Testing City Council's Appetite for Lakeshore Pudding

This afternoon, City Council will consider a proposal for a 30 acre planned unit development (PUD) between Riverside Drive and Lakeshore Boulevard in southeast Austin. The development would replace 600 apartments now on the site with 1,200 apartments and 97,000 square feet of street-level retail space. Developers are seeking the right to build up to 90 feet high, but the tallest building in the current plan is only 75 feet tall. The recently enacted waterfront overlay ordinance imposes a height limit of 60 feet in the area, but the ordinance does not apply to PUDs.

Beyond giving 600 more Austinites the ability to live in central Austin near LBL, the planned project includes numerous community benefits, like $225,000 for city parks, space for a police substation, rent-free meeting space for nonprofit groups, the option of 60 subsidized-rent units or a payment of $1.5 million to $2 million. Those benefits might have allowed the development to exceed the waterfront overlay ordinance's height restrictions based on development bonuses, but the development bonus part of the ordinance has still not been drafted.

The vote will be an interesting indication of the new City Council's appetite for development. Anti-development groups made strong showings in the last two elections (and may show up to oppose this development), but the faltering economy and lagging tax rolls may make councilmembers hesitate to kill a beneficial project.