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March 21
330-Unit multifamily highlights growing pains
37-Unit townhomes show us how to use the alternative argument
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10701 Dessau Rd
Woodcliff | 11.9 Acres | 330 Units
10701 Dessau Road shows the growing pains of implementing future land use plans. Single family residences surround the lavishly planted ~12-acre site on Dessau Road.
Dessau Road is an Imagine Austin corridor with two bus stops within a half mile of the site. Despite it being a prime example of connectivity, there was considerable pushback from the neighborhood on the level of traffic that the MF4 zoning would bring. Neighbors exclaimed that you’d need to be “crazy” to bike in the bike lane or take the bus from the road, which was said to have traffic around 70mph.
The new adjacency proved to be the biggest issue for the neighbors. Homeowners said it would devalue their propertiess to be “only” 150 feet from the new 60 ft residential building.
To make this project hard to deny, OHT Partners is going to be dedicating 15 foot of right away for future projects along Dessau Road. They’re going to have state of the art detention and water quality ponds, bringing them to current code, whereas there's none existing. And they’re going to preserve as many heritage trees and other trees as possible for the site.
Why not give them MF3 zoning? The flood control improvements and the impervious cover will take up a large portion of the site. Having it at MF4 would allow OHT Partners to do what was being proposed, even though it's under the unit threshold. The primary reason for going MF4 is the 60’ height limit rather than the 40’ MF3 height limit.
“To me, this is kind of what the city is looking for. It's a site that doesn't have anybody being displaced. There's no floodplain. There's no critical water quality zone. They're going to have to comply with the tree ordinance. They're going to have to comply with compatibility setbacks. They're going to have to comply with transportation. So a lot of the issues that were raised are going to be dealt with at this high plan phase, not at the zoning phase.