Old Town, Georgetown Texas

On Tuesday, December 13th at 3:00 PM the Georgetown City Council will hold a workshop to examine progress made by the Lone Star Rail District. The District aims to connect San Antonio to Georgetown, with points in between and points beyond. Passenger rail seems to be on everybody’s wish-list in Georgetown, and it’s an obvious [...]

Current city codes prohibit depositing grass clippings back onto our lawns, or adding any organic material. Mulching lawnmowers cutting the grass without a catcher, landscapers applying mulch, and gardeners applying compost are all breaking the law and could be subject to a $2,000 fine, EVERY DAY until the material is removed and taken to the [...]

On Tuesday , January 25th, the City Council will review proposed changes to the UDC that currently control how people work out of their homes. There are two main schools of thought – regulate or don’t regulate. There are also two different geographic views: regard the Old Town Overlay District as a distinct area to [...]

Also coming before Council on Tuesday, January 25th is an amendment designed to establish design guidelines and HARC involvement with regard to residential changes in the Old Town Overlay District. Old Town Overlay District Limitations on Residential Additions and Infill.

Coming for its first hearing with City Council on Tuesday, January 25th is a welcome amendment to the UDC that finally gives HARC the discretion to forbid the demolition of a historic property. Certificate of Design Compliance for Demolitions. Currently any historic structure may be moved or demolished 175 days after the Historic and Architectural [...]

By Ross Hunter The Community Impact local newspaper has scooped everybody (after oldtowners.com of course) with the first media report of Tuesday’s council meeting. The story appears on their website here: http://impactnews.com/georgetown-hutto-taylor/257-recent-news/9081-georgetown-residents-call-for-greater-transparency-in-dealings-with-city-officials We make no secret that we eagerly await the Williamson County Sun’s take on all this on Saturday, but credit where credit is [...]

By Ross Hunter Well, friends, we went down to the council meeting, and we won a major success. We walked out of there with the greatest sense of triumph I’ve felt in several years. It was a historic night, a grand watershed event. It was a decisive battle in the campaign to restore Georgetown to open government. [...]

By Ross Hunter Council is tomorrow, about 24 hours away, and I’m inviting you to attend the session. If you haven’t read the weekend Sun you should pick up a copy anywhere you can and get an exhaustive overview of the numerous allegations made lately against our city attorney, along with comments from most of [...]

Yes it’s a predictable headline, but it did feel sunny like the upbeat Beatles number on Saturday morning to pick up the weekend Williamson County Sun and read the start of 3 pages of coverage on our controversial city attorney. The Sun was back in the saddle, guns a’blazing! Council beat reporter Jamaal E. O’Neal [...]

[Editor's note. This story is reproduced under a Creative Commons license granted by its author, Ken Martin, of The Austin Bulldog. The story here is stripped of its original formatting, graphics, and links to its many sources – and the source materials are especially useful. Original links are NOT indicated here – and there are [...]

[Editor's note: this story is reproduced under a Creative Commons license granted by its author, Ken Martin, of The Austin Bulldog. The story here is stripped of its original formatting, graphics, and links to its many sources. Original links are shown in red here. We encourage you to click through to the original story at [...]

[UPDATED 4/30 with changes requested by Ken Martin] An Austin investigative reporter yesterday scooped our local news organizations, breaking the story that our city council violated the Open Meetings Act when it voted in closed session to hire our new city attorney. Editor Ken Martin published the story on Wednesday, April 28, in The Austin [...]

By Ross Hunter We at OldTowners would like to declare our support for Tommy Gonzalez, soon to be our District 7 council representative, as Ben Oliver retires from the excellent fight he has made on our behalves these last six years. Tommy is running unopposed, but even so he wants to run a modest “campaign” [...]

By Ross Hunter The council voted down the proposed amendment to the UDC on Tuesday night. So electronic signs are dead for the moment. The city is safe – until the next business asks its next favor from the council. Dale Ross and Keith Brainard were the two suprises in the vote, ripping apart the [...]

By Ross Hunter Electronic retail signs along Georgetown’s frontage roads will be coming soon if the Council approves an amendment to the UDC proposed at tomorrow’s meeting. This meeting decides if our frontage roads will remain scenic or start looking like Round Rock. Your attendance is important. Simply showing up is valuable because numbers matter. [...]

By Peter and Sherry Dana We attended Tuesday’s City Council meeting to support the Georgetown Historic and Architectural Commission. HARC had denied a request for an amendment to the Tamiro Plaza building’s Master Sign Plan. Many speakers asked the Council to affirm HARC’s five to one vote so that HARC would retain its autonomy and [...]

City Council Speech by Rick Williamson for delivery on September 22, 2009 I take issue with even the idea of this Council over-turning its own HARC commission’s denial of the Merrill-Lynch sign application, for several reasons. Most notably, for even thinking that boldly reversing HARC’s near-unanimous 5-1 decision without direct evidence of wrongdoing would be [...]

Testimony to the City Council regarding the appeal of a HARC decision related to the Tamiro Plaza building, 501 S. Austin Ave. Sept. 22, 2009 By Ellen Davis Mr. Mayor, Members of the City Council: Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I just wanted to say that I was at the HARC meeting [...]

Be sure to keep on eye on things here: http://udc.georgetown.org/ The City of Georgetown Unified Development Code (UDC) has begun its Annual UDC Review Process. For the 2008-2009 Update, City staff has enlisted the help of a task force to review and craft new language for the UDC.  This site will inform the task force, as well as the [...]

The Georgetown City Council tonight – Tuesday, October 24th, 2006 – will consider the motion to remove from the Planning and Zoning Commission’s Board of Adjustment, jurisdiction over the appeals process from a HARC ruling, and to hear such appeals directly itself. What follows is OldTowners.com’s open address to the Council, arguments against their motion [...]