‘Unintended consequences': Austin reworking affordable housing incentive program
For Eric Gomez, who has lived at Acacia Cliffs since 2016, it could mean he'll no longer be able to afford living in a spot that allows him to easily get to work, the grocery store, the library and a nearby hospital. He's one of the residents showing up at city hall regularly, asking city council members to shut down that rezoning request.
But what the residents may not have known at first is that — for now — city council has tied its hands on what it can do in cases like this one. The options here: Approve the rezoning request under Austin's DB90 program, which only requires developers to commit to a certain number of affordable units in exchange for loosened height restrictions, or don't approve the rezoning request and allow the developer to demolish the complex anyways, rebuild it under the same zoning structure and commit no affordable units to the city's pipeline at all.
'DB90 has been an unhappy experience. Even with Council's well motivated goals for DB90, this density program, as currently created, is proving to be divisive, difficult to utilize, and ultimately too far from achieving the goal of Council to provide more housing by allowing more density,' Austin Mayor Kirk Watson wrote. He continued, 'The unintended consequences we're seeing need to be addressed.'
That's why Austin City Council is voting on changes to DB90 Thursday in an attempt to close those loopholes. One group of council members — Jose Velasquez, Chito Vela, Zo Qadri, Mike Siegel — and the mayor are proposing the city's density bonus programs be reworked entirely.
'The main thrust of the resolution is creation of a hierarchy of density bonus paper districts that include both lower and higher heights than DB90. This is a critical necessity in our code, as this provides options that may allow for better outcomes,' Watson said.
Meanwhile, Mayor Pro Tem Vanessa Fuentes said she wants the city to prioritize a one-for-one unit replacement. And Austin City Council Member Marc Duchen is looking to fund a new preservation program altogether — modeled after other cities like Dallas.
'This would give us another enormous tool in our arsenal that could start working in as little as three months to start buying down the affordability and making sure that we are extending the life of these properties,' he explained of his proposal.
You can see all of the proposals from Austin City Council members on this message board heading into Thursday's council meeting.
Gomez said he'll be there Thursday, asking for a solution that lets him stay where he is, at a price he can afford.
'Everyone needs to be made aware of it and make sure that the policies that the city council members create are actually indeed doing what they're supposed to be doing and not the opposite,' he said.
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'We didn't answer anything, we didn't guarantee anything, we didn't provide them a license under the table, we did nothing but go see a facility, an empty facility at that,' he said. 'I'm not involved in cannabis, I'm keeping my name out of it, but I don't see anybody else using that visit to influence their decision, that's not happening, so any accusation to that regard is patently false.' Johnson confirmed that he was on the cannabis portfolio at the time of his visit, a portfolio he still sits on. 'None of us would have any influence over whether anybody gets a licence or not, we were just really interested to go and see the facility, because we're council chiefs, and we have to be open to the community and be available when asked,' Johnson said. Johnson said the facility was large, with an area for processing that was to meet Health Canada standards, plus an area at the front of the building that was intended to be a dispensary in the future. 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