BG Reads | News You Need to Know (February 7, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW -> Episode 73: Emily Blair, Executive Vice President, Austin Apartment Association (LINK TO SHOW)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Opponents of Austin trash transfer station take their case to the state (Austin Monitor)
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality held a public hearing Thursday night on a proposal to build a garbage transfer station in North Austin. The project is facing growing opposition from public officials, neighbors and environmental groups.
The Austin Community Landfill off U.S. Highway 290 is filling up fast. According to its owner, Waste Management, the landfill will be too full to store garbage in about five years, so it wants to build a way station to bring in garbage from local customers and haul it out to other landfills.
“The need to take out the trash is going to continue, and this transfer station will provide a viable solution for continued waste disposal,” the company said in a media statement on the project.
Residents who live nearby say that will worsen problems they’re already having with the landfill; for years, they have complained of foul smells, rodents and heavy traffic… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin OKs Eight-Month, $95,000 Contract To Hire Homelessness Consultant Matthew Doherty (KUT)
The Austin City Council is hiring Matthew Doherty, former head of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, to help find solutions to homelessness here. Members approved his contract on a 10-1 vote Thursday – but not without some trepidation, as Doherty's eight-month contract could cost the city $95,000.
Some council members were dubious of both the price tag and the job's short timeframe, citing the city's contract with Lori Pampilo Harris, who served a month in her role as homelessness czar before quitting. Her departure capped a years-long search to fill that position and left a gap in executive-level leadership as Austin became a target of criticism over its homelessness policies.
Council Member Jimmy Flannigan said he didn't feel "sufficiently educated" about the contract and that the city hadn't fully addressed the lessons learned from its hiring of Harris, who had a $155,000 salary. She was slated to transition into a consulting role similar to Doherty's, but ultimately didn't.
Flannigan said he thinks the city should better coordinate with the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, the regional agency that coordinates with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, to better allocate resources to combatting homelessness… (LINK TO STORY)
High-rise luxury hotel pitched for nearly half-acre downtown near SXSW Center (Austin Business Journal)
Jim Young may be considered a minor player when it comes to real estate development in booming Austin. But his ties to the community and ability to move quickly on a deal can sometimes put him ahead of the crowded field.
That’s certainly how he and business partner Vinyl Manohar, of Twin Crest Capital, were able to acquire on Jan. 6 a nearly half-acre tract at the corner of 14th and Lavaca streets in downtown Austin. The parcels at 301 and 303 W. 14th St. and 1304 and 1308 Lavaca St. are across 14th street from the wave-shaped SXSW Center.
The purchase price wasn’t disclosed.
Based on zoning and other limitations, the site could support a 210,000-square-foot building with a maximum height of 165 feet. Kirksey Architecture has designed a conceptual rendering, Young said, which can be found atop this article. Civil & Environmental Consultants Inc. is the civil engineer.
The best and highest use of the site is a hotel because of its proximity to the Texas State Capitol and the University of Texas at Austin, the property owners said. The site also doesn’t have enough space for the amount of parking that an apartment tower would require.
The area surrounding the Capitol is poised for massive growth and redevelopment as an offshoot of Austin’s innovation district — anchored by UT’s Dell Medical School, Dell Seton Medical Center, Waller Creek and its chain of parks as well as the Capitol Complex. The Capitol Complex is already undergoing its own transformation with the addition of office buildings and a pedestrian plaza.
With the scarcity of developable lots in downtown, developers — both large and small — are searching for parcels that can be redeveloped into towers.
“If people want to find sites in downtown Austin, I think it’s going to require them to have good relationships with local people because a lot of transactions happen off market,” said Young, principal of Sabot Development. “And, even if they don’t happen off market, people want to know there is surety of close.”
Austin is arguably the strongest hotel market in Texas… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Poll: majority of Texans want state to step up role in affordable housing (Austin American-Statesman)
A majority of Texans think state and local government should be more involved with providing affordable housing, according to a new poll released Thursday. The results of the Texas Lyceum Poll show the beliefs among the majority of Texans regarding government involvement in affordable housing run contrary to the general political will of conservative state lawmakers. In recent years, the Legislature has acted to prohibit cities from having access to many tools municipalities in other states commonly use to create affordable housing.
The poll found 68% favor greater state involvement in creating affordable housing and 74% believe cities should be doing more. Among people who identified as Republicans, 60% surveyed said city governments should do more to increase the amount of affordable housing in their communities. Forty-nine percent of Republicans said it’s the responsibility of the state leaders to do more. In 2005, state lawmakers passed a law banning “inclusionary zoning,” which would have allowed cities to set affordable housing requirements on new developments. In 2017, the Legislature prohibited so-called linkage fees, which apply fees to new construction that are used to creating affordable housing. State law also prevents some taxes from being spent on housing. “We have seen the state in many cases make it more difficult for cities to incentivize affordable housing,” said Josh Blank, Lyceum Poll research director. “We were expecting to see more Republicans against it.”… (LINK TO STORY)
New Texas election process has Democrats expecting a delay in Super Tuesday delegate totals (Texas Tribune)
As their counterparts in Iowa reel from a disastrously slow election returns process, Texas Democrats raised the prospect Wednesday that a change in the way Texas reports election results could delay the final tally of delegates won by presidential hopefuls in the upcoming March 3 primary past election night.
Officials with the Texas Democratic Party said the Texas secretary of state’s office recently told them that it will not be able to provide on election night the numbers needed to allocate a majority of the 228 delegates up for grabs in the state on Super Tuesday. In a Jan. 23 meeting, the Democrats said, top state election officials cited limitations to their revamped reporting system, which is used to compile returns from the state's 254 counties.
"They basically said that's not built out yet," said Glen Maxey, the special projects director for the Texas Democratic Party who attended the meeting with state officials… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
Buttigieg surges in poll ahead of New Hampshire primary (The Hill)
Democratic presidential hopeful and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg's support has surged in New Hampshire ahead of the state's primary, according to a new WBZ/Boston Globe/Suffolk University daily tracking poll released on Thursday night.
Buttigieg's support shot up four points to 23 percent in the state over the past 24 hours, according to the survey. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) still leads with 24 percent support, but the latest results put the two candidates closer in a virtual tie.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) came in with 13 percent support in the poll, and former Vice President Joe Biden garnered 11 percent support in the Granite State... (LINK TO STORY)
Instagram prototypes letting IGTV creators monetize with ads (Tech Crunch)
Instagram may finally let IGTV video makers earn money 18 months after launching the longer-form content hub. Instagram confirms to TechCrunch that it has internally prototyped an Instagram Partner Program that would let creators earn money by showing advertisements along with their videos. By giving creators a sustainable and hands-off way to generate earnings from IGTV, they might be inspired to bring more and higher quality content to the destination.
The program could potentially work similarly to Facebook Watch, where video producers earn a 55% cut of revenue from “Ad Breaks” inserted into the middle of their content. There’s no word on what the revenue split would be for IGTV, but since Facebook tends to run all its ads across all its apps via the same buying interfaces, it might stick with the 55% approach that lets its say creators get the majority of cash earned… (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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