Residential Projects Planned for South Lamar Face Opposition

By Camelia Bulea, Associate Editor

At least six residential projects are either planned or under construction in the area near South Lamar Boulevard and Barton Springs Road in Austin. The apartment projects are to bring around 1,700 residential units to the intersection over the next few years, according to The Statesman.

While developers assert that the area lacks apartments, some neighborhood leaders argue that the planned projects will not be able to handle traffic in the busy intersection. Additionally, the area could see the construction of new commercial space, such that in the next few years 2.2 million square feet of commercial and residential space could be added alongside South Lamar.

The five planned residential projects are:

• A 225-unit community, proposed for Barton Springs Road, which would replace the 30-unit Mobil3 Manor mobile home park;
• A 223-unit community, developed by Mill Creek Residential Trust just west of Chuy’s;
• A 340-unit community at South Lamar Boulevard and Juliet Street;
• Two residential projects on South Lamar Boulevard totaling 602 units.

The projects mentioned above and the 298-unit housing development currently being built will add 1,688 units and many more residents to the Barton Springs-South Lamar area.

Jeff Jack, a member of the Zilker neighborhood group, dreads the negative effects that these projects could have on the area, turning it into a parking lot for much of the day and forcing even more cut-through traffic, as quoted by The Statesman.

On the other hand, the developer of a condo project in the area, Larry Warshaw, argues that construction of these residential projects is the answer and not the problem, saying that activists opposing a residential project “don’t a have a substantive reason to oppose the project, other than the fact that they are simply afraid of change”, as quoted by The Statesman.

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