Austin, Monitored: UNO postponed and other planning oddities

CommUnityCare announces new CEO following leadership conflict with Central Health

From Olivia Aldridge, KUT News:

With the hiring announcement, the two organizations signaled they had come to a common understanding of their complex working partnership, which some 134,000 patients in the Austin area rely on for affordable medical care.

Dr. Nicholas Yagoda served as CommUnityCare’s interim CEO for several months before accepting the permanent position at the unanimous recommendation of the CUC board of directors. He previously served as chief medical officer for the organization. He will also hold a position with Central Health as its first executive vice president of ambulatory services — a role intended to help with streamlining operations across Central Health’s various outpatient clinical offerings and partnerships.

City to postpone UNO vote to consult with UT

From Chad Swiatecki:

A vote on a long-debated plan to allow taller buildings and expanded development in the University Neighborhood Overlay district has been postponed until the fall, pushing back the move to add student housing capacity near the University of Texas.

The delay is intended to let city staff “formally meet with the leadership of the University of Texas at Austin (UT) to understand the university’s challenges, concerns, and context that frames their issues.”

Sometimes zoning is strange. That’s the headline this week from the Austin’s Planning Commission, which discussed and voted on some zoning cases with unusual elements.

An Oddball Dispatch from the Planning Commission

The first case dealt with The Acre, a former human daycare turned doggy daycare at 6201 Crow Lane in the Sweetbriar neighborhood of South Austin. The owners want the city to change the zoning from the current LO-MU-NP, or limited office, mixed-use neighborhood plan, to LR-MU-CO-NP, or neighborhood commercial, mixed-use conditional overlay neighborhood plan, mostly because under the current zoning their business is technically illegal. City backup documents about the case mention an “active land use code violation.” The key changes there are limited office (LO) to neighborhood commercial (LR), which expands the range of commercial uses for a property significantly, and an added conditional overlay, which would impose restrictions to bring that range of uses way back down while still allowing for the needed category of “animal services.”

Katherine Nicely, who spoke at the meeting on behalf of the owner/applicant, hinted at troubles with the homeowner’s association of nearby condominium development, Skybridge Lofts, which she said sent a letter to the city about purported issues with dogs kenneled at The Acre. Nicely seemed to dismiss those concerns.

“We did have one neighbor who didn’t realize that it was a commercial-zoned property. She thought it was a home,” Nicely said. “So, that made me think she’s never heard the dogs before.”

However, the primary speaker against the zoning, James Yoshida, had more tragic reasons for opposing the rezoning. He said The Acre lost his family dog, Wendy, last summer, and reported him missing a day after he had been spotted at the apartment complex across the street. After an 11 day search, Yoshida found Wendy dead on the side of the road.

“I believe the owners’ lack of ethical standards led to the death of our family dog,” Yoshida said. “As such, I believe further rezoning the property endangers the pets already boarded there, further disrupts nearby communities and validates the owners’ pattern on noncompliance.”

Yoshida and other speakers against the rezoning also referenced complaints filed to the city about code compliance that were investigated and closed without action before the property was actually cited.

After initially moving to adopt the staff recommendation on the item, Chair Awais Azhar changed course after several commissioners, including Danielle Skidmore and Adam Powell, said they couldn’t stomach voting yes. Instead, he made a substitute motion to postpone to June 10, which passed unanimously.

The second case discussed concerned a rezoning to support an “adaptive reuse” project called Waverly North, which would see a plot of land at 3710 Cedar Street in the North University neighborhood that holds a former home for Confederate widows redeveloped as multifamily apartments. The actual zoning change would be from SF-3-H-NCCD-NP, or family residence, historic, neighborhood conservation combining district neighborhood plan, to the same but with MF-4, or “multifamily residence-moderate-high,” in place of SF-3.

The property currently holds both a historic structure, the Confederate Woman’s Home, and a non-historic structure previously used as housing for the elderly by a nonprofit called Austin Groups for the Elderly. The prospective developer, O-SDA Industries, plans to buy the property by next year. The non-historic building technically has different zoning because it is not a historic landmark. The planned redevelopment would maintain and restore the historic structure while replacing the newer structure with a taller apartment complex with 76 affordable housing units.

Pamela Bell, the president of the North University Neighborhood Association, spoke against the rezoning, citing neighbors’ concerns about typical issues like traffic, parking and building height, and asked for the commission to impose restrictions on the MF-4 designation to make it effectively SF-3 with an increase in allowable impervious cover (development lingo for how much of the plot can be a parking lot).

The commission ultimately voted unanimously to recommend the rezoning as proposed.

Elsewhere in the News

The city of Austin has expanded its recycling collection to include cartons and coated paper products.

KUT explains why last week’s intense microburst never quite made it to South Austin.

Summer is kinda here, and KVUE has an inspiring roundup of swimming holes for y’all.

In case you were wondering, KXAN checked in and, yep, Terry Black’s and Black’s barbecue are still feuding.

And, happy sine die, here’s what the Texas Legislature did this time around, according to the Texas Tribune.

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