Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

We'll call to order the meeting of the Austin City Planning and Zoning Commission for Tuesday, May 13, 2025. Our last meeting was April 1st of 2025. The meeting minutes were in your packet. If no one has any additions or changes to those minutes, we need a motion and a second to approve them as written. Make a motion to accept minutes. Second. Thank you. Okay. We have a motion from Commissioner Sarak and a second from Commissioner Norman to approve the minutes from the April 1st, 2025 meeting as written. All in favor of the motion, please say I. I. I. All oppose. No. Motion carries. Those minutes are approved as written. We have one open hearing, one open public hearing item on the agenda tonight to consider a petition from the city of Austin for a conditional use permit for the placement of Phil in a designated flood fringe area. Miss Wallace. Yes. Uh the city of Austin is the petitioner uh regarding the area around the wastewater treatment plant. The area is zoned I2 industrial. Um the our flood plan ordinance requires that any fill in excess of 250 cubic yards in a flood fringe area must be approved by conditional use. Um in this instance there are some conditions to take some things to take into consideration um within the code. Um most of them generally apply to more uh development in the flood plane versus

um a flood protection structure. Um but the board shall consider all factors uh specified uh in other provisions of this section and the danger to life and property due to increased flood heights which isn't an issue here. The danger that materials may be swept away. um the proposed water supply and sanitation systems. Uh this levy would be uh put in place to protect those kinds of things. Um the susceptibility of the proposed facility. Uh so there's no proposed facility here. This is to protect a facility uh that we were investing a lot of money in. Um and then similar kinds of considerations as we go down the list. Was there anything in those if you had a chance to go through them that jumped out at you or any questions about? Um, I think it would be helpful to just have our city engineer, uh, Steven Lang, tell you a little bit more about the project. Um, and then we can go back to, uh, the approval or denial of the conditional use permit. That okay? Yep. Yep. Okay. Uh thank you for having me here tonight um to talk about this project a little bit. So the the wastewater treatment plant has never flooded. We have always built emergency protection measures to prevent it from flooding. So in 1993 um BMS and soil were built around the wastewater treatment plant to prevent it from flooding in the 93 floods. Those were then built up even more added. they were left in place and then they were added to during the 2000 flood and then again in the 2004 flood additional material was hauled in and added to what was there. So um the the soil after the 2004 flood was left in place and that's what you would see out there today

protecting the wastewater treatment plant. The those soils were all brought in I call it haphazardly. you know, it was the day before the flood. Emergency measures were underway to protect the facility and we just brought in whatever we could whatever we could find. Um, so this project, although we say that we'll be bringing in 10,000 cubic yards of material, we're actually taking out what's there and bringing in new engineered fill that will meet all of the FEMA requirements. So, we're bringing in about 10,000 cubic yards, but we're actually taking out a lot of that old uh material that was brought in haphazardly during those flood events. So, we are we are replacing what is currently there. Um we're not actually adding 10,000 cubic yards to the flood plane. And if there have been um if there typically when we do a project like this, there are concerns that we will push water somewhere else or raise the water elevation somewhere else. But in this case, those BMS are already there and we're just going to modify them and make them more um FEMA approved. So that is that is our overall plan. It will involve earth and levies and sheet pile walls. Uh the project will be built over multiple phases. Phase one is planned for this summer and phase two would occur in 2027. Um there there is a map I tried to zoom out and then it just went blank on me. There is a map in your backup material showing uh two areas circled in red where the material will be placed right there. Uh it'll be placed at the head of the wastewater treatment plant near um South Main Street and 12th Avenue. And then we'll be placing it along the east side of the wastewater treatment plant as well. So, those are the two general areas where fill the existing fill will be removed and new um engineered soils will be hauled in. Um with that, I'll turn it

over to the commission if you have any questions. Commissioners, any questions? Thanks, Stephen. again. And then just to note too, I didn't specifically mention it, but the DNR uh has to be notified when we do a conditional use permit in the flood burn area or in the flood area in general. Um we did not get any comments back from them. Okay. And I think there was some permitting that was already pursued as well. There was a list of uh neighbors to be notified, I believe. Yeah. Any feedback there? Um, we didn't get any feedback from any of the people who received letter. And this is a this is a done deal, right? This isn't a recommendation to council. This is just up or down, right? This is just commission on the side. All right. Any more discussion? Commissioners, any other questions? No, we can entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to approve as presented on the minutes. Second. All right. Thank you. We have a motion from Commissioner Norman and a second from Commissioner Stewart to approve the request for the conditional use permit as presented. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and vote. All in favor of the motion, please say I. I. I. All oppose, no. Motion carries. Conditional use permit is approved. Next up, we have a discussion

