02/01/2025

Duval and 183 Zoning Application Documents

183 and Duval Redevelopment 

(Former 3M Property)

08/01/2021

Memo to Neighborhood from AVANA Board 

August 2021

AVANA has created a volunteer team of board and community members that has been working tirelessly on our behalf to gather information on this very complicated process: the redevelopment of the 3M site.  There are a hundred different ways that the neighborhood might mitigate its concerns related to the 3M site, and we have seen many suggestions on the ListServ.  All suggestions are good.  However, all suggestions might not be successful.  Many ideas have already been processed through the 3M team to try and determine the best chance for success, for the most good, for the most people.   

Please know that everyone is free to consult their own experts or to find their own source of information.  It is not our intent for you to solely rely on our team.  But our team of volunteers will relay information to you as they are able to obtain it, and you can make your own informed decision.  If you are a subject matter expert in any area related to land development, please participate by helping our team or contacting the City yourself.  

Also, we ask that you share information you think would be relevant or helpful to us as well.  Email staceypeterson@juno.com who will forward to the 3M Committee.  When possible, include a phone number for easy follow up.     

Below is a good example of how a really good suggestion, for a situation that we are all very concerned about, might not have as high of a probability of success as one might first think.  We are not saying that it couldn’t ultimately succeed; but in our opinion, a lot of time, political capital, energy, and money would need to be invested for it to have even a slim chance of success.

Question:  As a neighborhood can we sue to close the driveways from the 3M site to West Cow Path?

It is our understanding that the driveways associated with the 3M site and West Cow Path are existing real property rights.  They are one of the bundle of rights that make up fee title ownership of a piece of real property and have a value ($) associated with them.  They are considered access rights.  One of the things that makes this site complicated is that it is an existing commercial site.  It is not a new development.  Most new developments, on raw pieces of land, make a request for access (aka driveway permit) from the Municipality or County during the development process.  The developers are not.  They don’t have to.  They already have this right.

In order to close the driveways from the 3M site to West Cow Path, the City of Austin would have to be involved.  Not the neighborhood, but the City of Austin.  The City of Austin is the adjacent landowner (in the form of the roadway right of way) and the grantee of the access rights across their property to the public roadway network. The City would have to extinguish those rights (the right to access the public roadway is powerful subject and often sited in Local Government Code).  If the City cannot purchase the access rights back from 3M, because there is not a willing seller and a willing buyer (and there is not any indication that the developer will easily part with these driveways), then the City would have to use its condemnation authority to extinguish the access rights (and this would still be considered a compensable action).  Even if we could muster the political willpower to get the City to use its condemnation authority, there are laws associated with condemnation practices that protect real property owners (like us) from misuse of that authority and work against forcing the real property owner of the 3M site to extinguish their legal and exiting rights.