July 6, 2020

This communication is meant to clarify that the letter of support sent to the City of Austin
Planning Commission (carbon copying Austin City Council and the EMLK Contact Team) dated
June 18, 2021 and sent on behalf of the Franklin Grove HOA in support of Mr. Anmol Mehra’s
proposed rezoning project was drafted outside of the JJ Seabrook Neighborhood Association’s
process and without community input from neighbors beyond the Franklin Grove HOA.

The Franklin Grove is a 28 single family home PSW (now Storybuilt) development built in 2017.
The JJ Seabrook neighborhood association began in ~1984. It comprises ~400 properties
stretching from Airport Blvd. to Morris Williams Golf Course, MLK to Manor Blvd and including
Anchor Lane/38 ½ Street. The Franklin Grove development borders Mr. Mehra’s property. There
Mr. Mehra has purchased trees for each resident with a shared fence line, funded a mural
honoring past and present local icons and community activists, and invited neighbors to plant in
a cluster of garden boxes on the site. While the neighborhood acknowledges these efforts and
can confirm the purchase of trees for Franklin Grove residents, these incentives are distinct
from the question at hand which is, will we, as a neighborhood, support Mr. Mehra’s proposal
to rezone two mid-block SF plots into two MF-4 LO-MU plots.

Current neighbor questions under discussion regard:

● Providing Parking
● Mitigating Traffic
● Preserving Greenspace
● Right-sizing Density to existing neighborhood gray infrastructure
● Restricting Height

Our neighborhood association has made a good faith effort to engage directly and regularly
with Mr. Mehra. He has presented at multiple association meetings and neighbors have emailed
questions to his team receiving some detailed responses. A few of the neighbors in the Franklin
Grove have joined our neighborhood meetings and voiced questions and support, participating
in the engagement process up to the last presentation from Mr. Mehra’s team. The Franklin
Grove letter of support and the process through which it has been drafted, circulated, and
signed, however, took place outside these meetings and without the awareness of the
neighborhood association and its executive team. The JJ Seabrook Neighborhood Association
plans to continue with a transparent, democratic engagement process that includes the
neighborhood as a whole.

As a neighborhood association, we anticipate continued engagement and will proceed toward a

decision as a neighborhood to support, oppose, or forward an alternative proposal that meets
the whole of the neighborhood’s needs.
Our current plan is to circulate a brief survey at our upcoming July 20 neighborhood association
meeting. With the results of this survey, we can draft an official neighborhood letter in response
to Mr. Mehra’s proposed zoning change for vote at our August meeting.

Sincerely,

JJSNA Executive Committee