THE AUSTIN BICYCLE PLAN: Citywide Open House

The City of Austin Bicycle Program has updated its Bicycle Master Plan, which includes input from stakeholders given at a series of meetings in March/April 2008.

Citizens can review the Bike Plan on-line at http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/bicycle/update2008.htm or any Austin area library beginning February 21st.

When? Wednesday, March 4th th from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. (snacks and beverages will be provided).

Where? One Texas Center, 505 Barton Springs Road, 3rd Floor Training Room (see map below).

Why? This is another opportunity to view and comment on the plan as it moves towards final adoption, scheduled for late spring 2009. Check Bicycle Program website for adoption schedule.

*Bus routes in close proximity include: 1, 10 and 16.
*Bike routes in close proximity include: 31/33/47/60 and 64.
*Review the City of Austin Bike Route Map on the website: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/bicycle/default.htm, or contact Nathan Wilkes at Nathan.wilkes@ci.austin.tx.us or 512-974-7016 to acquire an actual Bicycle Route Map.

Neighborhood Association members may also attend a presentation on the Bicycle Plan Update at the monthly meeting of the Austin Neighborhoods Council on February 25th. For more information visit www.ancweb.org

Request for Neighborhood Input to City Council and Mayoral Candidate's Forum

Our neighborhood, together with Allandale, Brentwood, Highland, North Shoal Creek, and Wooten, is sponsoring a forum for City Council candidates on Monday April 13. Our 6 neighborhoods have joined together because we feel there are pressing issues impacting all of North Central Austin that need to be addressed by the City. We need your help to formulate good questions on the following topics of common concern:

Code enforcement - City code defines how tall a building can be, how loud a band can play, how late people can stay in the park. Enforcement of City code has often languished and this is a priority for all our neighborhoods.

Open space - The City in 2007 rezoned hundreds of acres of property along Burnet, Anderson, Lamar and Airport for apartments and condos to be built on top of retail (VMU). There are almost no provisions for plazas, playscapes, outdoor dining, trails, parks, or other outdoor features that will make these new mixed use districts liveable and resilient.

Neighborhood plan follow-through - Crestview has had a neighborhood plan for some years, but little (if anything) has been done. The neighborhood has been asked to submit a list of plan priorities to the City to address, but past feedback from the City has been that there is no money in the budget to do anything significant (like add sidewalks down Grover). What has the City implemented in the plan since it was completed?

Land use and zoning - Zoning defines what building size and placement are allowed on a piece of land, and determines what kinds of uses (grocery, car dealership, home, park) are permitted. Many properties in our neighborhood have been or are being rezoned.

Creek-side trails, greenbelts - Some neighborhoods have pushed for years to get improvements to trails along neighborhood creeks. In Crestview, much effort has been expended (to little avail, thus far) to get a hike and bike trail along the new commuter rail line.

Traffic and transportation - What transportation solutions will best curb traffic on area streets?

Responsiveness - Are City Council members and City staff aware of and responding to our needs?

Please submit questions by March 2nd to the Crestview Neighborhood Association Vice President, Steve Kuehner at: steve.kuehner@gmail.com. A committee composed of representatives of all 6 neighborhoods will select the strongest questions for a questionaire to candidates. The questionaire responses we get from candidates will then be used to define follow-on questions to be asked at the forum.

Thank you for helping to make Crestview and North Central Austin a better place to live!

ADDENDUM: An online form was created to receive neighbor input and added on Feb. 26th.

CNA 02.09.09 General Meeting Minutes

This meeting was called to gather ideas from the general assembly on how the neighborhood association can best serve their needs and on how to encourage participation in areas of interest to the general membership. There are 2000 households in Crestview. 21 people were in attendance, 2 of which left after the announcements, and 8 of the remaining are already serving on CNA committees.

