Live in Circle C Ranch

Circle C Ranch, as this guide draws it, is the area the Circle C Homeowners Association has filed with the City's Community Registry: about 3,420 acres between Slaughter Lane and State Highway 45, MoPac and FM 1826, with its newest sections across the line in Hays County. Gary Bradley and his partners began it in 1982, the first houses went up in 1986, and by 1990 it was the top-selling subdivision in Central Texas when its lender failed. It is essentially built: of the 5,479 single-family houses on the appraisal roll the median dates from 2003, 1,857 from the 1990s and 2,173 from the 2000s, and 7 from 2020 or later, on a median lot of about 8,978 square feet. The 2020 census counted 15,149 residents in 4,707 homes, and only 320 of the occupied homes were rented.

All of it lies over the water that feeds Barton Springs. The City puts the whole area in the Barton Springs Zone and 87% of it, 4,711 of the house lots, over the Edwards Aquifer's recharge zone. The Save Our Springs ordinance, adopted by citizen initiative in 1992, limits impervious cover there to 15% of net site area, and 20% or 25% over the contributing zone, and allows no variance. Circle C was a decade old by then, and its rules were fought over for another decade: a water district created in 1996 and a protection zone in 1997 were both found unconstitutional, the City annexed the community on 18 December 1997, and in 2002 the Council, with six of its seven votes, adopted a development agreement for the developer's remaining land that caps each parcel under a conservation easement. The agreement says about 1,260 acres and the appeals court about 1,200.

What that means for one lot is not in any public source this guide found. The ordinance and the agreement cap whole sites and parcels, the association says most houses already sit at 42% to 45% impervious cover, and what a single lot may still add is a question for its plat and the City's permit review. The covenants add another layer: one detached house to a lot, minimum and maximum sizes, and review by its Architectural Control Committee of every fence, deck, pool, addition and paint color. HOME, which the Council adopted in 2023 and 2024 and which allows up to three homes on the SF-2 lots that make up much of the zoning here, changes little for that reason; the City's own HOME page warns that deed restrictions can still limit a project. The assessment was $962 in 2025, and the seven gated sections charge their own dues on top.

The price is set by ZIP code, not by the association's line. Zillow publishes no Circle C series; its typical home in ZIP code 78739, which holds 12,987 of the 15,149 residents, was $794,908 in August 2026, lower than a year earlier and below its June 2022 peak of $977,422. On the 2025 rates a homestead at that value owes the five taxing units about $13,346 a year, and without the exemption about $16,268; no single-family parcel on the Travis roll carries a utility district or emergency services district. The 621 residents in Hays County pay that county's tax instead, and this guide does not work their bill out. The citywide arithmetic is on the Austin page.

Everything else is a drive. Downtown is about 22 kilometers north by road, the one CapMetro route is the 111 South MoPac Flyer on weekdays, and State Highway 45 Southwest, a toll road opened in 2019, runs west from the end of MoPac to FM 1626. The creeks matter little to the houses: the City's 25-year and 100-year floodplains cover about 260 acres and reach 6 of the 5,479 lots.

Worth knowing before you commit

The aquifer and the association decide what you can build

One house to a lot, every change through the architectural committee, and a capped share of pavement

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• Read the covenants and your section's amendments before you offer, and ask whether the section is gated
• Pull the plat for the lot's impervious cover limit before planning a pool, patio or addition
• Check whether the house is in Hays County, which school district taxes it and which utility sells its power
• Work the tax out on your own price, because the seller's capped value ends with the sale

How Circle C Ranch got here

• 1982Gary Bradley and partners begin developing Circle C Ranch. The same year Lady Bird Johnson and Helen Hayes found the wildflower center that now sits at the community's eastern edge.
• 1984The City acquires the first land of what its parks layer calls Circle C Ranch on Slaughter Creek, now a 592-acre metropolitan park at 6301 West Slaughter Lane.
• 1986The first homes are built, by Wikipedia's account; the earliest single-family house on today's appraisal roll is dated 1987.
• 1988Bowie High School opens. The Save Barton Creek Association sues the Texas Highway Department to halt the extension of Loop 1, MoPac, and Circle C's development.
• 1990Circle C is the top-selling subdivision in Central Texas when its lender, Gibraltar Savings and Loan, fails, forcing a Chapter 11 reorganization that is completed in 1992.
• 1992The Save Our Springs ordinance is adopted by citizen initiative, limiting impervious cover in the watersheds that feed Barton Springs to 15% of net site area over the recharge zone and 20% or 25% over the contributing zone. Kiker Elementary opens, and so does the disc golf course in the metropolitan park.
• 1996The Southwest Travis County Water and Reclamation District is created, followed in 1997 by the Slaughter Creek Water Quality Protection Zone; both are later found unconstitutional.
• 1997The Council annexes Circle C on 18 December (Ordinance 971218-B), about 2,990 acres of today's registry area for full purposes from the next day, the ground where 13,901 of its 2020 residents live. Mills Elementary opens the same year.
• 2000On 3 April the City takes in the Edwards Crossing and Spillar/Pfluger tracts for limited purposes.
• 2002On 1 August the Council adopts a development agreement with Circle C Land Corp, amending the Save Our Springs ordinance for that company's undeveloped land by the votes of six of its seven members; the ordinances take effect on 12 August and the agreement on 15 August. It caps each of 17 parcels and holds the land as a whole to the impervious cover the ordinance would allow, under a conservation easement granted to the City. The agreement says about 1,260 acres and the appeals court about 1,200.
• 2004On 6 May the Third Court of Appeals holds that the Save Our Springs Alliance's challenge to the agreement is moot, because the agreement now governs every permit for that land.
• 2006Clayton Elementary opens.
• 2007The City acquires the 66.6-acre Hielscher Tract Greenbelt at 6801 La Crosse Avenue, still undeveloped.
• 2009Gorzycki Middle School opens.
• 2010The census counts 13,095 residents in 4,276 housing units inside today's registry boundary, 246 of 4,189 occupied homes rented.
• 2012On 17 December the Greyrock Ridge tract and Avana Phase 1, the first land of the community in Hays County, are annexed for full purposes; the Avana-Spillar tract follows on 16 December 2013.
• 2014A 292-acre golf course off State Highway 45 enters the City's parks roll.
• 2017The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is designated the State Botanic Garden and Arboretum of Texas.
• 2019State Highway 45 Southwest opens on 1 June, 3.6 miles of toll road from the end of MoPac west to FM 1626.
• 2020Bear Creek Elementary opens. The census counts 15,149 residents in 4,707 housing units, 621 of them in Hays County, and 320 of 4,611 occupied homes rented.
• 2022Zillow's typical value for ZIP code 78739 peaks at $977,422 in June.
• 2023On 7 December the Council adopts HOME Phase 1, allowing up to three homes on a lot zoned SF-1, SF-2 or SF-3; the association's covenants still allow one detached house to a lot.
• 2025The association's assessment is $962 for the year. On 20 November the Austin ISD board votes to close ten schools; none of the schools that serve Circle C is among them.
• 2026Zillow's typical value for ZIP code 78739 is $794,908 in August, against $799,814 a year earlier.

What the map does not show: the association's four pools are for members only, and the Veloway bars walkers and runners. The springs the ordinance protects surface at Barton Springs Pool, about 19 kilometers north by road.

Elsewhere in Austin, not Circle C Ranch

The free option is the Veloway for riders and the metropolitan park's trails and disc golf for everyone else.