When Robert Helmers approached the planning commission for a rezoning last December he wanted to expand his Kar Korner used car lot.

Monday, November 15, 1999

When Robert Helmers approached the planning commission for a rezoning last December he wanted to expand his Kar Korner used car lot. In order to expand, Helmers would have first had to get his two original lots as well as the adjacent lot he had recently purchased rezoned to business.

The story of the three lots is confusing, because none of the lots are actually zoned as commercial property. They’re residential, but commercial use on the two front lots was basically grandfathered in when the city adopted a zoning map in 1975. At that time the entire neighborhood was designated multi-family residential – meaning that the properties could be used for single family or multiple-family homes – but the two lots where Kar Korner now sits were allowed to remain in commercial use through a "non-conforming land use" permit. However, the adjacent lot purchased by Helmers was not grandfathered.

His request was denied, unanimously by the planning commission then with council member Dick Lang the only person to vote in favor of granting the request.

"When I voted against the council on the Helmers’ request, I did it because I wanted to make the point that we needed to change the way we made decisions on spot zoning," Lang said, referring to areas throughout the city that are either zoned differently from their surroundings or are granted non-conforming use permits to operate in that zone. "One of the most difficult issues the city works with is zoning."

A large part of Helmers’ claim to have been treated unfairly stems from the fact that three other businesses – one of them Southwest Sales, a car lot at the corner of 12th St. and 16th Ave. SW – were rezoned before he was denied.

"When I first came on the council, I believed in spot zoning because neighborhood shops and the like had always been a part of Austin," Lang said. "Then over the years, I started to see problems and thought we should have one law for everyone. Now, I’ve almost come full circle – I think we need to study each issue in depth in a consistent manner, but decide them individually. Of course, if the criteria are identical, then the decision should be consistent … The main difference between Kar Korner and Southwest Sales – as I see it – was the neighbors."