Details Regarding “Neighborhood Mixed Use” Designation for Tarrytown Shopping Center in Neighborhood Plan

During first reading, Council approved a “Neighborhood Mixed Use” (NMU) land use designation for the property.  This needs to be changed because it would allow the property owner (Jeanne Daniels) to convert the entire property on both sides of Exposition to residential use (e.g., multifamily or residential).  To address this problem, the neighborhood stakeholders are requesting Council to change the “land use” to “Neighborhood Commercial” in keeping with the current zoning and land use at the property.  Additional details are set forth below

The Tarrytown Shopping Center is currently zoned for commercial use with a mix of LO, LR, GR, CS, and CS-1 zoning, and has historically provided valuable retail services to the neighborhood, including the Holiday House restaurant, Tarrytown Pharmacy, and numerous other beloved neighborhood institutions.  Unfortunately, the “animal friendly” agenda of the property owner (Jeanne Daniels) has run off these businesses and their retail services.

In the Neighborhood Plan, the recommended “land use” development designation for the property is “Neighborhood Mixed Use” (NMU).  The NMU land use category was chosen because it would reduce the scale, height, and intensity of what is possible under the current zoning at TTSC.  While the original intention was to require commercial/retail/office on the first floor and to limit the overall height of any development, this never happened due to a disruption in the neighborhood plan process. Without these limits in place, the NMU designation would allow the property owner (Jeanne Daniels) to convert the entire property to residential use (e.g., multifamily or residential).

If you don’t care what Jeanne Daniels does with the Shopping Center properties, or if every useful scrap of retail services disappear from these properties, then by all means, tell City Council that you like their decision to designate the property as NMU.

However, if you think that our neighborhood should be able to keep neighborhood commercial and retail services at this property, then LET COUNCIL KNOW!  This decision by Council can be changed or fixed if they hear from enough of us.  Tell Council that the “land use” should be “Neighborhood Commercial” using the Council Member email page http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/groupemail.htm or with the contact information posted here.