Announcements:

Traffic Calming
Steve Dobie, Chairman of the Traffic Calming Committee, gave an update on the status of the traffic calming effort in Crestview. The committee’s plan was submitted to the City in July. They will be meeting with the City in the next few weeks to go over the City’s response to their plan and hear the City’s recommendations. The final plan will be mailed along with a ballot and an invitation to an open house to Crestview residents. 60% of the returned ballots are required to be in favor of the plan in order for it to be implemented. This will likely be our only shot at calming traffic for the next 10-15 years. The committee’s attempted to focus on existing problems in the neighborhood, as those are expected to get worse when the new developments (Crestview Station, Wal-Mart, etc.) are completed.

Bylaws
The proposed bylaws for the CNA will be frozen at midnight on February 9th. The next general meeting there will be a vote on whether or not to implement the new bylaws over the old bylaws. There was some discussion to refresh people’s memories on what the main differences between the two were. It was suggested that the copy of the proposed bylaws on the neighborhood web site be marked up to help people see what the differences are.

Next General Meeting - Texas Gas will be speaking on gas safety.

Candidate Forum
There will be a candidate’s forum for the mayoral and city council candidates hosted by Crestview in April. It will be arranged by a combined North Austin neighborhood coalition.

Open Forum on how to improve the neighborhood association and participation:

Gardening – there is a gardening listserv in Crestview and a seed swap this weekend
Land Use Committee – status: not very active as Heidi’s main concern is with monitoring variance requests and they aren’t very common in Crestview. Looking for representation in the City.

Q: Way to enforce neighborhood compatibility?
A: No.

Issue – Neighborhoods have no power to influence the kinds of developments that are going on.

Crime – Neighborhood Watch?
- Crime Statistics for Crestview?
- Info sharing?
Steve Dobie volunteered to find out how to get the information compiled by the APD (i.e. crime stats) and make it available to the neighborhood.

What is our vision for our neighborhood in the future? Can we target specific areas and projects (e.g. a pedestrian walkway to Crestview Station) and delegate to people interested in spearheading these efforts?

Crestview Station/Cap Metro/pedestrian trail/rails with trails – Water run off and water retention designs are at maximum. When Cap Metro decides to add another line to the rail, they will need to spend lots of tax payer money to force water underground because Trammel Crow has not allocated enough green space along the rail to provide adequate water retention (or a hike and bike trail) for a new line.

Austin Energy - Substation will have 15ft-high fences. The neighborhood may need to take action to save a large burr oak along St. Johns if raising the existing power line will threaten it.

Bulk trash pickup and tree trimmings are poorly timed. Perhaps the CNA could contract with someone to bring in a large dumpster where people could drop off their brush or bulk for a small fee, or we could arrange for stuff to be taken to the dump.

Perhaps we should do more to promote the National Night out, annually in October. Perhaps someone would be willing to advertise and coordinate this.

Social Activities – more ice cream socials or Saturday meetings?

Recommendation to seek suggestions for increasing participation on-line, since many seem unable to attend the monthly general meeting.

One suggestion was made that higher attendance to the general meetings might result if meetings were held less often, say every other month or quarterly.

Participation seems dependent upon the topics of the meeting. Perhaps we should attempt to have guest speakers at every meeting.

Someone suggested speaking to the churches in the neighborhood on providing refreshments to the general meetings as a way to reach out to the neighborhood and perhaps encourage attendance at the general meetings from the church congregations.

A recommendation was made to deliver the newsletters 7-10 days before the general meetings so that people have adequate notice. Many do not receive the newsletters until after the meetings or have forgotten and already made other plans. In order to facilitate this, perhaps the date of the ex comm. meetings could change so that there is time for information from that meeting to make it into the newsletter. Another suggestion was made for current newsletter distributors, or block captains, to gather e-mails from their region to be able to e-mail out electronic copies of the newsletters as a backup.

