Live in Mueller
The old municipal airport rebuilt since 2007 as one planned neighborhood: every house new, on a lot of about 2,600 square feet, under one property owners association, with a quarter of the homes held to income limits, and a typical value Zillow puts about $130,000 above the Upper Boggy Creek blocks across Airport Boulevard.
Mueller is the City of Austin's RMMA planning area, about 750 acres of the former Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, which ended airline service in May 1999 and has been built out since 2007 under a 2004 master development agreement with Catellus, whose place Banbury Development took in 2024 and 2025. The 2020 census counted 7,858 residents in 3,828 homes, against 2,070 in 2010, and the appraisal roll dates all 2,108 of its single-family houses between 2007 and 2024. Every owner pays the Mueller property owners association, and about a quarter of the homes are let or sold under the Mueller Affordable Homes Program, whose owned homes resell at a fixed 2% a year of appreciation. Zillow put the typical Mueller home at $708,086 in August 2026, higher than a year earlier, against $576,729 in its Upper Boggy Creek area and $446,063 in its Windsor Park.
Every house is under twenty years old, and every owner answers to the same association
The City of Austin's RMMA neighborhood planning area, as its open data portal draws it: East 51st Street on the north, Airport Boulevard on the west, Manor Road on the south, and on the east the line of Old Manor Road beside Morris Williams Golf Course, about 750 acres. It is a planning area without an adopted neighborhood plan: the land is governed by the Robert Mueller Municipal Airport Redevelopment and Reuse Plan of 2000 and by planned unit development zoning first approved in August 2004, which covers about 96% of the zoned land. Cherrywood and the rest of Upper Boggy Creek lie west across Airport Boulevard, North Loop at the northwest corner, Windsor Park north and east, and the East MLK planning areas south across Manor Road.
Mueller is the City's RMMA planning area, about 750 acres between Airport Boulevard, 51st Street, Manor Road and Old Manor Road, nearly all of it the Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, which opened in 1930 and lost its airline service in May 1999. The Council approved the Master Development Agreement with Catellus on 2 December 2004, and the first residents came in 2007. The census counted 2,070 people on this ground in 2010 and 7,858 in 2020, and 1,961 of the 3,559 occupied homes were rented. The appraisal roll dates all 2,108 single-family houses between 2007 and 2024, on a median lot of 2,597 square feet.
One association and one plan govern the lots, not the City's single-family code. About 96% of the zoned land is a planned unit development, zoned in 2004, so HOME, which lets up to three homes stand on a lot zoned SF-1, SF-2 or SF-3, is written for other districts. Every owner pays the Mueller property owners association, which keeps up the parks, trails and pools, and any change to the outside of a house needs its modification committee's approval. No page the association or the neighborhood association publishes gives the assessment, and a condominium or row home adds its own, so the number has to come from the seller. The Mueller Foundation also takes a quarter of one percent of every property sale in Mueller.
A quarter of the homes are held to income limits. The agreement requires 25% of all housing to be affordable. On 1 June 2025 the Foundation's program held 678 owned homes, and 961 of 3,838 apartments built, under way or contracted were let at affordable rents. A buyer at 80% of median family income, $97,800 for a household of four on the City's 2024 chart, or up to 120% for some homes, signs a 30-year covenant, must live in the house, and on resale gets the price paid plus a fixed 2% a year, with the Foundation holding the first right to buy. The appraisal district values these homes the same way. They follow the same design guidelines as their neighbors, so the street does not tell you which is which; the recorded covenant does.
The premium is for a new, planned neighborhood. Zillow's typical Mueller home, on its own boundary and counting condominiums, was $708,086 in August 2026, higher than a year earlier. Its Upper Boggy Creek, which takes in Cherrywood across Airport Boulevard, was $576,729 and its Windsor Park $446,063: gaps of about $131,000 and $262,000. What the gap buys is a house built since 2007, a park a few minutes' walk away and almost no flood exposure: the City's 25-year and 100-year floodplains cover 4.4 of the 752 acres and none of the house lots. How much is the newness and how much the location, no source separates. On the 2025 rates a homestead at Zillow's figure owes the five taxing units about $11,747 a year, and without the exemption about $14,491; the citywide arithmetic is on the Austin page.
