"You'll already see cars backed up to this intersection trying to get to La Crosse," Circle C resident Alicia Keswani told a local news crew this summer, describing the school-morning crawl near Kiker Elementary. She was talking about traffic that exists today, before a single new unit goes up on the 67 acres next door.
That distinction matters more than most of the coverage of the Tract 110 rezoning case has let on. On September 10, the Austin City Council is scheduled to vote on whether Stratus Properties can convert its Circle C land from office zoning to residential. Everyone who has followed the yard signs, the HOA emails, or the Protect Circle C Coalition's petition drive knows the headline number: up to 1,000 apartments. Fewer people have looked closely enough at the zoning file to notice the harder fact underneath it. The land is already entitled for something else entirely, and that something else was never going to leave the roads around Escarpment Boulevard and La Crosse Avenue untouched either.
Tract 110 is also one of the last significant undeveloped parcels left inside Circle C's original footprint. Most of the neighborhood built out years ago, section by section, with the shopping centers, pools, and trails already in place. Whatever Council decides here effectively closes the book on large-scale land use questions for this particular neighborhood. That's part of why the fight has drawn a bigger crowd than a typical zoning case.
What's Actually Zoned There Right Now
Tract 110 sits along the west side of MoPac, just north of Highway 45, bounded by La Crosse Avenue and Dahlgreen Avenue. Under the 2002 Circle C Development Agreement, the parcel already carries commercial mixed-use zoning that permits up to 650,000 square feet of office space, no additional council vote required. Stratus is asking the city to change that entitlement, not to add one where none existed. The case file, C14-2025-0064, tracks the request the way most zoning changes work: it modifies conditions on an already-approved commercial district, shifting the allowed use from office to as many as 1,000 multifamily units plus retail and neighborhood commercial space.
That framing changes the stakes of the September 10 vote. A no vote doesn't return the land to open space. It leaves in place a fully permitted office park that, by Council Member Paige Ellis's own account, would generate more peak-hour traffic on the same streets than the apartments Stratus is now proposing. Whichever way the vote goes, something gets built on Tract 110. The real question in front of Council is which traffic pattern Circle C ends up living with, not whether construction trucks show up on Escarpment Boulevard at all.
The One Street Everyone Is Actually Arguing About
Strip away the unit count and the fight narrows to a single, specific ask: removing the ban on vehicle access to Dahlgreen Avenue. That prohibition has stood since 2002, written into both a restrictive covenant on the property and City Ordinance No. 020801-31. Stratus's January 2026 amendment asks the city to lift it, adding a gated entrance on Dahlgreen a few hundred feet from Kiker Elementary's drop-off loop.
According to the city's own staff report, the development is projected to generate roughly 4,676 daily vehicle trips, including 424 in the morning peak and 386 in the evening peak, the same windows when Kiker's carpool line runs longest. The Protect Circle C Coalition argues that estimate understates real conditions and has asked for a full Traffic Impact Analysis before any vote. Under the city's current process, that full study doesn't happen at the zoning stage at all. It gets triggered later, at site plan review, after the zoning question is already decided. For residents trying to weigh in before September 10, that sequencing is the practical friction point: the traffic data everyone wants doesn't exist yet, and won't, until after Council acts.
What Changed Between April and Now
The 1,000-unit figure making the rounds isn't quite what's headed to Council. At an April 21 hearing, the Zoning and Platting Commission postponed the case at the neighborhood's request. When it reconvened on May 5, commissioners scaled back what they sent forward: fewer units, less office square footage, and reduced impervious cover than Stratus's original filing, according to CBS Austin's coverage of that meeting. Residents who packed that hearing weren't uniformly against the project either. A formal protest petition circulated among adjacent property owners collected zero percent of the signatures needed to meet the city's 20 percent threshold for a valid protest, a procedural detail that shaped how much weight commissioners gave the opposition when they voted.
Here's the split that's easy to miss if you're only watching the news clips: the Circle C Homeowners Association board sent the city a formal letter supporting the modified overlay. The Protect Circle C Coalition, a separate resident group, opposes it, specifically over the Dahlgreen access point. Both groups say the same thing publicly, that they aren't against development in general. They disagree about this particular street.
| Current entitlement (no vote needed) | Stratus proposal (needs Sept. 10 approval) | |
|---|---|---|
| Allowed use | Up to 650,000 sq ft office | Up to 1,000 multifamily units plus retail |
| Dahlgreen Ave access | Prohibited by 2002 covenant and city ordinance | New gated access point proposed |
| Traffic Impact Analysis | Not required to build as zoned | Full TIA not required until site plan stage |
| Neighborhood position | N/A | HOA board supports revised overlay; Protect Circle C Coalition opposes Dahlgreen access |
What to Watch Before the Vote
A few threads are worth tracking if you live close enough to Tract 110 to notice the change either way.
- Whether Council takes the case up as scheduled. The July 23 date already slipped once at Ellis's request for more traffic data. As of late August, the Protect Circle C Coalition's own tracking page still lists September 10 as the expected date, with a note that it could shift again.
- Whether the final ordinance keeps the Zoning and Platting Commission's scaled-back numbers or reverts toward Stratus's original ask. The commission's revised recommendation, not the original filing, is what's technically in front of Council now.
- Whether the Dahlgreen access point survives in any form. Ellis has said the development will need at least two vehicle access points beyond the MoPac entrance given its size, with Dahlgreen and South Bay Lane as the two options on the table. South Bay Lane currently allows right-in, right-out movements only, which limits how much of the new traffic it can absorb on its own.
None of this determines whether Tract 110 stays quiet if the vote fails. The commercial entitlement stays on the books either way, and Stratus has said as much in its own materials to the Circle C HOA, framing the residential proposal as a lower-impact alternative to building out the office space it's already allowed. Whether Circle C residents find that argument persuasive is a separate question from whether it's accurate. The zoning math behind it is public record, filed under case C14-2025-0064, for anyone who wants to check it before Council votes.
Erika Levack tracks land-use changes like this one across Circle C and the rest of the Hill Country because they shape daily life in a neighborhood long before they ever show up in a sale price. If you want a plain-language read on what a zoning case like Tract 110 might mean for your specific block, Levack Living is glad to talk through it. Schedule a personal market consultation whenever you're ready.