Crestview Garden Party and Seed Swap - Feb. 15th

There is a listserv for gardeners in Crestview (see the Neighborhood Links section). This month Paige Hill will be hosting a Garden Party and Seed Swap. See her post below, copied from the listserv:

I'm hosting a neighborhood garden party at my house for anyone interested in swapping vegetable/herb seeds and sharing info with each other about how you propagate, store, plant or otherwise prep for vegetable gardening with seeds. This will be an outdoor party provided it's not raining or below 60 degrees, otherwise we will pick a different day!

When: Sunday, February 15th, 6pm - 8pm (sorry...I'm out earlier in the day)
Where: 1115 Taulbee Lane
What: We'll share info with each other in a round table Q&A fashion and then exchange until everyone's tired or out of seeds
What to bring:
- Light snack, or drink, or food from your winter garden
- Seeds to share - labeled and with instructions if necessary
*heirlooms are best but not necessary - please label your seeds appropriately (hybrid, heirloom, brand name, scientific name, date you gathered/purchased etc...all these things are helpful to explain what you're giving away to the next person.)
- Any of your favorite resources on how-to and your experiences, info, tips, etc.
- Baggies/jars/etc. and permanent markers for storing and labeling the seeds you take home
- A folding chair if you have one

Children are welcome. Please be prepared to oversee them. They are free to run around, and I have bunnies and some toys, but I do have dangerous objects sitting around (children have a way of finding things I've lost in the grass like scissors! ;).

Pets on leash who get along with children and other pets are ok.

Questions: designbarefoot@gmail.com (preferred)
512-573-7812
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Addendum:
I'm excited that there is a pretty good response to the idea of having a veggie garden gathering, so I've created an Evite to help people communicate with me or others who are attending.

- Maybe set up carpooling with your neighbor (or a group bike ride!).

- If there's a cancellation due to weather I can send it to attendees
through the Evite.

The biggest question so far? "*What if I don't have any seeds!?*"

- That's ok, come on over anyway. The "no seed" folks can bring a snack or drink, how's that?

Also, if you've got a gardening neighbor who's not on a computer, please feel free to print out the invitation and take it to them. The invite is not limited to cyber gardeners!

This does NOT mean that if you don't respond to the Evite you can't come. Please come...it just helps me be a control freak. :-), that's all.

Cheers,
-Paige

February 9, CNA General Meeting

This Monday's Crestview Neighborhood Association General Meeting will be an open house/town hall sort of meeting where current issues facing the neighborhood will be up for discussion. The executive committee will attempt to brief the general assembly on issues of which they are aware, and they will be looking to hear from the neighborhood on issues that are of concern to all. This is an opportunity to focus our efforts on a few top priorities and to provide opportunities for more people to get involved or provide leadership on topics of special interest to them. The more people show up, the greater likelihood that projects or issues that matter to the neighborhood will be addressed, so please stop by!

Also, the new proposed CNA ByLaws will be frozen at midnight that evening, so if anyone has any additional input on the bylaws, please see the proposed bylaws in their current form under the Neighborhood Documents section of the neighborhood web site (www.crestviewna.org), and provide feedback to the ByLaws Committee Chair, Mike Keenan (mkeenan68@aol.com).

The meeting will be at the usual place and time: The second Monday of the month (February 9th, in this case), at 7pm in Wozniak Hall (The Parish Activity Center) at the St. Louis Catholic Church on Burnet Road and St. Joseph (Morrow).

Austin Energy Morrow/Grover Project

To address the concerns of some neighbors in Crestview about the new poles being put in by Austin Energy for the new feeder line running between the Koenig sub-station and the new Crestview sub-station, Dave Considine (CNA Executive Committee, Place 2) has forwarded two photographs of a similar completed project. Note that these are still wooden poles, only 10 feet higher than the existing poles.

Austin Energy Power Poles

City of Austin News for Feb. 2009

Check out the latest City of Austin News for information on the Comprehensive Plan for Austin, Austin's Zero Waste Plan, Austin Energy’s vision for the future, the Green Garden Festival and more!