Commission approves Sixth & Walsh rezoning to LIPDA with restrictive covenant, votes hinge on affordable-housing enforcement questions

The Planning Commission on July 8, 2025, approved a rezoning application for 6th and Walsh (approximately 1.19 acres at addresses on West Sixth and Wall Street) to LI-PDA-NP (Limited Industry Planned Unit Development — Neighborhood Plan), subject to a restrictive covenant negotiated between the applicant and the Old West Austin Neighborhood Association (OANA). The vote followed lengthy public testimony and an extended commissioner round-robin about zoning tools available under state law.

The approved package includes tiered heights and a pedestrian-focused public realm: a lower 60–64-foot height band facing West Sixth transitioning to taller allowances (up to 120 feet farther from Sixth), an 18-foot sidewalk/landscape zone along Sixth and Wall, 75 percent active ground-floor uses, buried parking, bird-friendly design and limits on short-term rentals. The developer offered an on-site affordability commitment: either 10 percent of units at 50 percent AMI or 12 percent at 60 percent AMI with a 40-year term; those commitments are written into a private restrictive covenant that gives OANA specified review and audit rights. The applicant and neighborhood also agreed to prohibit a long list of industrial and other uses as part of the covenant; the commission additionally placed community recreation as…