Plans to raze five apartment complexes on East Riverside Drive and redevelop the tracts are quickly moving down the pipeline, stirring renewed criticisms over gentrification in the area.

Developers have not yet submitted a site plan — originally called Project Catalyst and recently renamed 4700 East Riverside — and specifics for the project, envisioned for an area near the corner of East Riverside Drive and South Pleasant Valley Road, are still unknown.

So far, in a letter to the city of Austin, developers have proposed building 4,700 residential units, 600 hotel rooms, 4 million square feet of office space, 60,000 square feet of medical and dental office space, and 435,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. The city could require the developers to offer hundreds of income-restricted affordable housing units, but it would only do so if the developers build structures above a restricted height.

The buildings currently sitting there, which are roughly 60% student-occupied, are The Ballpark North and Town Lake, as well as the Quad East, West and South. The properties account for a total of 3,702 bedrooms across 1,308 units, according to city documents. Monthly rents vary but are generally below the citywide median of $1,170 a month for a one-bedroom unit.

With a crowd of people outside City Hall protesting against gentrifying the East Austin plot, the city's planning commission Tuesday evening voted to recommend that the Austin City Council approve all requested zoning changes for the development. Current zoning already allows the owner to tear down the buildings and replace them with something far more profitable, a factor that Commissioner Conor Kenny said influenced his decision.

"It's not only a question, to me, of what happens on the site," Kenny said. "It's a question of what happens in the larger area. We have to be cognizant of the gentrification that this spurs, but we also need to be looking at the future of this city. ... If we don't put the density here, it's going to go further out, and that makes everything in this community worse."

The City Council will take up the issue in August. In the meantime, Kenny committed to write a letter to the City Council urging them to require the developer to provide additional analysis on several issues, including on-site affordable housing, parkland dedication and a right-to-return agreement for residents who have been in the existing apartments for at least a year.

While commissioners discussed the plan inside City Hall, Austin police officers surrounded the government building's front entrance as protesters gathered outside, chanting such things as, "Developers, run and hide — don't Domain our Riverside!" and "We won't give up, we won't back down, till we run these developers out of town!"

Susana Almanza, with the environmental justice organization PODER, echoed the concerns of many of the protesters when she spoke to the planning commission. These plans turn affordable residential space into an area in which the average Austinite will no longer be able to afford, she said.

"This is a major case of gentrification. ... What frightens me is the domino effect," Almanza said. "We’ve already witnessed all these families that got displaced … and it’s not going to stop there."

Angela Benavides Garza, who also attended the meeting, said she thinks the community can strike a compromise with developers if they establish a strong agreement that lets existing residents return to affordable housing units built on the same site.

"We need more room in our city," Garza said. "But we also need to take care of our citizens here as well."