item regarding the EPA Brownfield grant and other projects. [Applause] Little bit to the right, Holly. Right before the slide bar. Couple more to the right. Right there. Got it. All right. talk about it at all. Oh, well, sure. Um, so we have been working uh we received an EPA grant uh to do environmental site assessments uh back in around 22. Um it took us a couple years of applications to before we were successful um to implement the grant. We uh chose Stantech uh and they are doing all of the environmental site assessment uh work for us and helping us with all of the regulatory requirements of the grant. Uh we uh get together every once in a while. We had a brownfield advisory committee meeting today. Um, we have a small group of people that kind of fluctuates from time to time because of the long period that the grant is effective. And uh, we wanted to just present to you since council wouldn't be able to uh, see this today, but um, wanted to present to you a little bit of the background of the the project and what we've done with it. um you don't often get to see the work

that we do on um these kinds of things, but um I think with some of the people on this committee, some of the business owners, I think it would be interesting for you. And then just again part of the grant is community outreach. And so just to get the word out, we would like to apply again for another uh communitywide assessment grant which then would make funds available for more projects. Um, and then of course we would like you to get the word out about it. Um, and then uh Lindsay Brown is here with uh Kayla Kimus. Um, and they'll give you a short presentation. Thank you, Holly. Um, yes, my name is Lindsay Brown. I'm the project manager for the city's EPA Brownfield grant. Um, my our former colleague who is now retired, Dave Constant, was the original project manager when this grant was awarded. Um, and I was the assistant PM, so I just slid into his role and Kayla slid into the assistant role. Um, and as Holly mentioned, this grant was awarded in 2022. Um, and we're just going to talk about just what the grant is, what the funds are available for, and what we've been able to accomplish uh, so far. Oops, did I go the wrong way? your screen went black. It's just a blank slide. No, it shouldn't be. There we go. Okay. Um, so just a little bit more about like what brownfields are in the terms of EPA because each a each agency has a different definition of what a brownfield really is. When it comes to this funding, EPA really defines a brownfield as any real property that could be contaminated. It doesn't mean we have to know it is just the potential that it could be based on whatever historical past use people might know of. Um it really is when it comes down

to it any site that was previously developed. So the the the sites that we cannot work on is anything that would be considered green space which in the Midwest is primarily agricultural lands. Um so anything that is farmland doesn't get worked on underneath this program. Um, even though I mean you could you could fight for it that well it could be contaminated because they use pesticides and all kinds of things on on farmland but EPA doesn't look at it for this particular program. So we're really looking at infill development inside the city limits. A lot of downtown type properties is really what we see these worked on or uh former industrial sites. EPA has two types of brownfields that we look at. The first one is petroleum. This is going to be your corner gas stations, auto repair shops, anything where there was heavy petroleum usage where, you know, oil could have been dumped or there was a a tank underneath um the site. Uh that's the petroleum side. At the state level, that's where MPCA gets involved. Um they do a lot with tanks. Um and so they they do get involved from time to time time on different sites. The other side is hazardous substance. This is the primary side of funding that we use a lot of the money for. So this is going to be industrial sites where there's like a co-mingled amount of contamination. It could be various different things. Um former dry cleaners, downtown buildings with asbestous or lead based paint potentially are considered hazardous substance. So, a bulk of the money is usually used on the hazardous substance side because it's a little bit more lenient than the petroleum side. We also like it because it's one less agency that we have to get approval from to work on something. So, why are brownfields a problem? Um, you know, vacant or underutilized buildings are always are going to cause issues, right? we're

