To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

Mary Ann Golden is the president of the Austin Woman's Club. She said the club's porch has offered a view of the changes to the city's appearance over the last few years, and she said those changes aren't compatible with the club's 1874 home.

"It's overshadowed. This was an area of homes. This was part of original Austin. This is where our original community existed," she said.

Some had hoped the downtown plan would help protect historic places.

Mandy Dealey is the president of the Austin heritage society, and she's the chair of the downtown commission.

While the plan mentions some protections, Dealey doesn't think it goes far enough.

"Identifying some districts that would have some protections would really be a big help, and I think that that needs to be incorporated into phase two of the downtown plan," she said.

Those protections could be through local historic districts. Right now, Austin only has one local historic district.

While the plan identifies several potential districts like part of the Warehouse District and Judges Hill, it doesn't take any steps toward establishing them.

"I would love to see there be an enabling mechanism to encourage it. Having it available and encouraging it to happen and making it easier are two entirely different thing," Dealey said.

She would like the city to complete a new survey of historic places. The last one is more than 25 years old.

Golden hopes a step-down approach, with buildings in more comparable sizes to the existing ones would better preserve downtown's character.

"Today when you encase that community in high rise developments, you create an absence of what was there, because it is so dwarfed by what is to come and what is here now," she said.