Live in North Burnet and the Domain

North Burnet is the City's North Burnet neighborhood planning area: about 2,072 acres between MoPac and Metric Boulevard, from US 183 north to Walnut Creek, and the larger half of the North Burnet/Gateway plan. It was farmland on the road from Austin to Bagdad, and the stone house Edward H. Rogers built around 1861 still stands off Kramer Lane, on the National Register since 1974. The university bought a wartime magnesium plant on Burnet Road in 1949, now the J. J. Pickle Research Campus, whose 230-acre parcel is still the largest here, and IBM opened a plant in 1967. When IBM sold 235 acres in 1999, the buyer built the Domain, which opened in March 2007 with City and county tax subsidies that voters narrowly declined to outlaw the next year.

The plan expected a city; the census found renters. In November 2007 the Council adopted a plan that found no single-family houses and 4,803 residents across North Burnet and Gateway, and imagined about 40,000 homes and perhaps 80,000 residents within 25 to 30 years. The regulating plan of 2009 put most of the land in its own NBG zoning, 74.4% of the zoned land here today, and since February 2023 a tower in its two transit zones may reach 491 feet with the development bonus. The Domain sits outside that district, on the 15.4% zoned MI-PDA. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses the North Burnet ground went from 3,018 homes to 7,091 and from 4,472 residents to 9,745, and 6,286 of the 6,351 occupied homes were rented.

The rent is the price. The appraisal district's parcel layer shows no single-family parcel in the planning area, and in tract 454, which holds 5,600 of the residents, the Census Bureau's survey found every occupied home rented and 4,111 of 6,055 homes in buildings of 50 or more. It puts the median gross rent there at $1,984, give or take $120, against $1,752 in tract 453 and $1,729 citywide. Zillow's rent index for ZIP code 78758, five times as populous, was $1,549 in August 2026, against $1,553 a year earlier. Zillow's North Burnet home value, $189,528 in August, lower than a year earlier and 42% below its July 2022 peak, describes few homes: the 2020 count found 65 lived in by their owners. A homestead at that figure would owe the five taxing units about $2,192 on the 2025 rates and a landlord about $3,879; the citywide arithmetic is on the Austin page.

The offices are the reason to be here. Amazon took all 330,000 square feet of Domain 9 in a lease announced in December 2021, and IBM took over Meta's lease of Domain 12, 320,000 square feet, from January 2026 through 2040. Indeed has leased the whole of two Domain buildings and in 2023 put one of them on the sublease market. After work, Rock Rose Avenue in Domain Northside is the bar street. The 24 acres on McKalla Place that the City bought in 1995 for an Austin Water service center, which the 2007 plan named as a site for workforce housing, became Q2 Stadium: Austin FC's 20,738 seats, open since June 2021, with a Red Line station of its own since February 2024.

The train is here; the riders mostly are not. Kramer and McKalla stations are less than half a mile apart, and a third, North Burnet/Uptown, is due in late 2027 at $49.3 million; CapMetro says it will then review Kramer, which KUT reports will close. Trains run every 15 to 30 minutes, until 8 p.m. from Monday to Thursday and never on Sunday, and the 803 MetroRapid starts at the Domain. Yet the survey counted 41 of the 9,008 workers in the two main tracts commuting by transit, and 3,093 working from home. The 2007 plan found no school, library or community center, and the planning area still has no public school or City recreation center. The City's 25-year and 100-year floodplains cover about 4.4% of the land, and no apartment parcel's representative point falls in them.

Worth knowing before you commit

Price the lease, not the house

6,286 of the 6,351 occupied homes were rented in 2020

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• Ask whether the building used the development bonus, which reserves 10% of the bonus space for renters at 60% of median family income for 40 years
• Time the walk to Kramer or McKalla station at the hour you would travel: no train runs after 8 p.m. from Monday to Thursday, or on Sunday
• Read Austin FC's home schedule before signing near McKalla Place: CapMetro runs special event trains there
• Ask which elementary the address is zoned to: the Domain's blocks go to Summitt, rated A for 2025, and the eastern ones to Pillow and Burnet, rated C and F

