Clinic to move to Northwest Austin

Clinic to move to Northwest Austin

Written by Tiffany Young Friday, 25 July 2008

Residents of Gracywoods and North Park Estates want to know why a 50,000 sq. ft. Community Health Center, or CHC, likely only to serve a limited selection of residents, is being planned adjacent to their neighborhoods.

On June 10, the Travis County Commissioners Court approved 7.4 acres of mostly undeveloped land at 1200 W. Braker Lane. The Travis County Healthcare District intends to use this land for the relocation of the Northeast Austin Community Health Center, 7112 Ed Bluestein Blvd., to Northwest Austin. The CHC would cost approximately $18 million and would potentially serve about 22,600 patients.

“We are considering the possibility of a convenient care model that could be open for patients with commercial care, but this would be a medical home for patients that meet our financial eligibility and do not have insurance,” TCHD spokeswoman Christie Garbe said.

Though TCHD is considering taking patients with health insurance, something that is not available at any other Travis County Community Health Centers, many residents near the new CHC believe TCHD should have consulted the neighborhoods earlier in the process.

“What they did is they saw this property, they decided it was a good location and they went for it without community input,” said Walt Esquivel, president of the North Park Estates Neighborhood Association.

Zoning change

Nearby residents were taken by surprise when they found out about plans for the CHC, but it is not just the CHC that concerns them — they say they would be concerned about any building more than one story tall being built in that location.

To build the center, Austin City Council must approve a zoning change from neighborhood office and neighborhood office/light residential to general office as early as October or as late as December with plans to break ground in April.

This change would allow a medical clinic to move in that is 10 times larger than what is now allowed on the same property. A date has not been set for platting and zoning review because it depends on the postponement process in which homeowners, neighborhood associations and city staff members can write a letter to the city requesting postponement to delay decisions until due diligence is complete.

According to Garbe, TCHD has already requested one postponement to continue the community discussion process.

However, some residents have made up their minds that they do not want the CHC, or any project of its size, in their neighborhood.

“First and foremost, we have fought things associated with zoning changes on that property before,” Esquivel said. “At the end of the day, if the data supports this location as being the best spot for the clinic, I think that the residents immediately around that area are still going to have an issue with the zoning change.”

North Park Estates and Gracywoods have already testified in a May 2006 zoning case to keep a drive-through fast food restaurant from going into the gas station on the corner of Braker Lane and Parkfield near a greenbelt because they felt it was out of character with the neighborhood. After the neighborhoods’ testimonies, zoning and platting agreed with the neighborhoods and did not approve a conditional-use permit request that would have allowed the gas station to incorporate a drive-through window.

Communication with residents

Because of the zoning change request, a letter from the City of Austin notified residents within 500 feet of the land, but others believe the neighborhoods should have been notified before the land was bought.

“I agree a smooth start was not done here, and I commit to correcting that,” County Commissioner Sarah Eckhardt said at a meeting between TCHD and neighborhood associations. “Believe me that the intent for all of us is how to get maximum input.”

However, she feels that regardless of what location they chose, they would have had similar resistance from nearby residents.

“If we were to ask residents of every location ... we would never pick a spot,” Eckardt said. “I would be concerned if it was going in my neighborhood.”

Plans for the CHC

Plans for the CHC are now under way, but have not been shared with the public. According to TCHD, the communities’ desired entry/exit points, HVAC locations, lighting and trash dumpster pickup times and locations will be given to the architects, and building plans will be shared as they progress.

However, including the community in plans for the CHC is not what neighborhood associations had in mind.

“I don’t want to be involved in the design of a building when I don’t believe that building should be located there,” Esquivel said. “I say, please, let’s rewind, let’s start the process over, let’s look at the data and let’s bring in the neighborhoods in North Austin and East Austin.”

Selected location

Transportation, crime and traffic are some of the major concerns of nearby residents, but residents also wonder why the new location was chosen.

Demographics from the district show 6,221, or 62 percent, of current patients at the Northeast CHC live within a 4-mile radius of the new CHC. However, residents of the neighborhood associations argue that the majority of the patients live south of Braker Lane and that a CHC of that size would be better off near other medical buildings instead of a neighborhood filled with single-family homes.

“The way we set up our clinics is they’re disbursed, but close to where the individuals that use it are,” said Leslee Froehlich, chief operating officer of Community Health Centers. “Our intent is to be convenient to the clients we serve.”

Some additional plans for the CHC under consideration are a community meeting space, a fitness center, health education and prevention and partnerships with schools, churches and organizations.

The zoning and platting commissioners postponed making a decision on the location’s zoning until September.

Other CHC locations TCHD considered

North Austin Civic Association President Anthony Williams thinks the location TCHD chose was not the best possible site. He feels it should consider some of the vacant lots between Rundberg and US 183 within his own neighborhood’s borders.

“I understand in some of the locations they didn’t want to have to renovate the buildings, and so that’s why they weren’t chosen,” Williams said. “However, I think that probably in the rush to just buy the land and to build brand new, they didn’t really carefully look at all their options. I think that there’s some way this can turn into a win-win where they could get the land they want in a location that better serves the clients in the communities and where all the neighborhoods involved would be happy with the deal.”

Some reasons TCHD gave for choosing the Braker/Parkfield location were:

• A large number of patients of the Northeast clinic are closer to the new location than the current one.
• At least seven acres are needed for the clinic to have enough parking.
• The site is near a number of bus stops.
• And the site is near major thoroughfares such as Lamar Boulevard, US 183 and IH 35.

Williams said in his neighborhood, the majority of lower-income residents live south of Rundberg Lane, and he has some alternative ideas on clinic locations he plans on discussing with Larry Wallace, TCHD associate administrator.

“There’s just some other vacant office lots within my neighborhood that I feel would really, really be a good idea to see if TCHD would be open to purchasing one of those properties close to [US] 183 to locate a new facility,” Williams said. “There are so many potential properties around the 183 area that are already empty medical office space or just general warehouse space, large buildings that are just sitting vacant.”

Williams believes the clinic has the possibility to bring about positive change in the southern part of NACA.

“A community center like this could go a long way in revitalizing if it’s built brand new from the ground up in an area that had once been vacant warehouse lots that attracted crime, graffiti and a negative element. I think that it would go a long way in urban renewal in an area that very badly needs it,” Williams said.