Live in Travis Heights

Three subdivisions make up the hills east of South Congress Avenue. The Swisher Addition was platted in 1877, and James Swisher gave the right-of-way that became South Congress. Charles Newning laid out Fairview Park in 1886 as a suburb of large houses on the bluffs, and it was cut into smaller lots from the 1910s. In 1913 General William Harwood Stacy and his sons began Travis Heights, with curving streets, deed restrictions against apartments and shops, and the land along Blunn Creek given over as parks. This guide covers the City's South River City planning area, which holds all three: Lady Bird Lake to East Oltorf Street, South Congress to I-35, about 1.13 square miles and 6,574 residents at the 2020 census. The name is the City's, not the neighborhood's.

The Register listing protects less than it seems to. The Travis Heights-Fairview Park district was listed on 30 July 2021: about 353 acres and 911 contributing resources, from Victorian houses of the 1880s to mid-century modern ones. Listing places no restriction on a private owner, up to and including demolition. The City's review page does send exterior work and new building on a contributing house to historic review, and the Historic Landmark Commission can hold a demolition, but in March 2023 it released one on a 1920 bungalow on Brackenridge Street, 7 to 3; the listing, as the Austin Monitor put it, is an honor rather than a mandate. The rules that bind are narrower. The Fairview Park conservation district, created in 1986 and about 112 acres between Riverside Drive and Monroe Street, overrides the base zoning. The Mary Street local district of 2018 covers one block, where new building needs a certificate of appropriateness. The City lists 36 individual landmarks. Across the rest, the Travis Heights-Swisher subdistrict, the 2005 plan adds rules on where parking and garages go, and the City's HOME amendments now allow up to three homes on a single-family lot.

The appraisal roll shows how much is still old. Of 1,257 single-family houses with a year built, 619 predate 1941 and the median is 1941; 245 have gone up since 2000, 114 of them since 2015. The median lot is about 0.17 acres, and 122 parcels are duplexes. The census counted 2,159 of 3,516 occupied homes as rented in 2020, and 194 more held for seasonal or occasional use. The county's parcel layer does not say which year its values are, so this guide gives no median assessment. Zillow, which draws its own South River City and counts condominiums, put the typical value at $824,114 in August 2026, against $824,525 a year earlier, $1,112,715 at the July 2022 peak and $291,585 in 2010. On the 2025 rates a homestead at that value owes the five taxing units about $13,884 a year, and the same house without the exemption about $16,865; the citywide arithmetic is on the Austin page.

The creek and the hills are the ground to read. Blunn Creek runs through the middle of the area inside the greenbelt Stacy set aside, and the City's fully developed 100-year floodplain covers about 4.4% of the land, about 12 of its 31 acres in City parks. It touches 47 of the 1,260 house lots and covers more than a tenth of 37, most of them on Alta Vista Avenue, Pecan Grove Road, Bickler Road and Buckingham Circle. FEMA's 1% annual chance map, the one a lender reads, covers more than a tenth of 35, nearly the same lots, so here the two maps mostly agree. The hills matter too: in 2025 the Austin Transit Partnership dropped a planned Travis Heights light rail station because the terrain made it harder to build.

The edges are where the change is. South Congress had 21 motels and motor courts in 1952, and the Continental Club has been there since 1957. H-E-B rebuilt its store at Oltorf in 2024 at more than 145,000 square feet, and the Council approved about 1,400 homes, 1.5 million square feet of offices and a hotel on the nearly 19-acre Statesman site at the lake in 2022. The federal Record of Decision of January 2026 puts light rail down South Congress to Oltorf and on an elevated guideway along East Riverside Drive to Travis Heights Boulevard, with riders estimated from 2033. Until then Route 20 runs along Riverside to the airport and MetroRapid 801 up Congress.

