It's decision time for city in Lowe's dispute
Dek Head:
Label:
Corrections: An article on Tuesday's Page One about a proposed Lowe's store in Southwest Austin gave an incomplete account of state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez's voting record on a bill intended to favor the company. The Austin Democrat voted against the measure when the House first approved it but voted in favor of the final version submitted by a House-Senate conference committee.>
Correction Notes:
Reporter: Ralph K.M. Haurwitz
Desk:
Story Source: AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Day: Tuesday
Dateline:
Print Run Date: 11/4/2003
Digital Run Date:
Text:
Eli Garza, who is 77 years old, has lived virtually his entire life on the family ranch, raising cattle, tending chickens and, at one point, trying to produce a pecan crop. But with highways, shopping centers and apartments encroaching, he and his extended family decided a long time ago that it was time to sell off much of about 140 acres his father acquired in the 1920s.
Easier said than done.
Lowe's Home Centers Inc. has been trying for more than a year to get its plan for a 165,000-square-foot store approved for the site, which is tucked between Brodie Lane and MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and surrounded by the cities of Sunset Valley and Austin.
The 31-acre parcel is also in the heart of the Barton Springs recharge zone, and therein lies the rub.
The recharge zone, which covers a 20-mile stretch of Travis and Hays counties, is a special place, both geologically and politically. Rainfall in the zone percolates through soil and creek beds, replenishing the segment of the Edwards Aquifer that supplies not only Barton Springs Pool but also wells serving 50,000 people.
Sunset Valley, Austin and a coalition of environmental and neighborhood groups say the Lowe's project would eliminate too much of the Garza ranch's natural landscape of live oaks, junipers and mesquites. Some critics, such as the Save Our Springs Alliance, want Lowe's to abandon the project altogether, noting that the aquifer, pool and wells already are tainted with toxic chemicals from decades of development. At a minimum, the critics say, Lowe's should comply with Austin's Save Our Springs ordinance, which allows just 15 percent of parcels in the recharge zone to be covered with buildings, parking spaces and other impervious cover.
Lowe's has no interest in abandoning the site, or in complying with the 15 percent standard, and it would appear to be holding some pretty stout cards. Just how that hand will play out could be decided Thursday, when the Austin City Council is scheduled to consider a proposed settlement negotiated by Lowe's and the city staff.
"In my opinion, the property is going to be developed, " said Mayor Will Wynn. "The question is, does the City of Austin cooperate to ensure that it's developed in the most environmentally sound way? Or do we not cooperate and risk far fewer controls put in place?"
The proposed settlement would allow 40 percent impervious cover but require Lowe's to install detention ponds and other water-quality controls to meet a provision of the SOS ordinance requiring runoff to be as clean after development as it was before. In addition, Lowe's would donate $600,000 so that the city could acquire 52 acres for preservation elsewhere in the recharge zone. That would bring the overall impervious cover for land associated with the project to 15 percent.
Why would the city's regulators and lawyers negotiate a deal that stops short of strict compliance with the SOS ordinance, which was approved overwhelmingly by the voters in 1992 and which has been upheld by the Texas Supreme Court? For a simple reason: They think the city is on thin legal ice.
The Texas Legislature earlier this year approved a bill with language intended to favor Lowe's. The measure, House Bill 1204, appears to place the tract under the jurisdiction of Travis County, whose rules could allow up to 90 percent of the site to be converted to impervious cover.
Sen. Jeff Wentworth, a Republican from San Antonio whose district includes the land at issue, said Sunset Valley and Austin treated Garza and Lowe's in an unfair and offensive manner. Wentworth sponsored what has come to be known as the Lowe's amendment. The measure passed the House and Senate overwhelmingly, with only one member of the Travis County delegation, Democratic Rep. Eddie Rodriguez of Austin, voting against it, and it was signed into law.
The dispute begins
The dispute began after Lowe's put the 31 acres -- roughly half owned by Garza and the balance by a niece, a sister and a family friend -- under contract. On Oct. 15, 2002, Lowe's outlined its plans to the Sunset Valley City Council. The property was in Sunset Valley's extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) and therefore subject to the city's water-quality rules. Those rules allow up to 40 percent impervious cover.