Most of daily life is inside the boundary. The H-E-B on 51st Street, Dell Children's Medical Center, the Thinkery and the lake park are all about a kilometer from the center, five of CapMetro's high-frequency routes cross the planning area, and MLK Jr. station on the Red Line is about two and a half kilometers south. What is changing is who is in charge. Banbury Development took over from Catellus in 2024 and bought Mueller in 2025, the agreement ends on 31 December 2027, and in November 2025 the City was still working out how it would oversee the affordable apartments after that.
- Get the association's assessment on the exact home, and any condominium or row home association's
- Check the title for a Mueller Foundation covenant, which caps the resale price
- Run the address through Austin ISD's 2026-27 boundaries: the zoned schools change partway across
- Ask who pays the Foundation's quarter of one percent on the sale
- Work the tax out on your own price, because the seller's capped value ends with the sale
How Mueller got here
- 1930Robert Mueller Municipal Airport begins operations on 14 October, named for a City commissioner who had died in office in 1927.
- 1961A new terminal opens in April and the control tower beside it is dedicated the following month; the tower is the one kept at the center of Roger Lavon Taylor Sr. Plaza.
- 1999Airline service ends on 22 May, when the last Continental flight leaves for Albuquerque and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport takes over.
- 2000The Council adopts the Robert Mueller Municipal Airport Redevelopment and Reuse Plan for the 711-acre site.
- 2002Catellus is selected as master developer.
- 2004Planned unit development zoning for the site is approved in August, and on 2 December the Council approves the Master Development Agreement with Catellus, which requires a quarter of all housing to be affordable.
- 2005Construction begins, and Catellus creates the Mueller Foundation, a nonprofit, to steward the affordable homes.
- 2007The first residents move in, the lake park opens in April, and Dell Children's Medical Center opens at 4900 Mueller Boulevard.
- 2010The census counts 2,070 residents in 1,120 housing units inside the planning area, 936 of them occupied and 372 rented.
- 2013The Mueller H-E-B, about 83,000 square feet, and the Thinkery children's museum both open.
- 2016John Gaines Park, 3.6 acres with a lap pool and a wading pool, opens on 23 July; it is named for Austin's first Black police officer.
- 2020The census counts 7,858 residents in 3,828 housing units; 1,961 of the 3,559 occupied homes are rented.
- 2022Zillow's typical value for Mueller peaks at $832,705 in June.
- 2024On 30 May the Council amends the development agreement to end on 31 December 2027. Banbury Development becomes development manager, and the City takes title to three perimeter greenbelts of about 77 acres, which the property owners association keeps up.
- 2025Banbury acquires Mueller from Catellus. Roger Lavon Taylor Sr. Plaza opens around the old control tower on 29 March. On 1 June the affordable program holds 678 owned homes, and in November Mueller announces that the lake park is to be renamed Girard Kinney Park at Mueller, for an architect who worked on reusing the hangar and the tower.
- 2026Zillow's typical value stands at $708,086 in August, against $697,423 a year earlier.
- 2027The Master Development Agreement is set to end on 31 December; the City's housing staff and the project team were still working out in November 2025 who would oversee the affordable apartments after it.
The lake park at the center, and 77 acres of greenbelt the City now owns
The 30-acre lake park, open since April 2007, is the center: a pond, a trail and the Browning Hangar, a hangar of the 1940s kept as an open-air pavilion. It is to be renamed for the architect Girard Kinney. Three greenbelts the City took title to in 2024 run around the edges, 31 acres on the southwest, 31 on the southeast and 16 on the northwest, and Roger Lavon Taylor Sr. Plaza opened in March 2025 around the 1961 control tower. Catellus counts 140 acres of open space in all.
