Council to vote on allowing taller buildings along Sixth Street

Austin Monitor
BY JONATHAN LEE
FRIDAY, JULY 14, 2023

City Council is set to vote next week on allowing taller buildings along part of Sixth Street, in hopes of bringing more daytime uses to Austin’s most famous stretch of bars and clubs. 

The plan is to allow buildings up to 140 feet high on properties along “Dirty Sixth”’ between Sabine and Neches streets, as long as historic facades are preserved. 

Stream Realty Partners, which reportedly owns over 40 parcels on Sixth Street, plans to redevelop many of the properties if Council approves the height increase.

“Sixth Street has become a real problem, and it’s in what I would call a death spiral, because you’re not going to get anybody to go in there,” Richard Suttle, a land use attorney representing Stream, told the Historic Landmark Commission in June. “It has become a shooting gallery.”

Details on the redevelopment plans likely will become more clear if Council approves the zoning change. In broad strokes, Stream plans to add a mix of new uses and liven the streetscape with wider sidewalks and outdoor cafe-style seating, as well as incorporate other elements from the Safer Sixth Street Initiative. Currently, many of the buildings along the stretch are boarded up.

In order to make new buildings compatible with the historic district, they would have to be set back 15 feet from the current facades, with historic facades preserved. The buildings would also be subject to the district’s design standards.

While some of the buildings on the blocks slated for redevelopment are historic, many are not. City staffers do not recommend allowing taller buildings elsewhere in the Sixth Street Historic District, because other parts contain too many historic structures. 

The changes officially have been in the works since June 2022, when Council initiated an amendment to the city’s Land Development Code. Since then, staffers have worked out guidelines around redevelopment in order to maintain the area’s historic character while allowing new buildings, and boards and commissions have reviewed the proposed changes. 

Most recently, the Planning Commission on June 11 voted unanimously to support the height increase, with little discussion. 

Representatives from Preservation Austin spoke at the meeting, saying they feared the height increase would set a precedent that could lead to future height increases in other parts of the district. They advocated for zoning the entire district historic and giving the Historic Landmark Commission greater oversight over development in the district. The commission did not address these requests.

The Historic Landmark Commission, for its part, supported the increased height at a meeting in early June, while also voting to give themselves more power over the approval of new buildings.

Stream opposed the move. Suttle said that commissioners could vote against redevelopment because “they just don’t like the idea of a tall building.”

The Planning Commission voted not to give the Historic Landmark Commission additional powers over development in the area. Council will have the final say on July 20.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.