In yet another Northwest Austin zoning case, the Zoning and Platting Commission recommended rezoning for an empty piece of land owned by the recently shuttered Austin White Lime company during their August 19 meeting. The two tracts at 6101 and 6105 Melrose Trail, which represent a combined area of about 5 acres, are located in the Milwood neighborhood of Northwest Austin. They are currently zoned interim small lot residential. The company is seeking an upzoning to multifamily residence high-density zoning, or MF-5, which is the most intense of the conventional residential base districts.
SCSJ filed a brief Monday with the North Carolina Court of Appeals requesting their lawsuit against the rezoning be heard. The lawsuit, filed in early 2024, challenges Person County's redesignation of land zoned rural residential and conservation to industrial, including heavy industrial, for Enbridge - formerly Dominion Energy - to build and operate MEC, a liquified methane storage facility. The rezoning was passed by the Person County Board of Commissioners in December 2023 despite overwhelming community opposition.
Zoning can be used in many ways by owners, investors and developers to add value to their properties. First, as we have previously discussed, there are discretionary approvals available through the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). One type of discretionary approval through ULURP is a rezoning, which would change the property's zoning district designation. A rezoning could increase the amount of buildable square footage a property is allowed, and/or change the allowed use altogether, for example, from commercial or industrial to residential.