What the map does not show: the property owners association, not the City, keeps most of it, including the City's greenbelts, out of owners' fees; since 2024 the Council has paid toward the greenbelts as its budget allows.
Elsewhere in Austin, not Mueller
31 places, with real drive times
Road-adjusted distance and drive time from the centre of the community to each destination, nearest first. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 31 places, nearest first.
Method: distances and drive times are computed from the OpenStreetMap place node for Mueller, using straight-line distance multiplied by a road factor and a tiered speed model: honest ranges, not routed times.
Every gym within reach
The association runs two pools, at John Gaines Park and Ella Wooten Park, open to the public for a fee in summer. The City's Bartholomew Pool is across 51st Street. No City recreation center stands inside the boundary, and the nearest with a gym, Givens on East 12th Street, has been closed for renovation since February 2025.
- Bartholomew Pool, 1800 East 51st Street: $5 for a resident adult from spring break through October
- Virginia L. Brown Recreation Center, 7500 Blessing Avenue: gym and weight room, closed on Sunday
- John Gaines and Ella Wooten pools: public hours from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| John Gaines Pool open | One of the two pools the Mueller property owners association runs, in the 3.6-acre John Gaines Park, opened in 2016, with a lap pool and a wading pool. Open to the public for a per-use fee from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend. | 2–4 min |
| Ella Wooten Pool open | The association's other pool, in Ella Wooten Park, open to the public on the same summer terms; the association budgeted $135,496 for lifeguards at the two pools in 2026. | 3–4 min |
| Bartholomew Pool open | The City's pool at 1800 East 51st Street: 25 yards and four lanes, with the lap pool kept open from October to March while the recreational pools close, and $5 a day for a resident adult from spring break through October. | 3–5 min |
| Virginia L. Brown Recreation Center open | The nearest open City center with an indoor gymnasium and a weight room, both open to the public, at 7500 Blessing Avenue. Open to 9 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 6 p.m. Friday and 4 p.m. Saturday; closed on Sunday. | 8–12 min |
| Mueller Lake Park open | The free option: the trail around the pond in the 30-acre lake park, which links to the greenbelts on the edges. | 3–4 min |
| Givens Recreation Center closed | The City's center at 3811 East 12th Street, with a full-size gymnasium and a weight room, closed for renovation since 14 February 2025; its programs moved to the Chestnut House at 1183 Chestnut Avenue. | 5–8 min |
The free option is the trail around the pond in the lake park, and the greenbelts along the edges.
Two sets of zoned schools, split down the middle of Mueller
Schools are the Austin Independent School District's, and on its 2026-27 boundaries Mueller is divided. The 50 western census blocks, 3,844 of the 2020 residents, go to Maplewood Elementary in Cherrywood, Kealing Middle and McCallum High; the 58 eastern blocks, 4,014 residents, go to Blanton Elementary in Windsor Park, Lamar Middle and Northeast Early College High. Maplewood, Kealing, Lamar and McCallum were rated A for 2025, Blanton B and Northeast C, and none of the six was among the ten schools the board voted to close in November 2025.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Maplewood Elementary School | Austin Independent School District | The zoned elementary for the western half of the planning area on the district's 2026-27 boundaries: 50 census blocks and 3,844 of the 2020 residents. At 3808 Maplewood Avenue in Cherrywood; a dual language school, rated A for 2025. |
| Blanton Elementary School | Austin Independent School District | Annie Webb Blanton Elementary, 5408 Westminster Drive in Windsor Park: the zoned elementary for the eastern half, 58 blocks and 4,014 residents. Pre-kindergarten to fifth grade, with dual language; rated B for 2025. |
| Kealing Middle School | Austin Independent School District | 1607 Pennsylvania Avenue: the zoned middle school for the Maplewood blocks, with a math and science magnet; rated A for 2025. From 2026-27 it also takes students reassigned from the closed Martin Middle and carries out Martin's state-mandated turnaround plan. |
| Lamar Middle School | Austin Independent School District | 6201 Wynona Street: the zoned middle school for the Blanton blocks and the district's middle-school Fine Arts Academy; rated A for 2025. |
| McCallum High School | Austin Independent School District | 5600 Sunshine Drive: the zoned high school for the Maplewood blocks, home of the district's Fine Arts Academy since 1993; rated A for 2025. |
| Northeast Early College High School | Austin Independent School District | 7104 Berkman Drive: the zoned high school for the Blanton blocks. An early college with Austin Community College, where a student can finish with an associate degree, and a P-TECH program with Dell in cybersecurity; rated C for 2025. |
Run the exact address through the district's lookup before you commit: the line splits Berkman Drive and Zach Scott Street. Transfers open in February and depend on space.
