What the Muny Deal Settles for Tarrytown, and What It Leaves Open
October 29, 2026
October 29, 2026
If the City Council approves the Lions Municipal Golf Course agreement on November 19, what changes for Tarrytown? The fairways along Enfield Road would stay as they are. Along Lake Austin Boulevard, the University of Texas would get a new set of building limits for about 190 acres of its land. The first part has been the goal of the Save Muny effort for decades. The second part is still mostly a framework, and its details will be filled in over the coming months.
The 141-acre course at 2901 Enfield Road opened in 1924. The city has leased it from UT since the late 1930s and pays just under $500,000 a year for it, according to Community Impact. The lease has never been secure. A City Manager's memo dated October 14 says the city has run Muny on a month-to-month lease with UT since 2019. Even so, the city says Muny is the most-used course in Austin, with more than 75,000 rounds a year.
The October 14 proposal would end that uncertainty. Donations from several longtime Austinites, whose names and amounts have not been made public, would allow UT to convey Muny to the city as an 18-hole golf course. The West Austin Youth Association campus would go to WAYA. Community Impact reports that the combined 155-acre property is appraised at more than $680 million. Mayor Kirk Watson put it this way when he spoke to reporters, as quoted by Community Impact:
"We now have the opportunity to have the door open. We need to go through that door and get this transaction completed."
The deal also requires an exchange. To transfer the course, the city has to amend the 1989 Brackenridge Development Agreement, which controls how UT can use its land along Lake Austin Boulevard. Keeping the golf course and setting new rules for the land around it are part of the same agreement.
The other 190 acres lie on both sides of Lake Austin Boulevard and hold several places Tarrytown residents know well. Axios Austin reports that the land includes the H-E-B, CVS, 7-Eleven, apartments, the land under the LCRA headquarters, graduate student housing, and Oyster Landing, home to Mozart's, Hula Hut and other businesses. In a staff presentation to the Environmental Commission on October 21, the city said that without the agreement "there are no development standards" on this land, and that the existing agreement "has dated or missing standards relative to current code."
The presentation shows how the proposed amendment compares with the current agreement:
| Standard | Current agreement | Proposed amendment |
|---|---|---|
| Impervious cover | Maximum varies from 30% to 90% by area | 75% across all 190 acres; up to 85% in any single developed area; can be shifted between areas |
| Lady Bird Lake setback | 200 feet | 200 feet, unchanged |
| Minor waterway | No setback listed | New 50-foot setback on each side |
| Water quality and drainage | No requirements | Adopts the city's current requirements, with stated exceptions |
| Heritage trees | Not listed | Requirements based on city rules and UT policy |
| Cut and fill, slopes | Not regulated | Still not regulated |
In several areas the amendment is stricter than the current agreement. Drainage, water quality and heritage trees move from no standard to the city's standard. The impervious-cover change works differently. Today the maximum varies by area. The amendment sets a 75% maximum for the full 190 acres and an 85% maximum for each developed area, and impervious cover can be transferred between developed areas.
For Tarrytown, building height is the most direct change. Under the proposal, heights are measured from Lake Austin Boulevard. Buildings along the boulevard and north of it are capped at 65 feet, and compatibility requirements apply north of the boulevard. South of the boulevard, on land not along its frontage, buildings can reach 105 feet.
Density follows the same approach. The floor-to-area ratio for the whole tract is 0.6 to 1. The presentation notes that setbacks from the river, a tributary and the boulevard leave less buildable land than the full 190.26 acres. That means individual areas can go above 0.6 to 1, but no area can exceed 5 to 1 unless the City Council approves an increase through rezoning.
None of this is a building plan. Community Impact reports that UT "hasn't determined any development plans yet." It also reports that UT's Brackenridge Apartments would stay for the near future and could be relocated and rebuilt once redevelopment starts.
The November 19 vote approves the framework. The detailed rules come later. According to the city's presentation, the full schedule runs in this order:
Under the proposal, the course actually changes hands last. The reinvestment zone is meant to pay for public infrastructure. The presentation describes the land as mostly undeveloped and missing sidewalks, water and wastewater lines, and drainage, with "inadequate" street layouts. It also says the zone must meet the city's affordable housing requirements, either on-site or off-site. The city's Brackenridge Tract page says the regulating plan and the reinvestment zone will be prepared between November and staff's return to Council next spring.
Some questions are not answered in the published materials. The City Manager's memo says UT "has ground lease agreements with many of the commercial businesses in the area," but it does not name the businesses or say what happens to their leases. For now, Mozart's, Hula Hut and the H-E-B are part of the land the agreement covers, and nothing published so far describes changes to them.
Public comments filed before the October 21 briefing raised another question. One public comment, submitted by a resident writing in a private capacity, noted that the briefing described the 190 acres without mentioning the lab, which occupies 81 of them and has been a research station since 1967. The letter says the Regents voted in 2009 to keep the lab out of redevelopment, but that the vote was "a board vote, not a permanent protection." It also points out that setbacks for critical environmental features will be set only after a future review, which comes after the Council vote. The presentation confirms that last point. It says the city and UT have agreed to review those features and decide on setbacks afterward.
Nothing changes at the course while all this moves forward. Golf ATX handles bookings, and the rules depend on the day:
The Muny Conservancy calendar lists maintenance closures from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Monday, November 16, and Monday, December 21. The city's Lions Municipal page says the course has hosted Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Sandra Haynie, Tom Kite and Ben Crenshaw, and is home to the Firecracker Open, which it calls Texas' oldest amateur tournament. KXAN's centennial timeline reports that the Texas Historical Commission gave the course a state marker in 2009, and that it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2016 for its civil rights significance.
Supporters of the course are asking people to write to the Council. In the Conservancy's October 14 release, co-chair Ben Crenshaw said, "But this is not the time to let up." The Conservancy's help page links to the City Council email form, suggests the subject line "Lions Municipal Golf Course – November 19 City Council Vote," and offers sample text that can be edited. If you are more concerned with the 190 acres than the course, the staff presentation lays out the height, setback and impervious-cover terms that Council will vote on. The public review of the regulating plan next spring is when those terms get worked into specific rules for each part of the tract.
The new limits along Lake Austin Boulevard will shape what can be built on UT's land next to Tarrytown. If you would like to talk through what the agreement and next spring's regulating plan may mean for your property, Jeannie Garr is glad to go through the published terms with you. Schedule a consultation whenever it suits you.
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