Two weeks later, on Nov. 1, 2002, a Friday, Sunset Valley officials posted a notice at the municipal office at 5:15 p.m., after the close of business, for a special meeting three days later, on Monday, Nov. 4. The agenda included releasing 71 acres of land under its ETJ to Austin.
Sunset Valley officials did not inform Garza or Lowe's about the meeting. But on the morning of Nov. 4, Lowe's officials delivered the company's application for a preliminary plan to the municipal office. On their way out, they discovered the posting.
Alerted by the Lowe's team, Dan Wheelus, Garza's lawyer, attended the council meeting later that day and urged against a hasty decision.
"The council thanked me for my remarks and voted to release the ETJ land, " Wheelus said. "Eli owned that property even before the City of Sunset Valley existed, and he was entitled to better treatment than that. They clearly were not interested in hearing from the property owners."
Two days later, Sunset Valley rejected the Lowe's application, concluding that it did not qualify as a valid application because of 16 deficiencies, including lack of a tree survey and a soil map.
Lowe's subsequently filed an application with the City of Austin, which promptly rejected it for not complying with the SOS ordinance. Lowe's sued Austin, arguing that state law allows it to develop under Sunset Valley's 40 percent impervious cover standard because that was the rule at the time it filed the initial application. Lowe's and Garza also turned to the Legislature for backup.
Terry Cowan, Sunset Valley's mayor, said it was no secret that Sunset Valley was considering a release of ETJ in an effort to subject the property to Austin's more stringent SOS ordinance.
"It hasn't been our usual and customary practice to notify developers every time we have a public meeting, " Cowan said. "These guys certainly should be motivated to pay attention."
Pros and cons
Sunset Valley has decided to join the lawsuit between Lowe's and Austin, and has set aside $400,000 for legal fees.
Colin Clark, communications director for the SOS Alliance, said Austin officials are underestimating the strength of their legal position. Wentworth's amendment for Lowe's does not apply because it speaks to "pending" applications, not to applications rejected as deficient, Clark said. What's more, he said, the amendment focuses on subdivision rules and not on water-quality regulations.
Legal issues aside, Lowe's should drop the project because the recharge zone is no place for big-box retail stores, according to a coalition of environmental and neighborhood groups. The groups wrote Lowe's recently urging the company to follow the lead of Wal-Mart, which, under similar pressure, abandoned its plan to build a large store in Southwest Austin.
Nor are the groups impressed by the company's promise not to sell or use coal-tar-based pavement sealers, which have been linked to pollution in Barton Creek and Barton Springs. Pesticides, fertilizers and products containing arsenic and heavy metals will still be sold, and a spill or fire involving these substances could pollute the water supply, they say.
But the site is attractive to Lowe's. After all, its main competitor, Home Depot, operates a large store about a third of a mile away in Sunset Valley.
"Our market research has shown us that it is an important area to be in, " said Marc Millis, site development director for Lowe's. Is abandoning the project a possibility? "Not at this time, " he said.
Bruce Todd, a former Austin mayor who is representing the company, said Lowe's is confident it would win in court. "But it's not just an issue of big boxes, " Todd said. "It's a question of whether the City of Austin is anti-business."
To Garza and his family, it's also a question of whether landowners get a fair shake. He has donated 27 acres of his ranch to the city and to the state in the past 20 years for roads, rights of way and greenbelts.
"I think we've been unfairly treated, " said Marci White, Garza's niece and one of the landowners. "We have come to play the game, as it were, to appease the city and try to do what we need to do, and they always come back and make stops in the road. We're very frustrated at what it's come to."
This is not the first time that Garza's development efforts have wound up in court. He sued the city in 1997 when it refused to allow him to develop three other tracts on his ranch under the so-called comprehensive watershed ordinance. The city had insisted he abide by the more stringent interim ordinance even though a notation on his plat -- approved in 1991 by the city Planning Commission -- allowed development under the weaker rule.
A state District Court judge ruled in Garza's favor earlier this year, declaring that the city could not repudiate that notation when it accepted others, including one that provided for a 5-acre donation of land from Garza for the Williamson Creek greenbelt.
The case, while not directly related to the Lowe's dispute, is nevertheless instructive, said Casey Dobson, a private lawyer hired by the city to appeal the ruling and to negotiate a settlement with Lowe's.
"I think there is a lesson there for that segment of the community that wants the city to litigate every one of these things rather than try to settle them, " Dobson said.
