The 45 day moratorium on development over the Barton Springs Zone of the Edwards Aquifer.

The moratorium applies to retail projects exceeding 50,000 square feet and Grocery stores over 75,000 square feet.

The question is: Has HEB been put on hold? I'm trying to find out if the HEB is planned to be over 75,000 ft.

Maybe someone can ask Bartlett, since he's conected with Stratus.

HEB's size

I heard that the HEB is a proposed 110,000 sqft and apparently, not a ?“Central Market?”.

If the try to come in over 75,000 sqft, they may have to convince the city that it?’s really just a grocery store and not a Wal-Mart.

There is a good argument for a collection of smaller buildings ?– easier to fit around pipelines, Karsts, roads, and other critical features.

The retention ponds are a poor alternative and they only work on a smaller scale project. Over at MOPAC and Hwy 290, the systems are not working well (city report last year ?– too much water, too fast to control, i.e. Big Boxes, Big parking lots, large roadways create flooding conditions).

75,000 sq ft

Although newspapers are reporting two different grocery store sizes effected by the moritorium (75,0000 and 100,000 sq ft), I just called the city clerks office to get the facts.

The city clerk says the moratorium applies to Grocery stores over 75,000 square feet.

Except for Lowe's

Lowe's is a special case, which is not to say they are anywhere close to doing the right thing. Like Wal-Mart, they have decided to fight, and fight mean. They hired ex-Austin Mayor (this the kind of consulting Ex-Council people do most of the time) and bunch of dirty lawyers, then they lobbied for an unconstitutional Texas bill (1204) that basically lets the county take over when the cities won't allow development of bad projects, if a valid application has been submited (Lowe's applicaiton to Sunset Valley was rushed, incomplete, and quicky denied).

However, Lowe's has a powerful hoard of nasty lawyers, who immediately sued the city of Austin. They are clearly not interested in compromize or negotiatation. They put all their money in lobbyist and Wentworth bent over backwards to lick their boots.

Last night (2 am this morning, actually) the city council narrowly passed (4-3) an ordinance that will allow a ''settlement'', which no one has seen yet (they promised to post it on the City's web site). The broad details are no different than what Lowe's demanded - 40% impervious cover, but now they put up $660,000 to buy ''mitigation land'', which would have to be way south in undeveloped Hayes county (in other words, not eccologically significant).

They are still building at 3 times the SOS levels, which have been agreed to by Stratus Properties in our area.

Lowe's is driving a mean, hard nosed campain. You can help by NEVER shopping at Lowe's and pass the word on to all of you friends and family.

That's not to say that Home Depot is some sort of community prize, but Lowe's is desperate and more cut-throat than Home Depot, right now.

Most likely, the new Lowe's center will not be profitiable anyway. They can't see the mess they are in, and worse, you should know that they don't even own this property near HEB at William Canon. They are only pushing for the zoning approval for the land owner.

If Lowe's gives up, ANY Big Box company can come in and build under the same terms - like Wal-Mart, Costco, Big Lots, you name it!!!

This is bad public policy. The city council first voted to accept these terms, THEM they sent it to the Planning Commission and staff - who are going to do what ?? Knowing it's going to pass anyway, why bother to comment ??

It's a done deal - stick a fork in it. The city will have to vote two more times, but they also have the option to vote the first, second, and third readings all at the same time !? This is simply wrong - it excludes public input and it's a back door deal.