Three of six Central Texas neighborhoods vote to disannex from Austin

Six areas in total held that election on Saturday, with half choosing to stay and half deciding to go. One that chose to become independent was Lost Creek, an affluent neighborhood located on the outskirts of West Austin. The other two places were land close to Blue Goose Road in Northeast Austin and land in West Austin’s River Place.

The 28 acres of land near Blue Goose Road includes four subdivisions that were affected by the vote: Shady Lake Acres, Louis L. Eckert subdivision, Doering-Gault subdivision and The LMAT subdivision. The River Place land sprawls across 212 acres and consists of five subdivisions, which include three sections of River Place and its water storage site and treatment plant. 

As these places vote to disannex, this means they may no longer receive certain services from the city, like fire and police. Those would now be supplied by Travis County once the election results are certified by county officials. The Austin-Travis County EMS would continue to serve these areas. MySA reached out to Travis County for a full explanation of disannexation. 

Because these are such small areas, there wasn’t a huge voter turnout at some places. The Lost Creek neighborhood has a population of 1,157 as of 2021, and River Place has a population of 11,357, according to Nextdoor, but that number may not solely include the areas specified for disannexation. MySA reached out to the City of Austin to find out the population of the land near Blue Goose Road.

However, the three people who voted in the Blue Goose Road location all did so in favor of removing the area from Austin. A total of 91.29% of voters in Lost Creek voted to disannex, and the singular vote cast in the River Place portion chose to leave as well.  

The locations around Austin are able to vote on disannexation due to a state House bill passed last year that requires Texas’ biggest cities to hold elections allowing for some neighborhoods to vote on removal from that city. The areas eligible for disannexation had to be annexed to the city between March 3, 2015, and December 1, 2017. 

In the other three areas that could have chosen to disannex, two did not have any votes cast for those propositions. Those places were the Mooreland spot in South Austin and the Wildhorse/Webb location in Northeast Austin. People living in the Lennar at Malone neighborhood in South Austin voted against leaving with 98.21% votes in favor of staying.