The council is likely to be divided on the proposed settlement.
Council Member Daryl Slusher said he could not accept it because it falls short of the Forum, Bradley and Stratus settlements recently approved by the council.
But Council Member Jackie Goodman said the legal deck seems stacked against Austin. Brewster McCracken, whose campaign ads opposed big-box projects over the aquifer, went even further: "I believe it's a good deal for the city."
Wynn also seems inclined to settle. "We find ourselves in a crummy position, " he said. "The intent of the Legislature is clear; that is, they don't want the City of Austin to have jurisdiction over that property. Ultimately, the Legislature of course has the final say."
rhaurwitz@statesman.com; 445-3604
Excerpt from
Headline: Another Wal-Mart gets an early OK
Dek Head:
Label:
Corrections: >
Correction Notes:
Reporter: Jeremy Schwartz
Desk:
Story Source: AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Day: Friday
Dateline:
Print Run Date: 11/7/2003
In a proposed settlement with Lowe's, the city basically would agree to a 40 percent limit on parking lots, buildings and other impervious cover -- 25 percent more than is allowed by the city's Save Our Springs Ordinance -- in exchange for some water quality controls and $600,000 to buy and preserve land over the aquifer recharge zone.
The settlement also would end a lawsuit Lowe's filed against the city after its initial application was rejected because it didn't meet the SOS Ordinance guidelines.
City officials did not think the city could survive the lawsuit because a bill sponsored in the spring by state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, placed the tract under the jurisdiction of Travis County, whose rules allow perhaps as much as 90 percent impervious cover.
County commissioners have said they won't approve the deal until the city signs off on it or a judge rules in the lawsuit.
Lowe's originally filed an application with the City of Sunset Valley, but officials there released the land to Austin the night the application was received because of Austin's stricter environmental controls.
Austin placed a 45-day moratorium on big-box retail development over the Edwards Aquifer on Oct. 23, but the ban doesn't affect Lowe's because the proposed site is in the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction.
The settlement came under fire from Council Member Daryl Slusher and area environmentalists, who argued that the deal falls short of protections the city secured in its high-profile development deals with Gary Bradley in 2000 and Stratus Properties in 2002. Thosedevelopers agreed not to build big-box retail over the aquifer except for grocery stores.
"The idea behind no big boxes over the aquifer is that those sort of developments are a magnet for more growth and traffic, " Slusher wrote in a statement.
Environmentalists urged the council to reject the settlement, saying the risk of losing the lawsuit was worth it. They also blasted Lowe's and the city for not having any public hearings on the issue. The previous deals were the subject of multiple public meetings.
Headline: Lowe's sweetens deal for new store
Dek Head:
Label:
Corrections: >
Correction Notes:
Reporter: Jonathan Osborne
Desk:
Story Source: AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Day: Friday
Dateline:
Print Run Date: 12/12/2003
Digital Run Date:
Text:
Home improvement giant Lowe's, upping the ante Thursday in a last-minute attempt to corner Austin City Council support for a supercenter over the Edwards Aquifer's recharge zone, agreed to $1.3 million in concessions.
But it was unclear late Thursday evening if that would be enough. At press time, the council was still hearing public testimony.Council rejection of the agreement would set up the potential for a courthouse fight. Approval, on the other hand, would clear the way for Travis County commissioners to approve the Brodie Lane store, which would sit on unincorporated land that Austin retains the right to annex.
Lowe's agreed in the settlement to water quality controls that are greater than those required by current city rules. The company also promised to purchase $638,000 in additional property to reduce the percentage of land the development would blanket with the actual structure, parking lots and other so-called impervious cover.
And at the meeting, Lowe's officials also agreed to pay for a $50,000 engineering study to design water quality controls on a tract of environmentally sensitive land the city has under contract near MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and William Cannon Drive. Lowe's agreed to pay for that property as well. In all, the concessions total about $1.3 million.
Still, Brad Rockwell of the Save Our Springs Alliance called the settlement a "horrible deal" and urged the council to fight Lowe's in court.
"The people of Austin have spoken, " he told the council. "Any opportunity people get, they say we want minimal development on the aquifer. We do not want big boxes on the aquifer. Your duty is to represent the people of Austin."