Month by month, what living here looks like
Not a highlights reel: the actual annual rhythm, including the dates residents have to remember.
- The appraisal district values every house as of 1 January; a home in the affordable program is valued at its affordable price plus 2% a year of ownership rather than at the market
- Highs near 17 °C and lows near 5 °C at Camp Mabry, with about five nights at or below freezing on the 1991 to 2020 normal
- Enroll Austin opens for Austin ISD's magnet, dual language and academy seats
- Austin ISD's general registration and transfer window opens, which matters here because the planning area is split between two sets of zoned schools
- 48 mm of rain on the normal, the driest month, and highs near 19 °C
- Bartholomew Pool's lap lanes stay open through the winter on East 51st Street
- Roger Lavon Taylor Sr. Plaza opened around the 1961 control tower on 29 March 2025
- The general transfer window closes; transfers depend on space and are not guaranteed
- Highs near 23 °C and 73 mm of rain, and Bartholomew Pool starts charging with spring break: $5 a day for a resident adult
- The lake park opened in April 2007, the year the first residents moved in
- Notices of value arrive in spring; a seller's capped value is no guide to a buyer's, because the cap ends when the owner stops qualifying
- Highs near 27 °C and 61 mm of rain, with no night at or below freezing on the normal
- The property owners association opens its two pools to the public from Memorial Day weekend, for a per-use fee
- 128 mm of rain on the normal, the wettest month; none of the 2,108 house lots is in the City's fully developed floodplain
- About 11 days at or above 32 °C on the normal, the first month with more than a handful
- The master developer files the first of its two semi-annual affordable housing reports to the City
- Highs near 34 °C, with about 24 days at or above 32 °C
- The affordable program held 678 owned homes on 1 June 2025, after 205 resales through the Mueller Foundation
- Highs near 36 °C and about nine days at or above 38 °C (100 °F)
- John Gaines Park and its pool opened on 23 July 2016
- 50 mm of rain, one of the drier months
- The hottest month at Camp Mabry: highs near 37 °C and 13 days at or above 38 °C
- The planned unit development zoning that covers about 96% of the land was first approved in August 2004 and amended in 2009, 2013 and 2020
- The Thinkery is indoors, open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Public hours at the association's pools end with Labor Day weekend
- Highs still near 33 °C and 88 mm of rain
- About 20 days at or above 32 °C on the normal
- The taxing units settle their 2026 rates: the City's is 0.579948 per $100, against 0.524017 for 2025, and Austin ISD has proposed 0.9184, against 0.9252
- The airport began operations on 14 October 1930
- 99 mm of rain on the normal, the second-wettest month, and highs near 28 °C
- The school board voted on 20 November 2025 to close ten schools; none of the six zoned for Mueller was among them
- Mueller announced in November 2025 that the lake park would be renamed for the architect Girard Kinney
- Highs near 22 °C and 74 mm of rain
- The Council approved the Master Development Agreement on 2 December 2004, and it is set to end on 31 December 2027
- The second semi-annual affordable housing report is due in December
- Highs near 18 °C and about three nights at or below freezing
Every photograph in this guide's library is above
This library holds 3 photographs and the page has already printed all of them, each once. The credits are in the footer.
About these photographs. Openly licensed images geotagged in or near Mueller, found on Wikimedia Commons and served from there with full attribution. Inline photos elsewhere on the page may still come from the site's shared Austin library.