BG Reads | News You Need to Know (February 3, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW -> Episode 72: Market Talk - Atlanta and Southeast Lobbying with Howard Franklin of Ohio River South (LINK TO SHOW)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin Releases Reworked Land Code Ahead Of Second Of Three Votes To Finalize (KUT)
The Austin City Council released the second draft of its land development code Friday. It's the latest step in the city's more than half-decade-long attempt to update the rules that determine what can be built in the city and where.
"The Code and Map released today reflects changes requested through Council direction from December, with a focus on equity and an equitable distribution of housing, the environment, mobility, and housing and affordability," project co-lead Annick Beaudet said in a statement.
The city's hope is to permit and encourage the building of more diverse types of housing, such as duplexes and triplexes, and to entice developers to build affordable housing in exchange for relaxed zoning.
This latest iteration of the city’s land code rewrite addresses a vote the City Council took in December. In the first of three votes to finalize a new code, council members approved roughly 90 amendments, asking city staff to scale back the ability to build more in gentrifying parts of town, to write stronger water-conservation measures and to find ways to get more commercial buildings within neighborhoods… (LINK TO STORY)
Abbott renews attacks on Austin’s homelessness policies, cites Friday stabbing (Austin American-Statesman
Gov. Greg Abbott renewed his criticism of Austin officials and their handling of homelessness in the Texas capital in tweets Saturday referencing a KEYE-TV/CBS Austin report of a stabbing the night before.
The report said a man was stabbed in the elbow late Friday near the intersection of East Eighth Street and Interstate 35, near Austin police headquarters.
A witness at the scene believed the person who stabbed the man was homeless, according to the report.
Abbott shared the CBS Austin report in his tweet early Saturday, saying again that Austin’s homeless policies are “dangerous for everyone.”
The governor said Saturday he has a four-step solution to solve homelessness in Austin, but the city “doesn’t have the leadership to do this.”
Those steps included opening large shelters, providing mental health and drug addiction treatment, job training skills and focusing on long-term housing. He did not elaborate in his tweets on how the resources could be provided.
Abbott tweeted many times last year, slamming the Austin City Council’s changes to its laws regarding where people can camp and sleep in the city… (LINK TO STORY)
Advocates host discussion on what makes good transit (Austin Monitor)
November’s transportation bond hasn’t taken shape yet, but is likely to feature the largest public transit investment residents have ever been asked to consider.
In light of that, transit advocates and grassroots organizations hosted a talk Wednesday with Christof Spieler, engineer and author of the book Trains, Buses, People, in order to discuss what makes transit plans fail or succeed.
In short, Spieler said good transit systems make frequent and reliable connections between centers with relatively high activity. And while Project Connect – the high-capacity transit vision that could cost the city up to $6.4 billion in capital costs alone – wasn’t discussed in detail, Spieler said this simple rule is applicable everywhere.
Providing the local background, Mayor Steve Adler made no secret of the city’s past failures with big transit investments. Not only did voters reject a well-designed light rail project in 2000, but the city came back with a much worse concept in 2004, the MetroRail Red Line.
“In 2004 we did something that I believe, in retrospect, was not the right thing for us to do,” Adler said. “We did rail on the cheap; we did rail to be able to get something on the ground because it was the least expensive option for us to do that. But as far as actually putting rail where people were, to be able to move people, to be able to demonstrate that something like that could work, it was not the place or the project that we needed to do.”…(LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
False Coronavirus rumors crush business as they spread through Chinatown (Houston Chronicle)
Lunchtime is usually hustling in Houston’s Chinatown, when thousands of people head to restaurants or take breaks to buy Asian specialties in its supermarkets. But empty parking lots have been plaguing the otherwise vibrant neighborhood since Sunday, when rumors started spreading about a coronavirus outbreak here. Business has dropped 40 to 70 percent this week as a result, owners said.
“I normally serve around 4,000 customers per day, and I am now seeing maybe a thousand,” said Feng Chen, the owner of Jusgo Supermarket at 9280 Bellaire Blvd. Posts on a popular Chinese social media platform called We Chat falsely stated that Jusgo Supermarket was shut down by Houston authorities because of concerns about the coronavirus. The rumor spread to Twitter and Instagram, said the owner, adding that he hired a law firm to trace the social media posts. “We want to make this information very clear: There are no confirmed cases of coronavirus anywhere in the state of Texas,” Dr. David Persse, health authority for the Houston Health Department, said after a press conference there Friday. “There are no concerns about a virus here at all.” U.S. Rep. Al Green called the area safe. “In fact, Chinatown, all of Houston and Texas are safe places to be, and we encourage people to deal with facts and not fear,” he said. “We want people to know that this is a very vicious and malicious rumor that’s being spread; they are harmful, and we want to stop it.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Fort Worth has welcomed growth, but will its ‘cavalier’ attitude on development change? (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
Fort Worth’s booming population, oft-mentioned as a sign of success, has strained the city’s infrastructure and forced leaders to weigh the economic benefits of continued development. Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, in a recent interview about Tarrant County attracting more residents from out of state, said the city may need a more critical eye when considering new development. Dallas-Fort Worth leads the nation in population growth. Roughly 20,000 new people arrive in Cowtown every year, giving Fort Worth the third-greatest gain of any city behind Phoenix and San Antonio.
“We do need to take a hard look at our growth,” Price said. “I think this council is willing to do that.” A sizable group of residents from north of Loop 820 were ecstatic earlier this month when the City Council denied a rezoning request that would have allowed a developer to build a larger number of homes on vacant land just west of U.S. 287 that borders narrow Bonds Ranch and Willow Springs roads. Neighbors feared more traffic on already congested streets. Rusty Fuller, president of the North Fort Worth Alliance, said his neighbors hoped the denial was a sign the council would stop development until roads are improved. Many east-to-west connectors in the far north are old farm to market roads that have not been widened despite a rush of new residents… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
Trump administration restricts travel from Nigeria and five other countries (The Hill)
The Trump administration announced Friday it will restrict the ability of immigrants to travel to the United States from six countries, including Nigeria.
The government will curb the ability of citizens of Nigeria, Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan and Tanzania to get certain immigration visas, according to officials with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and State Department, but it is not a blanket travel ban.
"Because we have higher confidence that these six countries will be able to make improvements in their system in a reasonable period of time, we did not feel it would be proportionate to impose restrictions on all immigrant and non-immigration visas," a DHS official said… (LINK TO STORY)
The Bingham Group, LLC is an Austin-based full service lobbying firm representing and advising clients on municipal, legislative, and regulatory matters throughout Texas.
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