Former Austin Mayor Bruce Todd, who is working as a consultant for Lowe's, said the settlement is more than fair.
"The water control devices on this tract, per the settlement, will be the most advanced of any installed to date in the Central Texas area, " Todd said. "Lowe's is sincere about this: They want to be good corporate citizens."
The 165,000-square-foot store would sit on a 31-acre parcel near the center of the Barton Springs recharge zone, which covers a 20-mile stretch of Travis and Hays counties and is considered by many to be the most environmentally sensitive land in Central Texas.
Rainfall in the zone replenishes the segment of the Edwards Aquifer that supplies Barton Springs Pool and wells serving about 50,000 residents.
Only last week, council members approved a ban on future development in the area on the scale of the proposed Lowe's store. And they are awaiting a $45,000 study that will in part show such stores' effects on the environment as well as their economic toll on other businesses in the city.
The council's main target with that study is Wal-Mart, and the company's ubiquitous supercenters -- one of which the council approved Thursday for Ben White Boulevard and Interstate 35.
The cries among environmentalists and neighborhood groups against so-called big-box retailers in general have grown louder recently even without talk of putting another one over the aquifer.
But when it came to preventing Lowe's from moving into the neighborhood, the City of Austin finds itself in a tight spot, and even the city lawyers have suggested a settlement is the best option.
The dispute began after Lowe's put the 31 acres under contract and outlined its plans to the Sunset Valley City Council in October 2002.
At the time, the property was in Sunset Valley's extraterritorial jurisdiction and therefore subject to the city's water quality rules, which allow up to 40 percent impervious cover.
About two weeks later, Sunset Valley officials posted a notice at the municipal office at 5:15 p.m., after the close of business, for a special meeting where they released Lowe's land to Austin's jurisdiction.
Lowe's subsequently filed an application with Austin.
The city rejected it for not complying with an ordinance that allows for only 15 percent impervious cover in the recharge zone.
Lowe's sued Austin, arguing that state law allows it to develop under Sunset Valley's 40 percent impervious cover standard because that was the rule at the time it filed the initial application.
The company also appealed to the Texas Legislature, which responded earlier this year, approving a bill that essentially placed the tract under Travis County's development rules. Those allow for up to 90 percent impervious cover.
With the will of the Legislature on Lowe's side, Mayor Will Wynn and others in favor of settling with the North Carolina-based chain have said they thought the city would lose in court should the case move forward. And if the city did lose, some on the council worried what precedent that would set for future land development intervention by state lawmakers.
"The concern is that the city could lose control over all water quality regulations, " Council Member Brewster McCracken said. "It is abundantly clear what the Legislature's intent was in passing this legislation."
Groups such as Save Our Springs Alliance, however, have said the city is underestimating its legal position and called on Lowe's to abandon its project altogether.
That's a holiday wish Lowe's has no intention of granting.
Headline: County approves plan for Lowe's home store
Dek Head:
Label:
Corrections: >
Correction Notes:
Reporter: Kate Alexander
Desk:
Story Source: AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Day: Wednesday
Dateline:
Print Run Date: 12/17/2003
Digital Run Date:
Text:
Smudged with the fingerprints of Sunset Valley, the City of Austin and the Texas Legislature, development plans for a Lowe's home improvement store over the Edwards Aquifer landed Tuesday at their final destination: the Travis County Commissioners Court.
The Commissioners Court, on a 3-1 vote, gave the controversial project on Brodie Lane final approval after an unusually convoluted review process. Commissioner Ron Davis voted against it.
The Legislature placed the decision on the 165,000-square-foot store in the county's hands earlier this year after water quality concerns prompted Sunset Valley to release the Lowe's land from its control and kick it over to Austin's jurisdiction.
Sunset Valley officials hoped that Austin officials could subject the development to the city's stricter water quality standards. But Lowe's convinced legislators that the weaker county standards should apply.
The county gave preliminary approval to the development in August with the condition that Austin and Lowe's conclude a pending lawsuit. The Austin City Council narrowly approved a settlement last week that included several environmental concessions by the company.
County Judge Sam Biscoe said deferring to the city settlement ensured that stricter standards pertaining to water quality and other environmental provisions would be required.
"If we were to apply county standards, they would have been much, much less, " Biscoe said.
Sunset Valley officials and the Save Our Springs Alliance asked the county to delay the vote Tuesday.
