Real estate
BY ELISABETH JIMENEZ
Home Edition
2025
Readers, welcome to your annual CI Home Edition! Our annual Home Edition explores the phenomenon of “accidental landlords” in Northwest Austin, the ever-evolving North Burnet/Gateway district, Great Hills Country Club renovations, and more home and real estate-related trends and stories that are shaping our community. We’re able to deliver this reporting thanks to the home service pros, remodelers, builders and Realtors who advertise with us. I want to give a huge shout out to Capitol Tree Care, our sponsor for this special issue. Please support our advertising partners—they help us keep Northwest Austin informed, inspired and connected. From all of us at Community Impact, we want to extend our deepest condolences to all of those in our community who lost loved ones in the recent oods. Our thoughts and prayers continue for you all, and we will keep providing coverage regarding resources for healing and recovery. The Christi Center in North Austin (and now Georgetown) is an incredible free resource in our community, helping kids, teens and adults navigate their grief journey. They also o er a multitude of volunteer opportunities for those of us who are looking to give back to the families in Central Texas experiencing tremendous loss. For more information, visit christicenter.org, or call 512-467-2600.
What's inside
Read more about Great Hills Country Club’s $22M renovations (Page 14)
Taylor Stover General Manager tstover@ communityimpact.com
See what changes are in store for the North Burnet/Gateway area (Page 17)
Find out more about the trend of ‘accidental landlords’ in Austin (Page 20)
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Locals turn to regenerative agriculture in times of drought
the space between them, Topiwala said. During rain events, water will rush through the swales and feed into the berms, hydrating the soil. Hays County resident and permaculturalist Annie Spade said incorporating native plant species can be bene cial for the landscape. She encourages experi- menting with di erent plants to see what works best for an individual’s home. “That’s the beautiful thing about native plants— they will naturalize,” she said. “They will just live in the places that work for them.” The bigger picture Topiwala said an approach such as regenerative agriculture is one easy way to positively impact a stressed environment, connect with people and prepare for extreme weather events in the wake of a changing climate. “There’s things that we can do at home that will have amazing impacts on the microclimate of your local environment,” he said.
Despite recent rainfall, the U.S. Drought Monitor is projecting drought for the next three months as of July 21. Locals are working to rehydrate the land through practices such as regenerative agriculture. The background Regenerative agriculture focuses on restoring the environment by promoting biodiversity and rebuild- ing soil, said Kiran Topiwala, owner at Nurture Nature Regenerative Landscaping. Similar to xeriscaping—a landscaping approach focusing speci cally on water conservation through planting native, drought-tolerant species—regener- ative agriculture takes the practice a step further by “being proactive in the restoration of the environ- ment,” Topiwala said. How it works People can incorporate regenerative agriculture into their homes through “low tech” systems such as berms, or raised gardening mounds; and swales,
The setup
Regenerative agriculture can be done at home and helps rehydrate plants.
Berm: raised mound to improve drainage
SOURCE: NURTURE NATURE REGENERATIVE LANDSCAPING COMMUNITY IMPACT
Swale: collects runo to go back into the ground
Drought-tolerant plants
The following plants are perennial, drought- tolerant and deer-resistant. For sunlit areas For shaded areas
• Flame acanthus • Mistflower • Lantana • Skeleton-leaf goldeneye
• Turks cap • Chili pequin • Beautyberry
SOURCE: PERMACULTURALIST ANNIE SPADE COMMUNITY IMPACT
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NORTHWEST AUSTIN EDITION
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