going to see potentially higher crime rates, loss of opportunity, loss of tax base, um impacting other neighborhood properties, and then threats to the environment and the public's health. Um, a lot of these contaminants when they get, you know, under slabs and into the ground can affect groundwater and drinking water. Um, so it is something that does need to be taken care of and this program can really help that. So, a little bit about the city's grant that we are currently wrapping up for this fall. Um, as Holly mentioned, this is a $500,000 grant. There was no match required by the city when we went after this funding. So, this is 100% funded at the federal government. Um, it was a three-year grant. Uh, when we went for this, they have now extended it to four years if you go for another grant. they've seen that it takes a little bit longer in this redevelopment world to get things moving and that three years is actually kind of tight. So, um they're now a four-year grant, but we have until uh the end of November to wrap this one up um and then get all of our closeout paperwork done. And we will hit that timeline. We're really close to a few sites um wrapping up now and finishing up some things which you'll see in in a little bit. Um but yeah, it's been a great grant. We've seen a lot of interest in things getting moved along which is great. Um the funding can be used in a unique way on public and privately owned sites. So a lot of times we see in the grant world when it comes to redevelopment funding, it can either be used on public sites only where the city has to own it or it has to be privately owned. And this site, this grant can be used on both, which is another really great aspect of this funding. Um, and then the last thing about the logistics of the grant is that it can be used throughout the entire city. So, even though in the grant application, if you were to pick it up and read it today, we talk a lot about Oakland Avenue and that was kind of a

corridor that we really focused on and we worked a lot on properties with inside that area, but anybody could have could have asked for the funding throughout the entire city and we could utilize it anywhere in the city of Austin, which is great as well. So status of kind of like where we're at, what we've started with, and kind of getting us towards the finish line here. Everything on this table, anything in green is in the works or has been completed. So basically, we've done a ton of things. The only thing that we have not really dove into is we have not done any response action plans to the state. That's kind of a last step before our site gets cleaned up. Um, we haven't done any of those and that's okay. Um, and the other thing is we can do planning inside of these grants, small areawide plans, corridor planning. Um, and we didn't need this funding to do that because the city was actually graciously awarded a building block grant through EPA um to be able to do an areawide plan through that program. So we were able to take this grant and really focus on the environmental side of brownfield redevelopment while that building block program was leveraged in order to do the small area plan. So that worked out really great. This is a synopsis of the budget. As of the last quarterly report that we submitted to EPA, we as of the last quarterly report, we had about $250,000 left in the grant. that is all allocated almost down to the last penny with the amount of work that we have left on the sites that we're going to run through here um on the next few slides. So, we have identified the sites that we want to finish using the funds on um and so that number will be dwindling down towards zero very rapidly throughout the summer months. So, project progress, this is just to show you the amount of things that we've really been able to

accomplish to date. We've created a brownfield inventory. This process starts way at the beginning when we start writing a grant. So Holly and I sit for sometimes hours and talk about the city and where there are potential sites and we start we Santex start making a list. We also utilize GIS functions and databases that we have access to like MPCA what's in my neighborhood and other resources to come up with an entire list of potential brownfield sites inside your community. That list is then used throughout the life cycle of the grant as we start looking at different areas of the city and property ownership and who might be selling or interested in redeveloping. Um so as we're talking through those things, we use this inventory that we've created uh to to have those conversations. Then we set up um a link on the city's on the city's web page just talking about brownfields. And then we developed a quap which is a very technical term non-technical term for a very technical document that's like hundreds and hundreds of pages of data and talking about all the different ways that we're going to look at potential um contaminants and how we're going to sample them and all of that. Then we do the next step. Um we've done eligibility determinations. We've done 11 of those. An eligibility determination is a two-page document and it basically talks about the history of the site as we know it. Who do we who owns it? When was it purchased? What do we know about the history of the site? And then that gets submitted to EPA andor MPCA for their approval. And why we have to submit those is because if a site is enlisted in the EPA super fund program or it's already been enlisted in an MPCA program like the pro fund or something like that, it does make it ineligible to be a

part of this program or if there is a responsible party. Meaning that if you were the person who put the gas station on the corner lot and then you're the one requesting to have your site assessed for potential contamination, you're not eligible for this program because you are the one who put the potential contamination there. Um so it's just those types of things that we have to kind of do our due diligence on before we do due diligence um to make sure that it is eligible. So, we've submitted 11 of those and all 11 have been approved. Um, from there, we've currently completed 10 phase ones. Um, we have one more that just got Holly's nod the other day, so that'll uh take us up to 11. We've completed all the way through with site sampling and the report of two phase 2 ESAs, and we have numerous in the hopper right now that are scheduled for sampling this summer. We were just waiting on the weather to turn nice. Um and then so those will get completed through phase two. We've enlisted one site in the MPCA VIC program. We've done community engagement activities. Holly attended the 2023 National Brownfield conference in Detroit, Michigan. And then we've been able to leverage other funding um including that building blocks program on top of this grant. If the city would not have had this grant, they would not have known about the building blocks program because it was brought to the city's attention by their project officer at EPA as an opportunity. So, um really great way to leverage these dollars for something else. So, a little bit about where we've worked um various different sites. We kind of just put together a list for you all of things that we've worked on and various different places throughout the city. So the first one here is a 13acre Port Authority property. Um this is at