Worth knowing before you commit

Find out which rules the lot is under

The Register district alone, Fairview Park's conservation district, the Mary Street block, or a landmark

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• Check the address on the City's NCCD and historic zoning layers before you plan an addition or a rebuild
• Do not rely on the Register listing to keep the house next door: it does not stop a demolition
• Pull the City's floodplain map for the address: it covers more than a tenth of 37 house lots, and FEMA's map a tenth of 35
• Work the tax out on your own price, because the seller's capped value ends with the sale
• Ask the Historic Preservation Office what review an addition to a contributing house needs

How Travis Heights got here

• 1877The Swisher Addition, the earliest subdivision in the area, is platted. Monroe, Mary and Johanna Streets are named for Swishers, and James Swisher gives 120 feet of right-of-way through his farm for the road that became South Congress Avenue.
• 1886Charles Newning, who bought 200 acres northeast of the Swisher land in 1878, lays out Fairview Park as a garden suburb of large lots on the bluffs. The same year the City and County build a free iron bridge across the river, replacing a toll pontoon bridge.
• 1895Austin puts up its moonlight towers, 165 feet tall, as its first electric street lights. The one at Leland Street and East Side Drive was moved there from Fifth and Brazos Streets downtown.
• 1910A concrete bridge across the river is finished and the trolley line extended over it, and South Congress becomes the main highway into Austin.
• 1911The school founded in 1886 that is now Lively Middle School moves to its present site on East Mary Street.
• 1913General William Harwood Stacy and his sons begin Travis Heights, with lots of several sizes, grid and curving streets, and deed restrictions barring apartments and shops. Stacy dedicates the land along Blunn Creek and the bluff above the river as public parks.
• 1929The City acquires the Blunn Creek greenbelt and builds the wading pool and tennis courts at Little Stacy Park; the Spanish Revival shelter by Hugo Kuehne follows in 1930.
• 1931City engineer Jac Gubbels designs the rustic stone arched bridge that carries East Monroe Street over Blunn Creek, likely paid for with the bonds that followed the 1928 city plan.
• 1937The Works Progress Administration builds Big Stacy Pool and its two bathhouses at the south end of the greenbelt.
• 1952Between Ben White Boulevard and the river, South Congress holds 21 motels and motor courts, 14 restaurants and hamburger stands and 12 gas stations. The Continental Club opens in 1957.
• 1972South River City Citizens, the neighborhood association, is founded.
• 1976Austin's moonlight towers, the one on East Side Drive among them, are listed on the National Register.
• 1986Ordinance 19860807-H creates the Fairview Park Neighborhood Conservation Combining District, effective 17 August, roughly between Riverside Drive, East Side Drive, Monroe Street and South Congress. Its boundaries are widened in 2003 and 2010.
• 2005The Council adopts the Greater South River City Combined Neighborhood Plan on 29 September, with a neighborhood plan combining district that gives the Travis Heights-Swisher subdistrict rules on parking and garage placement.
• 2018The Mary Street Historic District, both sides of the 500 block of East Mary Street, takes effect on 21 May. In December the school board renames Fulmore Middle School for Sarah Beth Lively, who taught there for 25 years, from the 2019-20 year.
• 2020The census counts 6,574 people and 4,020 homes in the planning area; 2,159 of the 3,516 occupied homes are rented.
• 2021The Travis Heights-Fairview Park Historic District is listed on the National Register on 30 July: about 353 acres, 911 contributing resources and 476 noncontributing, with a period of significance from 1877 to 1971.
• 2022Zillow's typical value for the area peaks at $1,112,715 in July. On 2 December the Council approves, 8-2-1, the planned unit development on the nearly 19-acre Statesman site at 305 South Congress: about 1,400 homes, 1.5 million square feet of offices and a 275-room hotel.
• 2023In March the Historic Landmark Commission lets the demolition of a 1920 bungalow on Brackenridge Street go ahead, 7-3; the Austin Monitor calls the Register listing an honor rather than a mandate to keep contributing buildings. On 7 December the Council adopts HOME Phase 1, allowing up to three homes on a single-family lot.
• 2024H-E-B reopens its store at South Congress and Oltorf on 4 December, more than 145,000 square feet in place of the 1957 original.
• 2025In January the Austin Transit Partnership drops the planned Travis Heights light rail station, saying the hilly area would make it harder to build. In November the school board votes to close ten schools; Travis Heights Elementary, Lively and Travis are not among them.
• 2026The Federal Transit Administration signs the light rail Record of Decision in January: tracks down South Congress to Oltorf Street and elevated along East Riverside Drive to Travis Heights Boulevard. Zillow's typical value stands at $824,114 in August, against $824,525 a year earlier.

What the map does not show: the lake at the top is for paddling; swimming and wading in it are illegal. The 38.5-acre Blunn Creek Nature Preserve, which the City bought in 1982, is south of Oltorf, outside the planning area.

Elsewhere in Austin, not Travis Heights

The free option is the Butler Trail, a 10-mile loop around Lady Bird Lake at the northern end of the neighborhood.