City of Austin and UT Close to Agreement to Preserve Muny

The City of Austin is in discussions with The University of Texas at Austin to reach an agreement that will convey ownership of Lions Municipal Golf Course to the City, preserving open public green space and the historic public course known as Muny. The deal would be a part of amendments to the 1989 Brackenridge Development Agreement (BDA), an interlocal agreement between the City and the University that laid out terms for how the University may use the land it owns on either side of Lake Austin Boulevard for private development.

“This is a great day for Austin,” said Austin Mayor Kirk Watson. “Our community has been working for more than 50 years to save Muny. That work and our strong partnership with the University have paid off and now we will be able to preserve this precious greenspace and a key part of not only Austin’s history, but the entire country’s.”

Muny first opened in 1924 on more than 140 acres of University-owned property along what is now Lady Bird Lake. The City took over the lease for the golf course in 1937 and has operated Muny ever since. In 1950, Muny became the first public golf course in the South to integrate, allowing people of color to play and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a civil rights landmark. Today, it is the most used public course in Austin, hosting more than 75,000 rounds of golf played annually among the heritage trees that dot the landscape.

For more than 50 years, the course’s community of golfers, neighbors, students, and other Austinites have been working to save Muny and preserve its role as a public course open to all who want to play. Throughout that time, the City, the University, and community members have debated options to resolve the issue of how to preserve the golf course and its cultural heritage. As part of those decades of negotiations, the City and University formalized the arrangement through the BDA in 1989, which has been amended several times since adoption.

In addition to transferring ownership of Muny, these proposed amendments would describe the general process for:

• A proposed update to the University’s lease of property at Mueller,

• The exchange of City rights-of-way,

• The proposed creation of a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ), and

• The development of a mutually agreed regulating plan. 

City staff will brief the Environmental and Planning Commissions on the proposal in October and bring the amended BDA to City Council on November 19. The regulating plan and the TIRZ will be prepared during the months between City Council action in November and when staff returns to the City Council next spring for consideration. Those components of the BDA would move forward through the Boards & Commissions and City Council adoption processes in Spring 2027.

“This is an exciting opportunity that has been long in the making,” Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax said. “Development in this special area, along Lady Bird Lake, must be thoughtful and executed with the deepest care. The agreement will enable both the City and the University to guide development in a way that accomplishes each of our goals. I appreciate and value our partnership with UT that has allowed us to reach this important milestone.”