Lubbock City Council Votes in Favor of Tech Terrace Residents
The Lubbock City Council held their regular Tuesday meeting but on the agenda was the multi-story student housing building. That structure would be placed in the Tech Terrace neighborhood, which many neighbors in that area were very vocally opposed to. One of the main concerns for the area was traffic that would come with the new building on top of the traffic that was already in the area due to the small roads.
In the February 28th City Council meeting the zoning change that was approved before in early February in a 6-2 vote was a scaled down version of the original zoning plan. The scaling down process involved going from a 700 resident building to a building of 600 with 500 vehicle parking spaces to bring down any concerns that Tech Terrace residents had about traffic congestion. It did not ease any residents concerns.
Up Campus and the Tech Terrace Neighborhood Association delivered their own arguments over the request of the zoning change in early February in regards to demolition. That demolition would tear down Cafe J and the Godbold Center but aside from destroying those buildings many were also concerned about how the Up Campus building would look compared to the rest of the historic neighborhood.
KAMC news reported that the Lubbock City Council ultimately voted to reject the zoning request change so the proposed new student housing will not begin construction across from Texas Tech. There is currently no word as to if Up Campus will be making any zoning changes again to try to get approval but with the construction on 19th Street it could cause some future major traffic delays.