrian environment,” Riley said Wednesday’s meeting, noting that it was the one thing the R/UDAT 2000 report said Austin really needed to improve.

“As the (City) Council knows,” the memo states, “a great deal of planning in recent years has emphasized the importance of encouraging pedestrian activity downtown. The R/UDAT reports, the Downtown Design Guidelines, and even City ordinances underscore the need to improve our pedestrian environment.” The 2000 R/UDAT report, “Creating a Great Downtown,” explained this “urgent need” as follows:

First, Downtown (stet) needs to focus on the overall quality of the pedestrian experience. Both consultants were very clear that the most important priority now is improving the pedestrian environment . . . If the new workers, visitors, convention delegates, and residents don’t use downtown on foot, then the potential for increased economic activity is limited. So it is not just a design concern; it is a basic economic concern . . . if the environment tends to inhibit pedestrian activity, then there will be lower traffic, sales, attendance, etc . . . [M]ost (stet) of Downtown (stet) has increasingly beautiful buildings in an increasingly unsatisfactory public streetscape.

©2001 In Fact News, Inc. All rights reserved.

Neighborhoods conference deadline Friday . . . This Friday is the deadline to sign up for the City of Austin Neighborhoods Conference, to be held on June 9 at the LBJ Auditorium. City Council Members are expected to kick off the event, which will include workshops on networking among neighborhood members, guest speakers and the “ Neighbor of the Year” awards ceremony. For more information, call 499-2856 . . . New City Hall design on display . . . The updated model of the new municipal building will be on display through May 16 at 101 W. 5th Street. For more information and viewing hours, visit http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/cityhall/rschedule.htm . . . Elfant’s annual Ice Cream Social coming . . . Pct. 5 Constable Bruce Elfant will host his 9th annual ice cream social Sunday, May 20, at the AFL-CIO Auditorium from 3 to 5 p.m. This year, proceeds will go to Kids Exchange and Open Door, as well as to the Democrat’s re-election campaign . . . Marriott North at Round Rock opening . . . Marriott International is opening a 295-room property at 2600 La Frontera in Round Rock this afternoon. The hotel features 14,000 square feet of executive meeting space and ballroom, business center and the other amenities of a full-service hotel. Don Martin Public Affairs is in charge of press relations.