11th drive and 14 14th Street Northeast. Um and on this site we have completed a phase one um with the site visit and the report. We've also completed a sightsp specific sampling and analysis plan. This is a technical document that gets submitted to EPA stating how many borings we're going to put in for sampling, whi, what kind of drill rig is coming on site, um who's going to be doing it, how many people are going to be there, what's the health and safety plan, things like that. And then once that is approved, then we go out and do the phase two, which we have done that sampling. Um it was completed at the end of March. And so that report is um work being worked on right now and will be finalized. The next site is A+ and on that site we did complete a phase one and that one is not going any further but they did have a phase one site visit and report completed for that site. The next site is the Austin Daily Herald site at 310 2nd Street Northeast. This one has gone all the way through the phase two and we also enrolled this site in the VIC program and that was submitted and approved by MPCA in August of 2024. The VIC program really just kind of makes it aware makes MPCA aware of everything that's been done on this site and sets it up for the next stage. Um it is kind of like in a little bit of a hold right now just because there's no design like no design has been developed for the site. Once it gets to that then it can move on um to some next stages. But we've um taken that site as far as it can go as of right now. Next one is City Car Wash at 210 Oakland Avenue West. This site went all the way through the process um through a phase two and that was just completed this past January.

Next is the JS2 property. This one, um, we are scheduled to go out and do the phase 2 site sampling this summer. This is one that we were just holding off a little bit until the weather got nicer, but it is scheduled hopefully for June. We're going to be able to get a driller out there for that. And then the next one is the Methodist parking lot at 1 Avenue Northwest and First Street Northwest. this one. Um, we are working on the sight specific sampling and analysis plan right now in hopes of that approval yet this month. So that way we can mobilize a drill rig with the JS2 property and get both of those done in one mobilization to save some money on the grant. Then we worked on Midtown Auto Clinic at 200 Oakland Avenue. As you can see, there's kind of a theme of where we were working um which aligned with that building blocks planning grant um work that Holly was involved in. Um this site went uh through phase two. We are currently well the phase 2 was approved by Holly on Friday. So that is um in process of being submitted to EPA for their approval. Um and then the next site was the church house site. Um and there was no wrecks. That's means that there was no contamination found, potential contamination found when we did the phase one on that site, which means it doesn't need a phase two. So, we're able to stop at that point. They're able to do whatever redevelopment that they have interest in doing on that property. Um, and they don't need to do any more environmental work. We then worked on the former dry cleaner at 911 Parkland Avenue West. We did do a phase two. Oh, that's on Oakland. Oh, I'll fix our inventory. Um, so we did a phase one on that one. That was completed in 2024. And then the latest site that we've been

working on now is the SIMAC Austin facility at 1701th Place Northeast. And we are just finished up a phase one on that site. We did the site visit in March. The phase one report was approved by Holly yesterday. And so that one will be moving into the next stages. It does need a phase two. So we'll start working on that sampling and analysis plan uh shortly. And that's the status of this grant. We've done a lot of work. Um that's a lot of sites for one city. Um and it's it's been really incredible the amount of steam that this grant has gotten. Um thanks to Holly and Craig. So and we're just happy to be a part of it. If you all have any questions, uh we're here to answer them or Holly is here as well. So all but one site you did find wrecks that have to be addressed eventually. Right. Correct. Um and the wrecks to be addressed will depend on what the redevelopment is going to be. You know there's different standards if it's going to be housing or if it's going to be industrial or whatever the st whatever it's going to be redeveloped in has different standards. Um we did notice that because we were working in kind of the same area. There is a pool underneath the ground that we're dealing with that's gonna that's going to have to be addressed um with some vapor mitigation um if they if somebody starts messing with stuff. So um because these are all kind of in the same area, we're seeing a lot of the same kind of thing happening. And I think uh we talked about at our meeting today that um a lot of mo a great deal of properties that have been previously developed will have some kind of contamination. It's very common there have been you know hundreds of corner gas stations and dry cleaners. Um, and those properties generally, you know, and probably in Austin too, where it's

