ANOTHER GREAT LETTER TO THE AAS:
Sept 13, 2014
Shonda and Lori,
Thank you both very much for that very informative and timely article on page one of the Statesman on Sept. 2.
I hope that you two ladies will continue your interest in this awful PUD development. I attended the developer/City staff presentation on Aug. 19 and spoke strongly against this potentially disastrous development in our neighborhood. Having a series of multistory very high-rise buildings in that location is so additionally disruptive to our already overcrowded area, and, as they say “precedent setting”, for future MoPac development!!
I hope you received the yellow handout we attendees received at the presentation. Our schools are already severely overcrowded, each exceeding 100% capacity; traffic is maddening everywhere around Spicewood Springs Road from Loop 360 to MoPac, every major intersection is congested mornings and evenings. As I remember, the developer only tested traffic at the three intersecting streets involving their project. There are two more vast developments in progress—one west of Mesa, one east of Mesa on Spicewood Springs Road that will severely add to the current congestion. Imagine trying to make a left turn off of narrow Spicewood Springs Road west of Mesa in either direction!! And to have several sky-rises at that intersection with MoPac is unthinkable—increasing the current square footage from 450,000 to 1,634,000, almost quadrupling that footage!! and making the buildings four to five times higher than any current building in our area west of MoPac!! This is not downtown!! And why are they totally demolishing the current buildings when they are in good condition, only 40 or less years old!! Check out the current residential morning traffic at Far West and Wood Hollow wanting to get to MoPac south.
I hope you will continue to explore the madness of this development’s impact on the traffic situation, school population and neighborhood life.
I have lived in this area of the Northwest Austin Civic Assn. (NWACA) for 36 years. I was a former officer of the Assn. back in the early ‘80s when we had a similar development project (sixteen and fourteen floor towers) presented to us and we voted it down ASAP!! Judging from the reaction of the people attending this presentation, that attitude exists again today; not just of our association, but the three neighboring associations also.
Thanks again for your initial efforts at publicizing this pending disaster and hope you will continue your efforts.
Melvin Driskill
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