The RNA held a special meeting on Monday, January 31, 2005. Co-president Felicia Adams announced this meeting to the Rosedale mailing list as follows:
At the request of the Steering Committee during the last Rosedale Neighborhood Association meeting (1/17) , we will hold an intermediate meeting on Monday, January 31 at 7:00 p.m. The meeting will be at our usual meeting place, the Yarborough Library on Hancock.
The purpose of this meeting is to begin the exploration of options available to the neighborhood to help preserve the charm and character that exists today in Rosedale. While change is inevitable and necessary, there are steps the neighborhood (both association and individual) can take toward maintaining the existing character in the wake of the increased rate of change in the scale of the neighborhood housing. The first option to be discussed is the Neighborhood Plan.
Our guest speaker will be Mary Gay Maxwell of NUNA (North University Neighborhood Association). She will be sharing her recent experience with, and providing insight into, the City of Austin Neighborhood Plan process.
In preparation for the meeting (or in case you just want to know), you can read about the process at the City of Austin's Neighborhood Planning Website at: www.ci.austin.tx.us/zoning/
We will explore the next option, the Historic District, at our next regularly scheduled meeting on February 21. Due to the library closure on that date, the meeting on 2/21 will be held at the Central Market Community Room.
The notes in the remainder of this message were developed by Co-president Mark Brucks.
Erika Brown met with Steve Romero from the Bicyle and Pedestrian Safety Division of Austin Public Works Department. They discussed both bicycle saftey along Shoal Creek and pedestrian safety crossing 45th.Ê Eriak believes these are probably separate issues, and since the Shoal Creek re-striping plan is now cast in concrete, it's not likely that we can effect any changes on the bicyle safety front in the near term.
As for pedestrian safety crossing 45th street, Erika was strongly in favor of a "light-on-demand" solution (like the one between Burnet and Lamar for the School for the Blind and Visually Handicapped). Steve Romero was also in favor of this solution..
The discussion turned to the interaction between a light-on-demand andsidewalks. The current plan for sidewalks is that there will be oneinstalled on the north side of 45th between Burnet and Shoal Creek. Theneed for one on both sides of 45th was discussed and seemed to haveuniversal support. The need for integrating our plans with AISD busroutes was suggested, since some parents are basing decisions aboutwhere their children will go to school based upon the danger of themcrossing 45th if the bus only stops on the other side.
The concensus was that we should pursue both a light-on-demand onSinclair (viewed as the appropriate middle point on 45th) and sidewalksalong both sides of 45th. Erika Brown will generate a letter to thecity along those lines for steering committee approval.
Mary Gay Maxwell of the North University Neighborhood Association (NUNA)came to share her experiences with the city, developers and otherneighborhood associations during their Neighborhood Plan process.
NUNA joined with 6 other neighborhood associations that ring UT to thenorth (called the Central Austin Combined NA) to generate a neighborhoodplan. It was an offshoot of the fight against the Villas (thedevelopment along Guadalupe around 28th street). She described theirgroup as pro-density and pro-infill, but against the extremelyhigh-density of the Villas. What they were really after was a voice inthe development process.
They just finished their plan in October, which was done in conjunction with a Neighborhood Conservation Combining District. She said that they paid to have their plan developed (< $50K, but she declined to say how much less).
She made several recommendations:
There was a good deal of discussion about how all of this can mean nothing given the lack of enforcement of existing codes. It was suggested that this was a cause for the Austin Neighborhoods Council (ANC), given that every NA in the city is dealing with this same problem.
There were questions about deeds and restrictive covenants and theirapplicability to the problem. This will be discussed in a future meeting.
The next meeting will be on Feb 21st, when Sam will present some information about the various "historic district" options that we might pursue, either instead of or in addition to the Neighborhood Plan option. Sam is arranging speakers as well; these will be announced in the future.