not as competitive development market will fall to the city oftent times to get to a point where we can do a project. Um, so this has been helpful in that sense to to just try to identify what the situation is. And I think I don't know if you know the percentage, but I thought it was interesting when I went to the conference, they said there are a lot of properties that people might be interested in developing, but they just feel like they're probably a problem or they might be contaminated and they actually aren't, right? So, also just figuring it out from that perspective as well. Absolutely. Will will regular dry cleaners move to a phase two? They haven't requested one yet. I think they So, they were in a program with the MPC already. So, I think that's why we didn't move forward. So, there is a dry cleaner fund program within the state that a lot of those former dry cleaners get put into. And then there's set aside money inside that program for them. I think they that's why they had decided to like just stop with this program and just focus on that program because you can't do both. They MPCA would rather have them in the dry cleaner program because they can keep a better eye on things and know what's going on. So, as you talk about the contamination isn't just limited to one's property lines, correct? Out beyond that. Correct. Have you with these that you've taken to a phase two, have you mapped the boundary of where the plume has gone? You can I mean we like for our Oakland Avenue project. Yeah. Worried that we're going to get into something excavating on our project. Well, we did I did approach the neighboring property owners, but they just declined to participate. So, we've created a figure at all to define a boundary out into the

public side. We when I did mine, I did a the same thing. It was like 13 years ago at when the one site and we ended up having to go it was like a thousand yard radius is what I covered with sampling. Yeah. I So I don't know like is different sites different. I mean it is. Yeah. And the plumes if there is a plume it is different because they migrate different directions based on you know the directions of groundwater and all those things. Stephen, I do have a figure that we've created that we can talk about and I could show you. I don't know how extensive it's going to be if it'll help you with the rightway, but we have kind of looked at where we think it's coming from and the direction it's kind of hanging out. So, if if we were to run into any contaminated soils, would there be any dollars left in this program or would there be any way that this program could help with that? Not from a cleanup perspective. Okay. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Um, there of course is a lot of reluctance from many many property owners to really find out what their circumstances are as far as potential contamination, but I mean ultimately it'll have to be taken care of at some point if it's redeveloped. But if people are just selling properties, they they haven't uh they don't always want to want to know. But we're hoping to kind of uh maybe dispel some of that uh concern about um wanting not wanting to know. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's helpful too like now that you guys have had one grant and it's been very successful um in the eyes of EPA to go after another one, you know, now we're

going to be able to say look at we've been able to accomplish this. No, EPA hasn't come here and taken anyone's properties. None of that is happening. So, you're in a really good position to like really get out the word more and have a leg to stand on. people may some of their guards may come down and say, "Okay, this property we bought, my grandpa bought this, you know, back in the 70s or something. We know that there may have been something here before he bought it. We have no idea what it is." I mean, we hear things like that a lot. So, um, I think the city is in a really great position. and we went around town today and looked at some potential new areas to write about in the next grant and yet still focus some on the Oakland Avenue area um to align with what's going on with like the DOT funding and things like that. So um we really feel like the city's in a really good position to go for some more funding. I also think you made a good point at our meeting today about um you know like there's that there's no direct route to development um you know with limited resources and with it being sometimes um the ends up falling on the public to take responsibility for some of these uh properties. Uh it is kind of a roundabout way to get there by pursuing some of these grants to help either make make the the location more uh uh interesting to a potential to the private sector or to develop it uh ourselves in the public sector. Yeah, this is just like you know one thing we talk about a lot um is this is a tool in your guys' toolbox that can be used to get you to where you want to go. Um, and as of right now, it's still 100% funded. So, tax dollars are going to it no matter what. So, why not put your name in the hat? If you're if your city's federal tax dollars are going to this, why not bring it back to the city of Austin? Thank you. Thank

you. Uh, I just had one more item just to talk about. Um, I will be out from June 11th until July 23rd approximately. Um, the uh we're going to try to squeeze in another planning commission meeting at the beginning of June. Uh, we were thinking June 3rd. So, just to give you a heads up, sounds like there will be some items to try to uh to review at that particular meeting. That's all I have. All right. Any commissioners got anything else? If not, I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. Thank you. Motion from Commissioner Norman and a second from Commissioner Shrock to adjourn. All in favor of the motion, please say I. I. I. All oppose? No. Motion carries. We'rejourned.