On Tuesday, October 27, the group of neighborhood representatives met again with Michael Whellan and Jon Ruff, to begin the planning for the neighborhood charrette for Austin Oaks. Ben Luckens, one of our neighbors who is a City Planning consultant with charrette experience is our project manager for the charrette effort. There will be several months of stakeholder identification and community information dissemination prior to the charrette workshop week, set for January 24-29, 2016. At this meeting, Ben reported on his research and detailed two options for charrette facilitators and urban design teams who could provide the leadership of our charrette. The group selected a well-respected facilitator from Chicago to lead the effort, who will work with a separate design team from Austin. Spire Realty has agreed to pay the fees for the facilitator and design teams.
In addition, the group established a set of committees to do the planning and communication work to prepare the community for the charrette. Work is underway, and committees will keep the neighborhoods apprised of opportunities for community engagement that will occur in the coming three months.