A plan to redevelop a former manufacturing plant in East Austin has drawn a lawsuit alleging that City Council granted approval to the project illegally. Neighborhood and advocacy groups are suing city officials over the mixed-use plan for the property, KUT 90.5 reported Monday.
The lawsuit, filed in Travis County District Court on Friday, claims the process by which the council granted new rules to the land’s owner is atypical and not meant to change a piece of land reserved for industrial use to a place where homes and shops can be built, according to the KUT story.
Lawyers representing the Save Our Springs Alliance, People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources (PODER), and the River Bluff Neighborhood Association say city officials gave owners of the property special treatment when the City Council approved plans for its redevelopment in the face of opposition last summer.
Endeavor Real Estate's plan to redevelop the 21-acre property on the Colorado River, the site of a former Borden Dairy plant, includes 1,400 apartments, 220 hotel rooms, offices, shops, and restaurants. Approved zoning changes would allow buildings of up to 120 feet in height instead of the 60 feet they would have been restricted to under the tract's former zoning.
Neighbors and other groups are concernced about the environmental impact a large, mixed-use development would have on the nearby river and its habitats.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs are also contesting a 1980s decision to exclude the land from water restrictions put in place on land just south of the property, meant to protect the nearby lake and river.
