AUSTIN (KXAN) – As Austin’s downtown area continues to burgeon, city officials said they must maintain the moratorium on new downtown street events first instituted in 2014. 

The city first instituted a moratorium, or temporary ban, on new street events to keep the urban streets safe while the downtown area grows, according to a city memo. 

City staff have renewed the moratorium on several occasions in the last nine years. 

The city said that the area most affected is the Downtown Austin Project Coordination Zone, which falls between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the north, Oltorf Street to the south, MoPac/Loop 1 to the west, and Chicon Street to the east, according to a memo.

There are several ongoing major projects in that area, with many more scheduled in the coming years. 

There are also two multi-year projects – Project Connect and the downtown Interstate 35 expansion – scheduled to start construction in 2024, which will have significant impacts on the area, the memo stated. 

Though the moratorium will continue, smaller events may be permitted pending review by the  Public Works Department Director and Austin Center for Events Program Manager, according to the memo.