Board rejects restaurant’s parking variance

South Congress Café’s request opposed by neighborhoods, adjacent business

The Board of Adjustment on Monday night rejected a parking variance request for the South Congress Café. The owners of the restaurant at 1600 S. Congress Ave. made the request after adding a deck to the back of the building, increasing the usable square footage and triggering a requirement for more parking in the crowded area.

Members of the Bouldin Creek Neighborhood Association and the South River City Citizens came out to oppose the variance for the restaurant, which was in a legal battle with the City of Austin last year after the deck and the surrounding fence were constructed without a permit (See In Fact Daily, Sept. 29, 2005). But the city and Trudy’s Texas Star, Inc., which owns the café, reached a settlement agreement in that case giving the company until June 2 to bring the restaurant into compliance or remove the offending structures.

As part of the effort to secure compliance, the owners requested the parking variance. “I’ll be the first to admit, mistakes were made in how this got to you,” said attorney Richard Suttle, who represented the business. “My client, they’re good at running restaurants, but they’re not good at fishing through the city code. They hired a deck builder who said there’s a provision in the code that you don’t have to have a site plan for a deck, and sure enough, there is,” he explained. “But if you’re building a deck and you’re going to put seats on it and it’s going to be part of your restaurant, you trigger a lot of other things.”

He argued that the business deserved a variance to make up for the overall lack of parking in the neighborhood, that the owners were limited in changes they could make to the building itself because of its historic nature, and that the space behind the restaurant would otherwise be unusable. “If you deny this variance, he’s either got to find another way to keep the deck and fence, or you’re saying that he’s got two to three thousand square feet of land that the city is not going to let him use. He can’t pave it reasonably and he can’t put an open-air deck out there.”

One adjacent business owner urged the board to reject the parking variance request. “The South Congress Café site is just plain and simple over-developed,” said attorney Nikelle Meade, who represented nearby Allen’s Boots. “The result is that there’s no loading and unloading, there’s no parking, and trucks park in the middle of Monroe Street or park in my client’s parking lot, which makes it difficult for his customers to reach his facility.” She also discounted Suttle’s claim that his clients were ignorant of the city code when the deck was built. “They have five restaurants that I can count,” she said. “So for them to argue they didn’t know there was a parking issue in the code that they needed to look at is pretty absurd.”

Neighbors were even more severe in their criticism of the restaurant. “The South Congress Café has exhibited really flagrant and willful disregard for the city building procedures and ordinances,” said Kathie Tovo. “We ask you to send a strong message that the city takes the health and welfare of its citizens seriously, and hold these developers accountable for disregarding city ordinances.”

Board members found very little in Suttle’s arguments to persuade them. “I find the way this was done offensive to the city of Austin and to the neighbors,” said Board Member Herman Thun. “I really do.”

But Suttle stressed that the deck and the eight-foot fence had been built without bad intent. “I’m convinced that they didn’t just try to go build it first and ask for forgiveness later,” he said. The company had experienced changes in management during the period when the deck was being built, he said, reminding the board that the owners had relied upon advice from the contractor who built the deck. “I originally thought this is one of those things where they ask forgiveness instead of permission, but as I dug through it I’m convinced that’s not the case.”

The board voted 5-0 to reject the variance. But that will not mean the deck will be removed. Since the settlement agreement gives the owners until the beginning of June to bring the site into compliance, they are also working on several other alternatives.

One of those involves securing an off-site parking agreement with another property owner in the area. The other involves securing a license agreement from the City for a portion of the fence and landscaping that are in the city-owned right-of-way. Suttle said talks on both of those agreements were in progress, and if they are completed in time the restaurant would be allowed to keep the deck.

Planning Commission backs moratorium

Ordinance comes back to Council tonight; task force to be named to study issue

The Planning Commission has given its approval to the interim ordinance limiting the size of new and remodeled homes in older neighborhoods, but with the caveat that the Council’s proposed task force should take up a list of broader issues surrounding the problem of big houses on small lots.

The commission also recommended adding duplexes to the moratorium. Council Member Betty Dunkerley said Wednesday that she, Lee Leffingwell and Brewster McCracken would recommend that change to the rest of the Council today.

