While a UT System task force contemplates the potential costs and benefits of a 350-acre plot of University land, the city of Austin has cast out its intention to own a large portion of that land, City Manager Toby Futrell said Monday.
"The city of Austin has a very strong interest in preserving those 141 acres of [Lions Municipal Golf Course] in our urban core," Futrell said.
Chair of the UT System Brackenridge Tract Task Force Larry Temple welcomed an open dialogue with the city.
"We're still in the learning stage of this," he said. "I can look around this room, and I can't tell you what anybody else in this room is thinking."
The city has leased the golf course from the UT System since 1929, and by the time that contract expires, the city will have paid $20 million in lease payments, Futrell said.
Besides the municipal golf course, the 350-acre Brackenridge Tract consists of an 88-acre biological field laboratory used by the College of Natural Sciences, as well as student housing. It also includes a neighborhood youth facility and various commercial buildings and enterprises on property leased from the University, according to the UT System.
In July 2006, the task force was designated to make recommendations for the future of the Brackenridge Tract and submit them to the Board of Regents by June.
At an October meeting, students and staff expressed concern that the UT System would do away with the biological field lab and the student housing. Task force members attempted to dispel the fears of faculty and students.
At Monday's meeting, Futrell suggested the task force consider working with the city to expand the affordable student housing complex to create a denser and more urbanized development, possibly including other private businesses.
"When I take a look at what you're charged with, I see 500 units on 74 acres. Now when you look in the urban core that is wildly underutilized," Futrell said.
The task force also heard apprehensions from the neighborhood youth athletic facility, which serves about 4,000 on membership fees and donations.
George Brackenridge donated the Brackenridge Tract in 1910, and it is now part of the University's land holdings.
Originally, the land was entrusted to the state of Texas under the conditions, "that it never be disposed of but be held permanently for such educational purposes," according to a 1973 report by former Regent Frank Erwin.
But, because of legal actions taken by the Board of Regents in the 1960s, management and control of the tract rests wholly with the Board of Regents, with full authority to sell, lease or otherwise manage the Brackenridge Tract for educational purposes, according to the report.
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