Environmentalists fight plan for lakeside high rises

By Daniel Van Oudenaren

New improvement to reshape South Central Waterfront

When former First Woman Woman Chook Johnson created the City Lake Beautification Committee in 1971, she hardly might have imagined the size of the event that might in the future happen alongside the banks of the waterway that might later be renamed for her.

Johnson’s imaginative and prescient for the lake started with a go to to London in 1971 alongside Ann Butler, the spouse of then mayor Roy Butler. Throughout a stroll alongside the Thames Path, a verdant path within the coronary heart of London, Johnson puzzled whether or not they might create one thing prefer it in Austin.

Thus was born the thought for the 10-mile path that immediately is known as for the Butlers, in addition to a pavilion and different facilities. The hassle restored vegetation and breathed civic life into Austin’s south shore, which had been an unbuildable, deforested floodplain previous to the development of Longhorn Dam in 1960. Johnson’s committee “raised funds to plant lots of of timber alongside the banks of the lake and spent years beautifying the path,” in response to a 2011 decision of the Metropolis Council.

Woman Chook Johnson and Lyndon Johnson with Austin Mayor Roy Butler at a groundbreaking for a venture at City Lake, December 7, 1971 (Austin Historical past Middle)

Right now a stretch of that riverbank is at situation in a contested zoning case involving the developer Endeavor Actual Property Group, the Atlanta-based Cox Household—the billionaire house owners of the property—and foyer agency Armbrust and Brown, which represents the house owners and developer and is a serious donor to Austin Metropolis Council candidates.

Endeavor is in search of permission from town to construct as many as six high-rises on an 18-acre website subsequent to the Congress Avenue Bridge, that includes ground-floor retail, 1,378 condos or residences, a 275-room resort, and 1.5 million sq. toes of workplace area.

The plan has stoked the fury of environmental group Save Our Springs Alliance, which sees it as an encroachment on a significant waterway and a giveaway to the developer within the type of charge waivers, infrastructure subsidies, and exemptions from regular parkland necessities.

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