But state law dictates that if official action is not taken within 60 days of the application's completion, the development plans are approved automatically.
That deadline would have passed Saturday.
"I'm worn out, " Commissioner Gerald Daugherty said. "We need to approve this thing right now, and we need to move on."
However, legal action could thwart any moving on. Melanie Oberlin, staff lawyer for the alliance, said her organization has not decided whether to sue.
Lowe's representative Bruce Todd, a former Austin mayor, said the end result will be a "model project" of which both the company and the community will be proud.
Construction could begin in a couple of months, aiming for a fall 2004 opening of the home improvement store.
Headline: URBAN AFFAIRS
Dek Head:
Label:
Corrections: >
Correction Notes:
Reporter:
Desk:
Story Source:
Day: Thursday
Dateline:
Print Run Date: 1/29/2004
Digital Run Date:
Text:
AUSTIN
Lawsuit filed over Lowe's store
The City of Sunset Valley, the Save Our Springs Alliance and the Save Barton Creek Association filed a joint lawsuit Wednesday against the City of Austin, Lowe's Home Centers Inc. and the owners of the tract of land in environmentally sensitive Southwest Austin that is slated for a home improvement store.
The suit alleges that the Austin City Council needed six votes to settle a lawsuit it had filed to prevent the Lowe's store from being built in the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction. After Lowe's agreed to several concessions, including $1 million to buy undeveloped land in the Barton Springs watershed, City Council members settled the lawsuit with a 4-3 vote in December.
The plaintiffs argue that the site should be subject to the Save Our Springs ordinance, which has strict water quality restrictions and building limitations.
Headline: | Lowe's fight is over environmental rules |
Dek Head: |
|
Label: |
|
Corrections: | > |
Correction Notes: |
|
Reporter: | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF |
Desk: |
|
Story Source: |
|
Day: | Thursday |
Dateline: |
|
Print Run Date: | 6/17/2004 |
Digital Run Date: |
|
Text: | In October 2002, Lowe's Two weeks later, the Sunset Valley City Council held a special meeting to release 71 acres, including the 31 Lowe's acres, into Austin's jurisdiction, where it would be covered by the more-stringent Save Our Springs water quality ordinance. The city rejected Lowe's development application, saying it did not comply with SOS. Lowe's then sued Austin, arguing the company should be allowed to develop under Sunset Valley's more permissive rules. Lowe's
A narrow After the council approved the settlement 4-3, Sunset Valley and two environmental groups sued Austin and Lowe's. Wednesday, a judge ruled against the city and Lowe's. |
Headline: New Lowe's store must meet SOS, judge rules
Dek Head:
Label:
Corrections: >
Correction Notes:
Reporter: Stephen Scheibal
Desk:
Story Source: AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Day: Thursday
Dateline:
Print Run Date: 6/17/2004
Digital Run Date:
Text:
There were any number of things that could have shaken up Southwest Austin's Lowe's saga.
The retail home improvement chain, known elsewhere for cavernous stores and Gene Hackman-narrated commercials, has already prompted two cities to redraw boundaries, two lawsuits, several late-night government meetings and a state law tailored to the planned store in the new, specially created nether-region between Austin and Sunset Valley.
So imagine the surprise Wednesday when a question that most assumed had been resolved -- how many City Council members does it take to pass something in Austin -- abruptly scrambled anything that had looked like a resolution.
District Judge Lora Livingston sided with environmental groups and the City of Sunset Valley, which sued Austin and Lowe's Home Centers Inc. to stop the store. The plaintiffs argued, and Livingston agreed, that the store was governed by Austin's Save Our Springs water quality ordinance, a 1992 voter referendum that sets strict requirements on development in the city's portion of the Barton Springs watershed.
SOS requires that six of the seven City Council members must approve anything that doesn't meet its standards. The council, settling a different lawsuit Lowe's filed over the store, voted 4-3 in December to allow the company to build the outlet if it installed water quality controls and provided $1 million for preserve land.
Thus, the settlement is not valid under SOS, at least until an appeals court takes a look at Livingston's ruling.
Besides sending lawyers scurrying, the ruling appeared to have a few immediate effects. Lowe's has already cleared the land and started pouring concrete south of Ben White Boulevard between Brodie Lane and MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1). While environmentalists called for construction crews to be sent home, Lowe's lawyer Anatole Barnstone said the company has no plans to stop work on the tract unless Livingston or the City of Austin forces it to, and neither had as of Wednesday afternoon.
