Live in Montopolis

Montopolis is the City's Montopolis planning area, about 1,421 acres between Grove Boulevard and US 183, from the Colorado River down to Ben White Boulevard. The name is older than the neighborhood: Jesse Tannehill had a townsite called Montopolis surveyed on the Colorado from 1838, hoping it would be chosen as the capital, and Waterloo, the future Austin, was chosen instead. A school for Black children opened in 1891, a post office named Montopolis on the south bank in 1897 and San José Cemetery around 1920. The City had annexed about 504 acres by the end of 1951 (Wikipedia says 1952) and took in the rest in pieces until 1976; the 2001 plan blames informal subdivision before annexation for the odd lots between Montopolis Drive and Vargas Road.

The school site was fought over for four years. The building lost in 1935, to a storm on one City page and a flood on another, was replaced by an Army barrack moved from Camp Swift; it closed in 1962 as the schools desegregated. In 2015 an investor bought the site at 500 Montopolis Drive and applied to demolish it for houses. The Planning Commission refused his rezoning in 2017, the Council voted unanimously in 2018 to buy it by eminent domain if need be, and the City took possession in January 2019. It is not yet a landmark: both nominations are still drafts, and a plan for its use began in 2026.

The homes grew faster than the population. The census counted 10,638 residents in 3,357 homes in 2010 and 12,815 in 5,137 in 2020, and the Hispanic or Latino share fell from 79.3% to 67.7% while the number rose slightly. The median dated single-family house on the appraisal roll was built in 1971, and 199 date from 2015 or later. Zillow's typical Montopolis home was $316,779 in August 2026, lower than a year earlier and a third below its 2022 peak, against $439,864 in its Riverside neighborhood to the west. The City rates the tracts holding 11,289 residents at active displacement risk; no public record says who left or why, and this guide offers no estimate.

The land is high, and the airport's rules cover most of it. The reference point sits at about 510 feet, against about 404 at the river beyond the northern edge, and the City's 25-year and 100-year floodplains cover about 54 acres and reach 2 of the 1,649 single-family lots. The airport overlay is the constraint instead: its controlled compatible land use area covers 71% of the planning area and 1,640 of those lots, and there the Aviation Department reviews building permits for height, glare from solar panels, ponds that draw birds and outdoor lighting. The 2019 noise contours run north from the runways, and the 65-decibel line stops about 200 meters short of US 183, so no house here is inside it.

Riverside Drive is where the change is headed. The 2013 East Riverside Corridor plan rezoned about 235 acres here, and a 2022 request at 6610 East Riverside Drive sought buildings of up to 120 feet for 600 apartments, about half of them affordable. Route 20 runs the street between downtown and the airport, and the first light rail line has two planned stations inside the planning area, Montopolis and Yellow Jacket, with trains expected in 2033. The tax is worked out on the Austin page, and the school line barely moves it: on 2025 rates a homestead at Zillow's figure owes about $4,537 a year in Austin ISD and $4,579 in Del Valle ISD, whose voters decide on 3 November whether to ratify a higher rate.

Worth knowing before you commit

Two school districts and one airport overlay

834 of 1,649 houses are taxed by Del Valle ISD, and 1,640 sit in the airport's review area

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• Look up which school district taxes the lot; the district line runs through the neighborhood
• Read the airport overlay rules before planning solar panels, a pond or outdoor lighting
• Check whether the lot is zoned ERC along Riverside Drive, and what HOME allows next door
• Work the tax out on your own price, because the seller's capped value ends with the sale