How North Burnet and the Domain got here

• 1861Edward H. Rogers probably builds his three-room stone house, a closed dogtrot, on the road from Austin to Bagdad in Williamson County at his marriage in January; the National Register nomination calls it one of very few buildings put up around Austin during the Civil War. His son lives there until 1937.
• 1949The University of Texas buys the former federal magnesium plant on Burnet Road, with help from Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson. It becomes the Balcones Research Center in 1953 and the J. J. Pickle Research Campus in 1994.
• 1967IBM opens a plant with 500 employees on 31 July, seven months after announcing it. By 2002 the City counts 6,300 IBM jobs in or near the planning area.
• 1974The Edward H. Rogers Homestead is listed on the National Register of Historic Places on 27 December.
• 1999In December IBM sells 235 acres to Endeavor Real Estate Group for $60 million.
• 2003The City and Travis County agree tax subsidies for the Domain; Wikipedia puts the City's at up to $25 million in present value, from 80% of its sales tax for five years, 50% for fifteen more and a 25% property tax rebate for twenty.
• 2007The Domain's first phase opens on 9 March. On 1 November the Council adopts the North Burnet/Gateway plan, which finds no single-family houses and 4,803 residents across both halves and anticipates about 40,000 homes over 25 to 30 years. The City's plan page dates the master plan to 2006.
• 2008In November voters narrowly reject Proposition 2, which would have barred retail tax incentives like the Domain's; Wikipedia records it at 48%.
• 2009The Council adopts the regulating plan on 12 March, effective 23 March, giving the old overlay district its own base zoning with six subdistricts. The Domain's land, zoned MI-PDA on today's map, is outside it.
• 2010Kramer station opens on 22 March with the Red Line. The census counts 4,472 residents in 3,018 homes on the North Burnet ground, 2,523 of the 2,554 occupied homes rented.
• 2014The first phase of the Northern Walnut Creek Trail is finished: 3.5 miles from Balcones District Park to Walnut Creek Metropolitan Park, along the planning area's northern edge. Whole Foods opens a 55,000-square-foot store at the Domain in January.
• 2018On 15 August the Council votes 7 to 4 for a 20-year lease of the City's 24-acre McKalla Place site for a soccer stadium, the vacant Austin Water property the 2007 plan had pointed to for workforce housing.
• 2019Ground is broken on the stadium on 9 September. In mid-2019 Endeavor sells Domain Northside, the third phase and home of the Rock Rose bars, to Northwood Retail.
• 2020The census counts 9,745 residents in 7,091 homes, and 6,286 of the 6,351 occupied homes are rented.
• 2021Q2 Stadium opens on 16 June, with 20,738 seats, and Austin FC plays its first match there on 19 June. On 21 December Cousins Properties announces that Amazon will take all 330,000 square feet of Domain 9.
• 2022Zillow's typical home value for North Burnet peaks at $324,388 in July.
• 2023On 9 February the Council raises the bonus height in the regulating plan's two transit zones to 491 feet and the floor area ratio to 12 to 1. On 19 October it adds a commercial mixed-use subdistrict and allows outdoor recreation.
• 2024McKalla station opens beside the stadium on 24 February, a $60 million double-tracked stop; CapMetro sets no date to close Kramer station, less than half a mile away. In September IBM agrees to take over Meta's lease of Domain 12, 320,000 square feet, through 2040.
• 2025In May the cost of the North Burnet/Uptown station reaches $49.3 million, with opening moved to late 2027. The City acquires Delta Pocket Park, 0.72 acres on Donley Drive, the only park land wholly inside the planning area.
• 2026IBM's lease of Domain 12 takes effect on 1 January. Zillow's typical value for North Burnet stands at $189,528 in August, against $216,718 a year earlier.

What the map does not show: the regulating plan requires a site of 20 acres or more that owes parkland to dedicate at least 5% of it as public open space, but the Domain's MI-PDA land is outside that district, and the parks layer shows no City park inside the Domain.

Elsewhere in Austin, not North Burnet and the Domain

The free option is the Northern Walnut Creek Trail along the northern edge, 3.5 miles of concrete from Balcones District Park to Walnut Creek Metropolitan Park.