David Frederick, a lawyer for Sunset Valley -- which jettisoned Lowe's 31 acres from its jurisdiction so the project would be covered under Austin's SOS regulations -- said he probably will return to court seeking an injunction preventing construction on the property.
Then there is the $1 million that Lowe's paid the city for conservation land which, the company said, would mitigate any environmental problems from the store. Austin already has spent that money for land and begun its now-annual hand-wringing over a lean budget; officials on Wednesday talked more about an appeal than repayment.
Finally, there is the Texas Legislature, which passed a law last year stating Lowe's could build with far fewer restrictions than SOS or the settlement would call for.
If Wednesday's ruling is upheld, it could mean either that Lowe's could build under the less strict Travis County rules, or that it must obey the letter of SOS regulations. It might take another lawsuit to decide that.
"There's a lot of problems and pitfalls for all the parties on this, " Barnstone said. "I have a feeling that events are going to happen fast and furious from here."
"I feel confident that (Livingston) decided that one correctly, " Frederick said. "That won't stop Lowe's from attempting . . . to proceed."
The ruling contradicts conventional legal wisdom at City Hall, where lawyers have argued for years that lawsuit settlements do not need the six-vote "super majority" because the council was technically voting to settle a lawsuit, not amend SOS.
The theory promised to get the city around the provision that made the ordinance appear so tough when Austin voters approved it 12 years ago by an almost 2-to-1 margin. Yet it has never been tested; high-profile development deals over the past several years, such as those with Gary Bradley and Stratus Properties, passed 6-1 or unanimously.
Council Member Daryl Slusher, who opposed the settlement in December along with Danny Thomas and Raul Alvarez, said he did not leave the late-night meeting wondering whether his colleagues' decision would be overturned in court. But he also said Livingston's ruling did not come as a total surprise.
"Everybody on both sides knew that it was an open question as to whether it needed four or six votes, " he said.
Council Member Brewster McCracken, a lawyer who took public flak from environmental supporters when he joined Jackie Goodman, Betty Dunkerley and Mayor Will Wynn in voting for the settlement, said he doesn't know what the council's next move will be.
"I don't know what the law would provide when everybody's already gotten this far down the road, " he said. "This is an issue that had been considered pretty noncontroversial."
Headline: Citing water quality, judge halts Lowe's construction
Dek Head:
Label:
Corrections: >
Correction Notes:
Reporter: Erik Rodriguez
Desk:
Story Source: AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Day: Saturday
Dateline:
Print Run Date: 6/19/2004
Digital Run Date:
Text:
A district judge put a stop to construction of a Lowe's home improvement store in Southwest Austin on Friday, saying the work poses an immediate threat to water quality in the area.
The two-week temporary restraining order, issued by 126th District Court Judge Darlene Byrne, is the latest development in a protracted fight among Sunset Valley, Austin, Lowe's and environmental groups over the retailer's plan to build a store near William Cannon Drive and Brodie Lane.
Byrne's ruling came two days after another district judge, Lora Livingston, invalidated the agreement between Austin and Lowe's Home Centers Inc. that had allowed construction to move forward.
In a three-page order, Byrne wrote that she agreed with the plaintiffs, Sunset Valley, the Save Our Springs Alliance and the Save Barton Creek Association, that continued work on the store would degrade water quality "because of creek-bank erosion that will affect parklands . . . as a result of the development."
The ruling means construction will stop, at least until a temporary injunction hearing on July 1.
David Frederick, a lawyer representing Sunset Valley, said Friday's decision was not entirely unexpected.
"The real victory is Judge Livingston's ruling from Tuesday, which allows us to prevent further damage from occurring, " he said.
Lawyers for Lowe's said that for safety, they would need as much as three days to shut down the site, a condition to which Byrne agreed. The groups opposing Lowe's will post a $20,000 bond, which would be used to compensate the retailer if later rulings show the restraining order was not appropriate.
During the hearing, Don Magee, a lawyer representing Lowe's, argued that there was no emergency that warranted a temporary restraining order and that a bill passed by the Texas Legislature loosening development rules for certain projects essentially allowed the store to go forward.
