The city of Alamo Heights is gradually revamping its codes to better accommodate the types of development designed to help revitalize the Broadway corridor and to make the community more diverse and dynamic. Advocates for revising the city codes add that luring more high-end, small-scale, multi-family development to town and encouraging businesses to make their own physical improvements can help to remake Alamo Heights’ atmosphere.
The city council voted in November to first revise rules for new multi-family developments. Changes include ensuring zero setbacks between the exterior of structures and the sidewalk. The city’s codes now require new multi-family developments to have 10-foot-wide sidewalks and 5-foot-wide planter spaces suitable for trees. New multi-family developments must also have street-level retail spaces. The city’s Commercial Code Committee made the recommendations for revising rules impacting multi-family zoned properties and early in 2016 will suggest ways to enhance rules for properties zoned for office and business use.
Committee members such as William Kiel, a former council member, have expressed a desire to increase “walkability” and bicycle lanes and to beautify the Broadway business corridor with more trees and wider sidewalks. Meanwhile, there is no news to report on Argyle Residential’s plan to develop a multi-story apartment complex at Broadway and Austin Highway. All stakeholders are waiting to see how an issue over public ownership of a piece of Austin Highway is resolved. Argyle, the developer, is waiting for agencies to determine how the project might — or might not — fit into the property, which is in a flood plain.
BY EDMOND ORTIZ
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JANICE THACH
