Friends of Hyde Park is joining Rethink35 as a co-plaintiff in the upcoming lawsuit against I-35 and TxDOT. Join Rethink35 THIS Monday 1/29, 9am outside TxDOT’s HQ on 11th St for the public announcement of Rethink35’s I-35 lawsuit. Help Rethink35 get a big crowd for this important event! https://actionnetwork.org/events/lawsuit-press-conference/ The lawsuit will be VERY expensive.[…]
Central Austin Deserves a Pro-Housing Voice at City Hall Austin’s housing crisis demands swift and drastic action. And tackling it going forward won’t be easy. The city is fighting an uphill battle against powerful interests who find the status quo convenient and are terrified of opening up more of the city to people who might[…]
Austin Needs a Mayor Who Understands The Urgency of Our Housing CrisisAustin is at a pivotal moment in its history. Amidst a nationwide housing crisis, the city is making the incomprehensible decision to double down on its history of exclusionary zoning. Instead of embracing the fact that reversing our city-imposed development bottleneck and greenlighting the[…]
Friends of Hyde Park Endorsements For the May 1, 2021 election.
Historic Commission Meeting: November 16, 2020 Planning Commission Meeting: November 24, 2020 Austin City Council Meeting: December 10, 2020 Case Number: C14H-2020-0087 Project Location: 3908 Avenue B Historic Commission, Planning Commission, and City Council, Friends of Hyde Park strongly opposes the rezoning of the Baker Center to include historic zoning (-H). This rezoning will remove[…]
Friends of Hyde Park members overwhelmingly support transforming the Hancock Golf Course into a public park and green space. The membership of Friends of Hyde Park took a vote, and out of the 88 members that voted, 91% of those members supported this change. The Hancock Golf Course is 45 acres of green space next[…]
Friends of Hyde Park Recommendations: Texas U.S. Representative District 10: Mike SiegelTexas U.S. Representative District 25: Julie OliverTravis County Attorney: Delia GarzaTravis County District Attorney, 53rd District: Jose Garza For Proposition A – Project Connect – Light Rail System If Austin is going to combat climate change and traffic problems, Prop A is a must[…]
Friends of Hyde Park filed an amicus brief in support of the City of Austin. “Friends of Hyde Park urges reversal of the trial court judgment and supports adoption of the Land Development Code (LDC) at issue here. We believe that Austinites are entitled to a process in which democratically elected representatives determine the general[…]
Friends of Hyde Park Recommendations:U.S. Senate: Royce WestU.S. House District 10: Mike Siegel (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren endorsed)Railroad Commissioner: Chrysta CastañedaCounty Attorney: Delia GarzaTravis County District Attorney: Jose Garza (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren endorsed) “The Texas Supreme Court makes it clear: any Texas voter can request a mail-in ballot to avoid risk of injury” –[…]
The Friends of Hyde Park board voted to sign onto the following letter with the Austin Justice Coalition, Just Liberty, and many other Austin groups calling on the Austin City Council and the Austin City Manager to fire the Austin Police Chief, Brian Manley, and to institute other major police reforms to end police violence in Austin.[…]
Friends of Hyde Park supports and recommends designating the following streets as Healthy Streets in Hyde Park. Healthy Streets (previously referred to as “Slow Streets”) will turn selected streets into pedestrian/bicycle-priority streets while allowing local traffic to enable safe exercise during, and possibly after, the COVID-19 pandemic. The short and long term benefits could be[…]
Hyde Park residents want bolder, more progressive changes to be made to our neighborhood. In a single month, Friends of Hyde Park collected a physical petition that received signatures from over 400 North Hyde Park residents to show the overwhelming support for the new land development code applying to Hyde Park. However, Draft 2 makes[…]
Friends of Hyde Park supports a safe, family friendly, All Ages and Abilities Bikeway Network. We believe that local mobility projects like the two projects for the biking network on 46th-47th and Bennett-Middle Fiskville in North Hyde Park are a critical part of developing this network. However, we don’t believe these goals are achieved by[…]
Creating a new land development code happens only once every 20 to 30 years in Austin. This is our one opportunity in some of our lifetimes to make the changes that we need to be successful as a growing city. We will hopefully not look back 30 years from now and see that the new[…]
What Are Neighborhood Conservation Combining Districts (NCCDs)? Neighborhood Conservation Combining Districts (NCCDs) are zoning overlays that override base zoning districts, meaning that any zoning regulation specified in an NCCD overrides the city land development code. This establishes a complicated opt-in/opt-out basis for zoning regulations, sometimes on a property by property basis. NCCDs are almost exclusively[…]