How Montopolis got here

• 1839Jesse C. Tannehill, who received a headright league on the Colorado in 1832, has an 800-acre townsite called Montopolis surveyed from 1838 and moves his family onto the tract early in 1839; a partnership deed recorded on 2 July 1839 fixes the platted town. It hoped to be chosen as the capital, and Waterloo, the future Austin, was chosen instead.
• 1891A school for African American children opens in the Colorado School District as School No. 34, the start of what the City now calls the Montopolis Negro School.
• 1897A post office named Montopolis opens on the south bank of the river in January; it is discontinued in 1902.
• 1919San José Cemetery is established on the 700 block of what is now Montopolis Drive as a Mexican and Mexican American burial ground, between 1919 and 1922 by Wikipedia's account.
• 1935The flood of 15 June destroys the old bridge across the river, and the school building is lost the same year: the City's parks page says to a storm and its cultural department's page says to a flood. It is later replaced by a two-room Army barrack moved from Camp Swift.
• 1938The Montopolis Bridge, a steel Parker through truss of nine spans and 1,221 feet, opens on 11 February, a year after work began.
• 1950Residents petition to rename Miller Lane and Boothe Lane as Montopolis Drive.
• 1951By 31 December the City has annexed about 504 acres of today's planning area for full purposes, the ground where 5,201 of its 2020 residents live. The Texas State Historical Association dates the annexation of most of Montopolis to 1951 and Wikipedia to a partial annexation in 1952; the City's layer records only that it was done by the end of 1951.
• 1952Travis County transfers the Montopolis school to the Austin public schools.
• 1962The school closes as Austin's schools desegregate, and its pupils are sent to other elementary schools. The building is sold at auction in 1967 and serves the Montopolis Church of Christ into the 1980s.
• 1976On 27 May the City annexes two large tracts, about 288 and 335 acres of the planning area, one of them the MP Industrial Park. More than twenty annexations from 1957 to 1976 bring in the land beyond the 1951 limits.
• 1985The Montopolis Area Study plans for industrial growth and takes account of the noise from Bergstrom Air Force Base next door.
• 1996The Montopolis Bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 10 October.
• 1999Austin-Bergstrom International Airport opens on the former air base across US 183 on 23 May.
• 2001The Council adopts the Montopolis Neighborhood Plan and its zoning on 27 September (Ordinance 20010927-005). It allows a house on any existing lot of 2,500 square feet, secondary apartments on lots of 5,750 square feet, and cottage and urban home lots, and asks the City to explain property tax relief to homeowners in English and Spanish.
• 2010The census counts 10,638 residents in 3,357 housing units inside the planning area, 8,441 of them Hispanic or Latino, and 1,678 of 3,152 occupied homes rented.
• 2013On 9 May the Council adopts the East Riverside Corridor Regulating Plan, which rezones about 235 acres on 11 tracts of the planning area to the ERC district.
• 2015KEEP Investment Group buys the 1.82-acre school site at 500 Montopolis Drive and applies to demolish the building for houses, then drops the idea after opposition. A flood the same year washes out the pedestrian bridge over Country Club Creek in Roy G. Guerrero park.
• 2017The Planning Commission denies the owner's rezoning request for the school site in September, and the Council directs staff to acquire it (Resolution 20170928-056).
• 2018On 28 June the Council votes unanimously to pursue the purchase, by eminent domain if need be (Resolution 20180628-081), after the owner turns down an offer based on a $362,000 appraisal. The Montopolis Bridge closes to cars on 8 October and is rebuilt for walkers and cyclists.
• 2019The City takes possession of the school on 24 January.
• 2020The census counts 12,815 residents in 5,137 housing units, 8,676 of them Hispanic or Latino, and 2,705 of 4,451 occupied homes rented. Voters approve Project Connect on 3 November.
• 2022Zillow's typical value for Montopolis peaks at $477,934 in July. Work to rebuild the Country Club Creek channel through Roy G. Guerrero park begins in August.
• 2023The school site is made parkland on 21 September (Ordinance 20230921-100). On 7 December the Council adopts HOME Phase 1, allowing up to three homes on a lot zoned SF-3, which covers about 29% of the zoned land here.
• 2025On 20 November the Austin ISD board votes to close ten schools, among them Martin Middle, and the Austin ISD blocks of Montopolis are reassigned to Lively Middle from 2026-27.
• 2026The light rail's federal Record of Decision is issued on 16 January, and the $28.5 million Country Club Creek project is finished by 6 February. Zillow's typical value is $316,779 in August, against $343,139 a year earlier. Del Valle ISD asks its voters on 3 November to ratify a rate of 1.0328 per $100, against 0.9489 for 2025.

What the map does not show: a flood in 2015 washed out Guerrero's pedestrian bridge over Country Club Creek, and the erosion that followed threatened the fields and the bridges on Riverside Drive; the City finished a $28.5 million rebuild of the channel in February 2026. The Montopolis Bridge, closed to cars since 2018, is now the walking and cycling crossing of the river.

Elsewhere in Austin, not Montopolis

The free option is Guerrero park: trails along the river and the 18-hole Raul Alvarez and 9-hole Little G disc golf courses.