The “Hill Country Indoor” (HCI) development is an indoor sports/recreational facility consisting of four buildings inter-connected to each other.  City approved a site plan amendment on September 12^th allowing addition of a 4 stories parking garage structure on the south side of the primary buildings. Overall site and especially the parking garage structure is currently under construction.  As part of review for the parking garage building structure, LTFR requires a fire lane on the south side of the garage structure.  The scope of this site plan amendment includes addition of the required fire lane and associated other changes and matters. 

The property is zoned as PD-R.  The project was/is subject to the HCI PDD Ordinances 17-345, 14-201, and 12-113.  City approved the original site plan in March 2015 and construction begun in July of that year.  Below are the links for the transmittal letters for the most recent site plan amendment, original site plan, and PDD Ordinance amendment items -

https://beecave.novusagenda.com/agendapublic/CoverSheet.aspx?ItemID=1281&MeetingID=175

https://beecave.novusagenda.com/agendapublic/CoverSheet.aspx?ItemID=108&MeetingID=20

https://beecave.novusagenda.com/agendapublic/CoverSheet.aspx?ItemID=1201&MeetingID=167

Fire Lane: The 25’ wide fire lane is being added to address comments from the Lake Travis Fire and Rescue.  Fire department initially asked for a concrete or asphalt paved surface. But, developer proposed it to be built of crushed granite material which fire department agreed to accept with compacted enough for sufficient load bearing capacity condition.  This fire lane will only be accessible for emergency purpose.  A gate will be installed at the connection to the concrete parking lot to prevent non-emergency use.  Fire department also initially asked for a 5' ribbon curb on each side with fire lane signage/marking on it.  Instead of concrete ribbon curb, developer proposed placement of 3’x2’x1’ (L, W, H) Limestone blocks which fire department agreed to accept.  Signs indicating fire lane will be placed beside the Limestone blocks.   

Parking Lot: 5 parking spaces will be removed at the location where the fire lane will tie into the existing concrete parking lot near the southern driveway (through the private driveway over Skaggs property).  The property will still have more than the required number of parking spaces. 

Impervious Cover: The 2017 PDD amendment allowed transfer of 30,000 sf of impervious cover (from Reese Tract to this property) for a site-wide total of 53% impervious cover.  After the construction of all previously approved improvements (i.e. buildings, parking lot, new parking garage etc.) 51.6% area is impervious and only 5,200 sf remained.  The total surface area for this proposed crushed granite driveway and limestone block edging is 10,400 sf.   

The applicant is requesting a variance  from City Code Section 20.04.044 which defines impervious cover as “all man-made improvements which prevent the infiltration of water into the natural soil, or prevent the migration of the infiltration as base flow.”  In concert with their variance, they are asking for 50% credit be applied for the crushed granite fire lane, claiming that the fire lane will be a semi permeable surface and will rarely be used by fire truck only.  

Note that the original PDD Ordinance No. 113 states that pedestrian walkways that are constructed with crushed granite material will receive 100% credit.  Additionally, the same ordinance indicates that non-pedestrian areas that are constructed with crushed granite or other type of semi-permeable materials may receive credit from the impervious cover calculations.  Any such area may be credited with a percentage of impervious cover by the City at the time of site plan approval. 

Furthermore, City of Austin Land Development Code provides exemption from impervious cover calculation for fire lanes that consist of interlocking pavers and are restricted from regular vehicle access.  We have precedence of granting 50% credit for fire lane with semi-permeable materials. 

If variance is granted with requested credit, the total impervious cover addition will be 5,200 sf and the site will reach the maximum 53% allowed for the property.  No more impervious cover will be available after this revision.

Drainage, Water Quality Treatment/Stormwater Detention: Drainage pattern will not be impacted.   City staff did not ask for additional water quality treatment for the proposed fire lane with crushed granite material.  But, they’ll require maintaining the area downhill of the fire lane as natural vegetated area so that if granite materials migrate, it can be captured on site.  However, although runoff from this proposed fire lane will not travel to the recently approved water quality control pond, TCEQ requires the developer to increase the pond size to compensate increase in impervious cover footprint.  Accordingly, designer update the pond plan, increase it approximately by 20 SF in size with additional capacity of approximately 1,000 CF.

Landscape Plan and Tree Preservation/Mitigation: Two existing large trees (totaling 26 caliper inches) will be removed and 1 previously proposed 4” tree needs to be relocated.  Developer will plant 9 new 4 caliper inches trees to meet the mitigation requirement and also to provide required screening for the new fire lane. 

The P&Z Commission unanimously recommended to grant the variance and approve the site plan amendment with the conditions staff mentioned.

 Staff suggests granting a variance from City Code Section 20.04.044 and provides 50% credit for the surface area of fire lane and limestone blocks.  Staff recommends approval of this site plan amendment with the following two conditions –

(1)   Submission of updated site plan sheets.

(2)   Payment of pending fees in the amount of $1,000.00.