Geology takes center stage in Judge’s Hill zoning case

Some Judges’ Hill neighbors are spooked about a proposed redevelopment near 15th and Lamar and very near a geologic feature implicated in several landslides along Shoal Creek in recent years. But so far, the city seems to think they’re just seeing ghosts.

In a unanimous vote, the Planning Commission recommended rezonings at 1501, 1507, 1509, 1511, 1601 and 1603 Shoal Creek Boulevard as requested by Shoal Creek Development, LLC, overruling a formal petition of protest and testimony from a professor of geotechnical engineering. The petition, which is signed by almost 44 percent of eligible neighbors, demands support from a supermajority of the Planning Commission and City Council to change the zoning.

“This is a really great spot for condo building,” said Commissioner Greg Anderson, who introduced the motion to approve the applicant’s request.

While neighbors voiced complaints at the meeting and in comments submitted with the petition over common issues like traffic safety and parking capacity, the main driver of opposition to the rezoning is mineral. The site sits along the bottom, or toe, of a ridge of Buda limestone laid over Del Rio clay that is highly vulnerable to erosion.

Sites along that ridge have seen collapses in recent years.

In 2018, the Pease Park landslide, further north on the other side of the creek but on the same kind of soil, claimed much of several homes’ backyards, destroyed over 400 feet of trail and came within a few feet of taking the houses down with it.

Bob Gilbert, a professor of geotechnical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin who said he had worked on slopes specifically for 32 years, pointed to a range of other examples including the collapse of an apartment complex near Barton Springs in 1972 that is still taught in geological engineering classes at UT and another recent collapse on Poplar Street in his comments against the rezoning.

“What happens naturally, is the creek cuts into the Del Rio clay at the toe, it removes the toe, the clay spreads out, and the Buda limestone behind it fails,” Gilbert said. “That process has been going on for centuries, for thousands of years along Shoal Creek. We — man — have accelerated that process.”

However grave the worst-case consequences of a redevelopment might be, though, the scope of the rezoning itself is relatively modest.

The applicant is asking that the land, which is broken into two tracts for zoning purposes, both gain a V, or vertical mixed-use, combining district, and the smaller of the two tracts also receive a MU or mixed-use combining district.

However, both tracts are already in an overlay that grants them both an ETOD, or Equitable Transit-Oriented Development, district type and a newer DBETOD, or Density Bonus Equitable Transit-Oriented Development type, both of which include programs for relatively tall and dense development.

Leah Bojo, speaking as an agent on behalf of the applicant with Drenner Group, said those changes are intended to help the owner redevelop according to the spirit those district types were created to support.

“We’d be replacing 14 units with 15 affordable units approximately, plus all of the market rates that would go with it. Approximately a hundred and ten market rate units,” Bojo said. “So, I think this is exactly what the ETOD is intending to do.”

The site is within a quarter mile of stops for the 5 and the 18 bus lines.

Alongside those changes, the applicant is also seeking an exemption from the ground-floor commercial space requirement that exists under the DBETOD, citing the nature of that portion of Shoal Creek Boulevard as a “slip street” that runs parallel to Lamar, a more commercially-viable thoroughfare more likely to receive foot traffic.

Paul Gosselink, the vice president of the Judges’ Hill Neighborhood Association, spoke against the rezoning at the hearing. He said the neighborhood wasn’t opposed to development per se, but to this project in particular.

“The first thing I want to emphasize, and this is really important: we are not opposed to condominiums or apartments in this location,” Gosselink said. “We are concerned about the potential problems caused by this particular project as proposed.”

City staff endorsed the rezoning in their report. Nancy Estrada of the planning department said in a presentation on the case during the meeting that the city recognized neighbors’ concerns, and had put them in touch with the Watershed Protection Department.

She noted that the city had rejected an initial request from developers to change the base zoning district on the second tract to GR, or General Commercial, due to concerns about the increased impervious cover limits that that base district would bring.

However, she also said that the city typically reviews what, in planning jargon, are called Critical Environmental Features like these at the level of site plan, where a property owner actually proposes a specific development.

Commissioner Casey Haney posed a question to Gilbert on the feasibility of engineering around the danger posed by the slope’s weakness, and Gilbert conceded that it would likely be possible, albeit with “significant engineering and significant costs.”

In a rebuttal to the commentary from neighbors, Bojo emphasized that the plans for the development are not fixed and are likely to change, and that the owner has committed to doing a geotechnical engineering survey done before the zoning gets to council for final approval.

“There’s sort of an order to things that goes on here,” she said. “I’m always reluctant to show preliminary designs because people kind of get focused on them, and the reality is, they will absolutely change.”