"For (Frederick) to suggest they've got it all the way over the goal line is a great exaggeration, " Magee said.
The fight has been brewing since 2002, when Lowe's announced plans to build a 165,000-square-foot store in an area covered by Sunset Valley's development rules. Later, the city released the land to Austin so the development would fall under Austin's strict Save Our Springs water quality ordinance.
After a Lowe's lawsuit against Austin and passage of the state legislation, both sides negotiated a settlement that would allow greater density than the SOS ordinance but include water quality protection and $1 million for land conservation from Lowe's. That narrowly passed the Austin City Council in December in a 4-3 vote, prompting the environmental groups and Sunset Valley to sue Austin and Lowe's. Livingston's ruling scuttled that settlement, saying that the SOS ordinance required six votes to be amended.
Frederick said that although a settlement with Lowe's is not out of the question, the construction must adhere to environmental rules.
Headline: METRO & STATE BRIEFING
Dek Head:
Label:
Corrections: >
Correction Notes:
Reporter: Compiled from staff and wire reports
Desk:
Story Source:
Day: Saturday
Dateline:
Print Run Date: 7/3/2004
Digital Run Date:
Text:
CENTRAL TEXAS DIGEST
Injunction stops Lowe's builders
A Travis County district judge issued an injunction Friday that officially halted construction on a Lowe's home improvement store in Southwest Austin.
The ruling, issued by Judge Scott Jenkins, came in response to a lawsuit filed by the City of Sunset Valley and two environmental groups arguing that the planned store violates the City of Austin's environmental standards. It also follows another order, issued in June, that had put a temporary stop to construction that already started at the site, near William Cannon Drive and Brodie Lane.
Headline: City settles Lowe's lawsuit
Dek Head:
Label:
Corrections: >
Correction Notes:
Reporter: Sarah Coppola
Desk:
Story Source: AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Day: Friday
Dateline:
Print Run Date: 3/4/2005
Digital Run Date:
Text:
The Austin City Council moved toward ending a two-year-old battle by voting unanimously to settle a lawsuit early today over a proposed Lowe's home improvement store.
If approved by all parties, the settlement could allow Lowe's Cos. Inc. to finish building the store it started on Brodie Lane in Southwest Austin.
Sunset Valley and environmental groups such as the Save Our Springs Alliance have fought the construction of the store, saying it violated Austin's strict rules for development in the Barton Springs watershed.
Austin and Sunset Valley will each pay $350,000 to preserve land over the Edward's Aquifer and mitigate the store's environmental impact. The Lowe's store can be developed with 40 percent impervious cover. The store also will be required to provide landscaping and state-of-the-art stormwater ponds, as well as comply with environmental building standards.
Austin already was required to buy $1 million to preserve land in the watershed as part of an earlier agreement.
"It's been a long fight and a tough negotiating process, " said Brad Rockwell, the attorney for the Save Our Springs Alliance. "Almost everywhere this agreement has been fought over. But I think the end result is very good, and it will be an important step in protecting the aquifer."
The Sunset Valley City Council still must approve the agreement before it becomes final.
The case has tested the power of the SOS ordinance, Austin's tough water-quality rules for watershed development.
The saga began in 2003, when Sunset Valley released 31 acres to Austin so the proposed Lowe's store would have to abide by SOS rules.
But Lowe's sued Austin because it wanted to develop the land under Travis County's less-strict rules.
To settle that lawsuit, the Austin City Council voted 4-3 in December 2003 to let Lowe's build if it installed water-quality controls and gave $1 million to preserve other land.
The council also let Lowe's pave or otherwise cover 40 percent of its property, even though SOS rules allow 15 percent to 25 percent.
The council voted 4-3 to pass the Lowe's agreement, but SOS rules can sometimes require a 6-1 majority.
So environmental groups and Sunset Valley sued Austin and Lowe's in 2004, saying the agreement violated SOS rules.
A judge sided with them and halted construction.
The city's lawyers have said the council didn't need a 6-1 vote because they were voting to settle a lawsuit, not change the SOS ordinance.
The parties have been under pressure to reach a settlement now that the Legislature is in session.
The Legislature passed a law in 2003 that allows Lowe's to build with far fewer restrictions than SOS rules call for.
scoppola@statesman.com; 445-2939