Fwd: 6 acres west side of Airport purchased by City of Austin in 2007 Fw: oak springs
EMLKCT Chair
From: David Thoresen <davidt...@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, Apr 21, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Subject: 6 acres west side of Airport purchased by City of Austin in 2007 Fw: oak springs
To: emlk...@gmail.com <emlk...@gmail.com>
Cc: David Thoresen <davidt...@yahoo.com>
Overgrown lot may be next environmental battleground
An environmental group focuses on Oak Springs lot
By Asher
Price
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
An overgrown 6-acre lot beside an EZ Pawn shop and a Church's Chicken fast-food restaurant in East Austin might become the city's next environmental battleground. It is part weedy lot — filled with litter, bottles, torn-up porno magazines and transient camps — and part gem of an urban jungle — home to the waters of Oak Springs, which flows south from there to Boggy Creek, a natural wetland and a set of majestic oak trees.
Development plans for East Austin Plaza, which would include a 9,200-square-foot Family Dollar store, as well as two other 9,000-square-foot retail stores and two fast-food joints, were submitted to the city earlier this year. If the plan is approved, the creek could be paved over and many of the trees cut down. But an environmental group that operates in East Austin has begun organizing opposition.
Larry Kolvoord
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Daniel Llanes, left, and Sylvia Herrera of People Organized in Defense of Earth and Her Resources want more protections for Oak Springs.
Larry Kolvoord
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
This oak is one of the trees that could be cut down if the City of Austin approves a development plan for 6 acres on which Oak Springs flows.
"We should follow our tradition and extend the protection afforded to Barton Springs," said Sylvia Herrera, an organizer at People Organized in Defense of Earth and Her Resources. The group has contacted City Council members and environmental board members to garner sympathy for the site. "We have our own SOS — Save Oak Springs," Herrera said.
"We're sensitive to the environmental issues that are involved," said John M. Joseph, an Austin lawyer hired by Houston-based developer David Ikeler. "We want to see what we can do to protect it. We want to express a willingness to work with the city staff to see if it can be resolved."
He said the developer may try to reconfigure the parking and work around the larger trees.
The situation has the hallmarks of a standard Austin conflict between developers and environmentalists, including the question of whether the development should submit to stringent environmental rules built over the past two decades or whether it can be built under older, more lenient ones.
Set against the working-class backdrop of East Austin, where green spaces are found more often in pockets behind stores than in the kind of sprawling vistas that the Hill Country has and have gained less attention than their West Austin counterparts, the potential conflict has its own poignancy.
"This place has cultural significance," said Herrera, who grew up a couple of blocks from the proposed Family Dollar site. "There used to be people here in the community who came here for their water."
City environmental staff members say the development could profoundly affect the flow of the springs. "If the property is developed as they've proposed, I'm afraid it would dry the spring up," said Mike Lyday, the city's wetland specialist.
He said springs across Austin are considered critical environmental features in the city's code because they are the base for aquatic life. "They're kind of like where blood is generated for the circulatory system for aquatic environment."
Family Dollar, a North Carolina discount retailer, has more than 6,100 stores in 44 states. The company reported $473.5 million in sales in July alone.
The developer said Family Dollar stores play a crucial role in working-class neighbor- hoods.
"It's good for these middle- to lower-income areas," said Ikeler, whose company builds Family Dollar stores across the state. "What you find in these neighborhoods is the head of the household is often the mother, a working-class lady. She knows she has to be cost effective in her purchasing decisions. She can stop on the freeway on the way home from work and go to a 100,000-square-foot-plus Wal-Mart, spend 45 minutes getting sundry items and get home an hour later than she planned to. Or she can go to a Family Dollar, which typically has a 9,000-square-foot profile, get in and out of the store and be home in 10 or 15 minutes. She gets the same product at the same price.
"We consider ourselves an asset to the community. We accept food stamps. This isn't just a knickknack store. It's got detergents, food, and razors. We feel good about what we do."
City officials have identified sensitive environmental features on the land: the spring, which delivers a stream of water to Boggy Creek even months into a drought, and a forest of large oak, elm, pecan and chinaberry trees. Seventeen of the trees would be cut down, according to the site plan handed in to the city at the end of May, including an oak with a 58-inch diameter.
"That seems like a deal-breaker to me," Council Member Lee Leffingwell said. "To cut down a 50-plus–inch tree, unless someone can say this tree is dying, it's very difficult to find justification."
That oak, along with five other trees slated to be cut down, are more than 19 inches in diameter. A 1983 tree protection ordinance would have afforded these large trees special protections, and another ordinance would have required that development be set back 150 feet from the springs. But the property has escaped those rules because it was originally subdivided in the late 1960s; under state law, the development can be built under the rules of that time.
"We have to abide by grandfathering rules," said Sheila Rainosek, a division manager for land use with the city.
People Organized in Defense of Earth and Her Resources says it would like the city to buy the property, cut down the weeds and turn it into a park. The land is currently valued at $271,636, according to Carroll Brown of the Travis Central Appraisal District. East Austin Plaza LP purchased the property from the U.S. Postal Service for $287,000 in 2004, according to appraisal district records.
The development has earned regular visits from environmental inspectors after it was red-tagged a couple of years ago when land was cleared without permits, Rainosek said. Other violations included a lack of erosion control, work within 150 feet of the springs and land clearance without permits.
A sign on Oak Springs Drive advertising the project — 4 paid sites available, 18,000 square feet of retail — has been graffitied with the word "No."
"Instead of being covered with trees and greenery, it will be covered with concrete and asphalt," Herrera said.
juan w
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