While Friends of Hyde Park supports and acknowledges that the Austin State Hospital is in desperate need of renovations and repair, the recently released $283 million master plan for a redesign of the 95 acre campus is inadequate. The redesign has been a signature achievement that Texas State Senator Kirk Watson’s (D-Austin) has been working[…]
Hyde Park residents overwhelmingly voted to oppose Proposition J in the November 2018 election with about 63% of Hyde Park residents voting against it. Prop J was devised as a way to prevent a new land development code in Austin by requiring voter approval for any “comprehensive revision” of a land development code. This[…]
Voting Recommendations: TX Senate: Beto O’Rourke U.S. House of Representatives: Julie Oliver (South of 45th St) Austin Mayor: Austin Mayor Steve Adler Austin City Council District 9: Danielle Skidmore Proposition A to I: For Proposition J: Against Proposition K: Against Friends of Hyde Park’s voting recommendations and guide only include races and propositions[…]
The Friends of Hyde Park board, representing the largest neighborhood association serving Hyde Park, voted to endorse Danielle Skidmore for Austin City Council in Austin’s upcoming November 2018 election against Kathie Tovo. Danielle Skidmore is an LGBTQIA+ advocate. She serves on the City of Austin LGBTQ Quality of Life Advisory Commission. Danielle would be the[…]
Most people don’t realize that the Hyde Park area is split into what’s essentially two completely different and distinct neighborhoods. The original Hyde Park neighborhood is located south of 45th St and is simply referred to as Hyde Park (234 acres) or sometimes South Hyde Park. The neighborhood that’s north of 45th St is referred[…]
The Friends of Hyde Park board, representing the largest neighborhood association serving Hyde Park, voted to endorse Mayor Steve Adler for Mayor in Austin’s upcoming November 2018 election. Friends of Hyde Park appreciates Mayor Adler’s continued support for the CodeNEXT process and his desire to see more housing available throughout Austin in order to address[…]
Planning Commission Meeting: March 13 Case Number: C14-01-0046.02 Project Location: 3908 Avenue B Planning Commission, Friends of Hyde Park is concerned that Alamo may have no intention of ever building any housing on the property, which is a requirement for them in order to qualify for the purchase of the property from AISD. We are[…]
Planning Commission, Friends of Hyde Park requests that the rezoning for the property located at 3908 Avenue B as CS-HD-NCCD-NP be denied. Instead, we request the zoning of the property be approved as CS-HD-NP with the same requested entitlements or that this rezoning case be delayed until after the adoption of CodeNEXT. The only difference[…]
CodeNEXT Draft 3 incorporates some minor improvements over Draft 1, Draft 2, and our current land development code. However, the latest draft still falls far short of the changes that are needed in order to address affordability, transportation, and social equity in a meaningful way. Draft 3 will continue to push new development into gentrifying[…]
Most people think that Hyde Park is full of what’s called missing middle housing or middle income housing. This may have been true at one time, but that’s no longer the case. According to information obtained from the Travis County Central Appraisal District there are only 9 triplexes and 7 fourplexes that remain in Hyde[…]
When It Comes to “Calcutta,” Words Matter Comments expressed in KUT’s article “A Word About Your Responses To Our CodeNEXT Language Story” have no place in our civic discussion, especially when the specter of Jim Crow still lives on in Austin’s land development code. Friends of Hyde Park (FOHP), the largest neighborhood association in Hyde Park[…]
In November of 2015 the Austin City Council voted to approve a city wide change to allow ADUs (accessory dwellings units – also known as garage apartments, granny flats, tiny homes, or secondary homes) on all SF-3 zoned lots as small as 5,750 sqft in every neighborhood in Austin and to reduce burdensome parking requirements that can prevent ADUs[…]
Is Hyde Park “Exclusively for White People” Again? Austin City Council and CodeNEXT Staff Must Answer Questions In CodeNEXT, Neighborhood Conservation Combining Districts (NCCDs) creating de-facto zoning barriers to class and race is not a zoning code. It’s a betrayal of Austin values. Friends of Hyde Park, the largest neighborhood association in Hyde Park, has unanswered[…]
Thank you to all of the Friends of Hyde Park volunteers and to everyone that participated in Bike to Work Day today in Hyde Park. And a special thank you to Quack’s for providing the refreshments!
In one of the largest stakeholder processes in Hyde Park’s history, Hyde Park residents voted overwhelmingly to support a new land development code to replace the existing land development code in Hyde Park as part of the CodeNEXT process. The neighborhood association Friends of Hyde Park held the vote, allowing anyone that lives in the[…]