Skillman Partners

Austin is a horrible place to try and get anything permitted because of the complexity and outdated nature of the process. There was no process, depending on the day/person everything would change. Codenext was going to simplify and streamline all that. However it too was overly complex.

Now according to the second portion of this article, they are going to simplify it! This is very welcome news.

Here is the most important part:

". . . the new draft will "not maintain the transect and non-transect zones" and will "get rid of the nomenclature of T zones and non-T zones." Replacing them will be a simplified list of R1 through R4, each allowing the indicated number of residential units by right per lot, plus RM1 through RM6 for increasingly dense multifamily residential. "

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2017-06-30/public-notice-no-fireworks-but-a-bombshell/

Public Notice: No Fireworks, but a Bombshell City Council, AISD Board adjourn for summer with work left to do

And on a lighter note, did you know that Cougars had beds?

California firm buys 465 Cougar beds

HOUSTON (REBusiness) – California-based private equity firm Arrimus Capital has acquired Campus Vue, a 465-bed, Class A, student housing property near the University of Houston.

Located at 4459 N. MacGregor Way, the 145-unit property consists of two five-story buildings.

Fountain Residential Properties sold the asset, which was 96 percent occupied at the time of sale.

News of the day:

New THC web app connects developers to historic downtowns

AUSTIN (Texas Historical Commission) – The Texas Historical Commission (THC) has launched DowntownTX.org, a web application designed to connect potential investors to development opportunities in Texas’ historic downtowns.

DowntownTX.org is an online building inventory for Texas downtowns featuring historic property listings.

The website has two map-based user interfaces—one for the public, the other administrative purposes.

The public interface promotes investment opportunities and historic building information, highlights incentives, provides a direct connection to the correct local contacts, and clarifies the local development process.

A user-friendly design makes it easy to scan the entire state and provides the ability to search parameters no other online real estate search tool offers. For example, properties can be filtered by National Register designation to direct interested historic real estate developers to properties eligible for the state and federal historic tax incentive programs.

The administrative interface displays a tailored dashboard, allowing each community to customize their homepage to manage building and business data internally.

About 20 cities are currently online. More will be added throughout the year.

The project was made possible by the Still Water Foundation, the THC’s Certified Local Government program, and the Friends of the THC.

"Not all renovations are equal. Before you start knocking down walls, the experts offer some words of advice. Basically, remodeling projects are either ones that pay off when you sell the house and ones that don't. For simplicity, let's just call them renovation winners and losers." More from Senior Editor David Jones in this week's Mixed-Use Blog post.

Getting ready to put our condo regime duplex up for sale at 3015 Matador Drive in Austin