It was a case of déjà vu for anyone who was at last week’s Council meeting. Department directors Greg Guernsey and Joe Pantalion offered essentially the same presentation that was made last week. And while the crowd was more heavily weighted toward neighborhood concerns on Tuesday, many of the speakers were the same ones who offered comments to Council. In fact, very little new ground was trod during the Planning Commission meeting.

What was different, however, was the Planning Commission’s own efforts to tackle McMansions. A commission subcommittee has hashed and rehashed the issues related to overly large houses and dormitory-style residences in single-family neighborhoods. That’s probably why commissioners were more vocal on issues such as the inclusion of duplexes along with single-family uses in the interim ordinance.

Chair Chris Riley said he feared that developers, faced with single-family use limitations, would turn to duplexes in the same zoning category to maximize investment.

When the time came for a final vote, Commissioner Dave Sullivan said he would feel more comfortable outlining a list of study issues raised by both the audience and commission members. He ticked off a quick list he considered relevant for discussion: potential impervious cover limit changes; floor-to-area-ratio options in neighborhood plans; use of floor area to footprint as a metric for compatibility; higher drainage fees in older areas; utility efficiency of larger structures; stepping back the height of the structure relative to lot size; prohibition of mechanical equipment in side yards; new compatibility standards triggered by the size of a house, such as garage placement behind the house in larger homes; and, as Riley recommended, tools to handle such issues in areas of the city without established neighborhood plans.

Commissioner Matt Moore added a study proposal to direct density to particular areas of the city, saying that it has always been the Planning Commission’s goal to support density in the inner city and that the group should be more proactive on the issue. The commission approved the full list of recommended issues unanimously, although Riley noted that the list was not an indication that the group supported each and every measure.

Once that list of recommended issues was approved, it was easier for the commission to approve the Council’s recommended interim ordinance. Commissioner Cid Galindo, the member most vocal about the ordinance not going far enough, was the lone vote against the ordinance. Others noted his concern but agreed to vote for it to move the process forward, agreeing that more could be done.

For his part, Galindo proposed replacing the city’s proposed limitations and, instead, tying limitations on construction to either 40 percent impervious cover or a floor to building footprint ratio of 2.5-to-1. Commissioners, uncertain what the impact of the new proposal might be on current and pending development, declined to support the motion, although the group was open to further discussion and study of the proposals.

The moratorium is supposed to be tied to use rather than zoning category, but Guernsey noted that some single-family zoning categories actually limit development to less than 40 percent impervious cover. Jean Mather, a commissioner on the Historic Landmark Commission and co-president of the South River City Citizens organization, said she, as an architect, would prefer to see 30 percent, or optimally 25 percent, on a lot.

The Council will take up the moratorium on second and third reading after 6pm tonight, along with the appointment of a 13-member task force to study the issue. The subcommittee will consists six members of the development community, including representatives from, the Homebuilders Association, the Real Estate Council of Austin, the American Institute of Architects, a remodeler, a land use planner and an at-large member. Also on the panel will be one member of the Austin Neighborhoods Council, five neighborhood representatives, and one member of the Austin Heritage Society.

©2006 In Fact News, Inc. All rights reserved.

May kickoff tonight . . . Eliza May will have a party to celebrate the official kickoff of her campaign beginning at 5:30pm tonight at Juan in a Million, 2300 E. Cesar Chavez. May’s campaign manager, Stephanie Hale, said the Place 2 candidate would file documents to get a spot on the ballot on Friday. Two other candidates, Mike Martinez and Hector Uribe, have said they would also make a run for the seat being vacated by Council Member Raul Alvarez. Alvarez, who has served two terms, decided not to run for re-election because he would have been required to collect signatures of 10 percent of the city’s voters in order to do so . . . Mitchell heading up pro-charter amendment PAC . . . Longtime SOS Alliance supporter Kirk Mitchell designated ACLU activist Kathy Mitchell—no relation—as treasurer of the Clean Water Clean Government PAC. SOS Executive Director Bill Bunch is the assistant treasurer. 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