Castle Hill Historic District Application Update
Posted Thursday, May 27, 2010
The Castle Hill Historic District application is still pending before the City of Austin. In response to a request from members of OWANA, the city’s February 24 Landmark Commission Hearing was postponed. The following three months consisted of district owner outreach, devoted to gathering owner input regarding the Castle Hill Historic District Design Standards. Additionally, the city of Austin held two meetings in May to allow input and feedback on proposed design standards for the Historic District. The meetings resulted in proposed changes to the design standards. The applicants for the district met and revised the standards, incorporating many suggestions including provisions to ensure that McMansion code and compatibility standards applied to the District. The Standards were also revised to ensure flexibility; many previous "required" provisions were changed to be optional.
The City’s Historic Landmark Commission considered the application on May 24 at its monthly meeting. Again, one owner from within the district asked to postpone the application in order to have additional time to reviews the revised standards. The Castle Hill application team did not oppose the request and the Commission agreed to postpone the item until June 28. The historic district is part of the original application for the Blanco Street local Historic district, which was submitted to the city two years ago. The application was revised based on requests to expand the boundaries to include Baylor Street and the intervening Streets, as well as the Castle Building. The application can be viewed on the city’s web site at www.ci.austin.tx.us/historic.