Welcome to Ultraground. We take the long and windy path through the zoning process so you can fly through.

October 13:

September 29:

Plancaster will house abuse survivors and assist the homeless. Building 1 provides shelter for men and women fleeing from lives of domestic violence, drug abuse, and exploitation. A second building will also serve as a resource for sexual assault victims, homeless individuals, and families.

This project is part of the Travis County Supportive Housing Collaborative where Connor Kenny and his team are developing 480 units of permanent supportive housing for homelessness response.

Plancaster amends the Neighborhood Future Land Use Map. Take a look at how it changes the plan for the area.

When this site initially came before Zoning and Platting in 2021, Mohammed Arami said he had "no immediate plans" for the property. He said he likes assisted living, as he is of age and said he "would like to live in this area."

Arami initially asked for GR-MU but the ZAP recommendation was to break up the site into two zonings. It fronts the Jollyville Activity Corridor and Highway 183. Splitting up the site incorporates the 120' setback along 183 in the rezoning.

Council approved the first reading of all GR-MU on 10/14/21. The third reading was approved at this meeting.

Council postponed the Statesman PUD again, but more details were revealed.

In 2020, there was an EPS report that claims that the value of the PUD would not exceed the cost of the development and transportation enhancements. A presentation at this City Council meeting re-evaluated the cost and value of the project. It found that still does not exceed the cost under the current market conditions. 70 million dollars of the project's cost is in the 3,971 parking spaces the team will build underground.

There are 6 different items at the developer could not agree to. These include affordable housing, steps down to river costs, and park maintenance costs.

The developer initially proposed 4% affordable units at 80% MFI at the beginning of the project. This came straight from the South Central Waterfront Plan. 4% of the units comes out to about 55 units.

These 55 units have a dollar figure of 23.2 million. They said they were fine with the city taking that and investing it elsewhere to build more affordable units.

But the applicant got creative. They just bought 422 at the Lake and they were willing to assign more affordable units there (70) in exchange for not building any on-site.

“The certain amount they can do and there's a certain amount they can't do .” - Mayor Steve Adler

The Mayor got creative as well. At the end of the meeting, he asked for a bonus that lets the team build over 3.5 million square feet if they provide even more affordable housing. He said it will not be a right entitlement and it was not detailed, but shows us the mayor is willing to incentivize.

The development team and the city council want a hotel as part of this project. But, unfortunately, labor union Unite Here objects to having a hotel in this area. The applicant said they couldn't meet the union's requests involving labor.

When asked if they were still in conversation, the team described the situation as an "impasse."

The 3,981 spaces that are currently proposed represent a 35% parking reduction. The applicant mentioned it would be hard for them to finance the project with any less parking.

Imagine Austin Future Land Use Map:

This 3-story office is down the street from the Capitol. Joe Newberry, Partner at Leecraft & Newberry, P.C., is the registered agent on the LLC.

The building will be 43' tall and will have 8,304 SF of office.

Thank you for being a part of Ultraground.