May 12, 2008 OCEAN Meeting Minutes

OCEAN STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
MEETING: Monday, May 12, 2008 6:00PM – 8:00PM
LOCATION: Carver Library / 1161 Angelina Street

PARTICIPANTS:
Cindy Widner Linda Johnston John Filo
Rob Seidenberg Michael Guajardo Darrell Meuth
Kristine Garana Gina Fuentes Rudy Williams
Tracie Brown Byron Marshall Ateja Dukes
James Medina Alison Gardner John Goldstone
Bill Hardison Rosalie Chiles Gene Chiles
Mary Helen Lopez Tracy Witte Bill Minor
Casey Monahan Lynda Blakemore Janice Friesen
Gayle Rosenthal Wendy Harte Agnes Sekowski
Material distributed at meetings will be included in the minutes if a file of the material is provided.
THE FOLLOWING ITEMS WERE DISCUSSED AT THE MONDAY, MAY 12, 2008 MEETING AT THE CARVER LIBRARY. THE FOLLOWING IS MY UNDERSTANDING OF ITEMS DISCUSSED:

1. General Business:
A. April Meeting Minutes - The April meeting minutes were reviewed and accepted with no corrections.
B. Cindy Widner – Cindy made a brief presentation regarding the OCEAN listserve and the OCEAN website (centraleastaustin.org). The agenda and meeting minutes are now posted to the website. Cindy also announced that she is standing down as OCEAN vice-
president. Rob Seidenberg nominated Bill Minor for the vice-president position. There
will be a vote on the nomination at the June meeting. Rudy Williams nominated Gina Fuentes to the position of secretary; she will deliberate before deciding whether to accept the nomination.
B. Property Taxes – Rudy led a short discussion on the problem of escalating property taxes in the Central East Austin neighborhoods and possible ways to reduce their impact on neighborhood residents.
2. Austin Revitalization Authority presentation of Block 18 Development Plans – Byron Marshall presented the ARA plan for development of Block 18, the block occupied
by the Victory Grill and the East Room, and the modifications to zoning and the Urban
Renewal Plan the development will require. This was one of a number of presentations
made to surrounding neighborhood associations and the general public regarding the Block 18 development. Byron distributed and discussed a nine-page written summary of the second public meeting, held April 25, and an eleven-page handout of Power Point slides explaining the public process, showing images of the development, and summarizing the public response to the development to date. He invited everyone to attend the next public meeting, to be held Saturday, May 17, in the City Council chambers. The housing element of the project will be developed by the Anderson Community Development Corporation, and there were numerous questions regarding the composition, history, and role of the ACDC in the process. Following the presentations of Block 18 and 16, there was a discussion centered on the involvement of the Anderson Community Development Corporation, an organization familiar to many in the neighborhood.
A motion was made and seconded requesting that the Anderson Community Development Corporation make the presentation of the Block 18 housing at the next public meeting and that background on the organization's the corporate location, the names of the board of directors, a list of officers and staff, and the time and location of their meetings open to the public be provided. The motion passed on a vote of 19 for and 0 opposed to the motion.
3. City of Austin presentation of Block 16 Development Plan – Ateja Dukes, with the City of Austin, presented the development plans for Block 16 on East 11th Street. The Block 16 development will be on the north side of 11th Street between Ben’s Barbeque and Curve Street. The city has been making public presentations of this development project in conjunction with ARA’s Block 18 presentations. The city will issue a public Request for Proposals from developers interested in the project. Each proposal will provide a detailed development plan, method of financing, and response to some requirements made by the city regarding the development. The city will review the proposals and select the developer from the submitters. The city is requesting modifications to zoning and the Urban Renewal Plan for Block 16 in order to provide fewer restrictions to the development process. The current schedule has City Council voting on the zoning and urban renewal plan changes in October 08 and the Requests for Proposals also released in October. The interested parties will have 13 weeks to formulate their proposals, and the city will take 13 weeks to evaluate them. There is a 21-week negotiation period scheduled before awarding the project. The current schedule would award the contract to develop Block 16 somewhere around August/September of 09.
4. Development at East 16th and Waller Street – Alison Gardner presented developments of lots on East 16th Street. There are two alternative developments for the site. One is mixed-use, with some type of commercial use and residential uses, and the other is a multifamily development. These have been presented in various scenarios to the Swede Hill Neighborhood Association and at previous OCEAN meetings. Members of the Swede Hill neighborhood discussed their issues with the development. They are very concerned with up zoning existing SF-3 properties than this specific project and the neighborhood has historically resisted changing zoning on SF-3 properties. The neighborhood met earlier this month and voted on the zoning change requested for the project. There were 63 votes to keep SF-3 zoning, 4 votes for MFR-5 zoning, and 6 votes for GR-MU zoning.
There was a motion made and seconded that OCEAN vote to uphold the Swede Hill
Neighborhood Association position and not support a zoning change from SF-3 for the project. The vote was 20 to support the existing SF-3 zoning and 2 opposed to supporting the SF-3 zoning.
5. OCEAN Bylaws – Rudy Williams led a discussion of OCEAN bylaws. The bylaws are in revision and have been discussed at previous meetings. There was a discussion of bylaw revisions linking membership status to meeting attendance: How often is attendance required at monthly meetings to keep membership current? There was discussion of the steering committee regarding the intent, the organizational structure, and the makeup of that committee, but we ran out of time and will continue the discussion of the bylaws at the June meeting. It was agreed that the bylaws would be the first and maybe only item on the June agenda and that sections 4/Membership, 5/Membership Meetings, and 6/Steering Committee and Officers would be the first sections of the bylaws addressed.

END OF MEETING