Please Help Stop the Statesman PUD and Protect Lady Bird Lake, Our Lakefront Parks, and Our Tax Dollars

One of the most important votes in decades for our parks, Lady Bird Lake, and our tax dollars is set for this Thursday at the Austin City Council.  We need your help to tell the City Council “No Special Deals for Billionaire Developers” looking to shred our Lady Bird Lake, water quality, and park land protection rules. 

The owners of the old 19-acre Austin American Statesman property, located on the south shore of Lady Bird Lake, next to the Congress Ave bat bridge, are asking for literally dozens of variances and waivers to standard city ordinances while also demanding tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies to build their private streets and parking garages.  (It’s really true; we are not kidding.)
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Please join with us to tell Mayor Adler and the City Council to vote “NO” unless the special “PUD” (planned unit development) ordinance does the following:
1. Protects 9.2 acres of public park land along the Lady Bird Lake shoreline;
2. Maintains full access to the Hike & Bike trail;
3. Complies with the Waterfront Overlay setbacks and development regulations; and
4. Removes all public subsidies to the billionaire developer.
Without your voice and hundreds of others, the City Council will approve this terrible deal on behalf of the wealthiest developers and landowners in Texas.  We will be stuck with it forever!!  And then every other developer will demand the same variances and giveaways. 
Here’s what you can do today:

1. Register to Speak to the City Council today for the Thursday council meeting.  Sign the linked form and mark “against” Item 105, the rezoning of 305 South Congress.  You can speak remotely, by phone, or in person. Please attend in person if you are able. You must register by Noon on Wednesday to speak remotely: in person speakers may register at the kiosks in the City Hall lobby until 9:15 a.m. Thursday morning. 
2. Join us for a Zoom Call with SOS Executive Director Bill Bunch tomorrow, Tuesday, August 30, at 10:00 a.m., to learn the details about the proposed Statesman PUD project and how to speak to the Council (now that procedures have changed and are quite confusing).  Send an email to [email protected] saying you wish to join the Tuesday Zoom on the Statesman PUD and we will send you the meeting link. 
3.  Send one email today to Mayor Adler and the City Council with this simple form telling them the four points, above, or (even better) writing your own message in your own words.

Please share this message with friends, family, and colleagues.  Ask them to join with you in opposing the Statesman PUD today and through the City Council vote late Thursday evening.  We hope to see you at City Hall on Thursday (or hear you speak by phone testimony.)