Banding together to keep "neighbor" in "neighborhood"

A few weeks ago, I awoke to find a sign in our side yard that read "Zoning Pending. Contact Buda City Hall for Information."

(I say side yard as our side yard faces the main street through our neighborhood. The front of our house sits on a street that ends at a ditch.)

I was furious! How dare someone want to take away my TX Rangers home and turn it into a Starbucks or a Pro-Cuts! Even a real estate office or trendy hair salon in the existing house!

How dare my goofy landlord who has never been a landlord before purchasing this cool property endanger this historical section of "Old Town Buda".

I love this house. I love the property and it's history. As soon as we moved in, I began my research. I asked neighbors about it. I ran into the houses second owner and talked to her. I found the graves of the original owners and visited them with flowers on Easter. Don't touch my house! I am going to buy this place some day!

A little history- a Texas Ranger named A.Brown Strickland bought this land and the 1 room house (which is my bedroom. LOL!) on it sometime in the late 30's. He then bought a 2-room house in Austin that was being sold to make room for the old Austin Airport. He moved the house here and added it on to the existing 1 room house- plopping it down on top of a garden. It sits on a pier and beam foundation and I swear to you, you can see Elephant Ear plants coming out from under my daughter’s room. Ranger Strickland added on a living room and a dining room then in the 1060's, a sunroom. Sometime in the 50's, he built a tiny one-bedroom house in the middle of the property for his son. There is a stable way in the back that is currently being turned into a storage room that the neighbor across the (grass) alley is going to rent. Ranger Strickland kept 2 horses in the right side of the back yard. Owner number 2 set down a tiny 1-bedroom mobile home to the right of my house for her daughter to live in. Her stepdaughter lives there now.

In comes owner number 3.

When I called her to complain- for the 3rd time- about the front porch light not working- I asked about the Zoning sign. Yes, she wanted to get the property rezoned as commercial so that she could use the 1 bedroom house as an office for her private accounting practice. She assured me that I would be able to live in the main house.

She was shot down by the residents of Old Town Buda. They, much like me, intend on keeping this a neighborhood. A neighborhood where the newest house was bulit in maybe....1960. Think "The Andy Griffith Show."

From and article in The Buda Free Press-

" "There are very few restrictions that can be placed on the property once the zoning change is approved," Altmiller said.

Old town property owners such as Bonita Gunn have made concerted efforts to protect what they see as commercial encroachment into neighborhoods.

"We the citizens have expressed many times through the years our desires of what we want to go on in old town Buda," Gunn said. "... According to the Comprehensive Plan that street is not meant to be a business street." "

I would like to see an office in that house out back. Sure beats having a neighbor all up in my business. The landlord can get a permit to use that as a office without rezoning and I hope she gets it.

I know that change is a part of life, but let us hold on to our history- our charming old houses, our peaceful way of life.

Thanks to my neighbors for banding together and raising their voices in unity!

( I tried to upload photos of the huse and property but it didn't work.Urgh!) 

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