BG Reads | News You Need to Know (June 1, 2021)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
Work Session of the Austin City Council, Today @9AM (AGENDA)
Regular Meeting of the Austin City Council, 6/3/2021 @10AM (AGENDA)
[THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE]
The 87th Texas Legislature has adjourned - SINE DIE.
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (7,053)
LINK TO FILED SENATE BILLS (2,913)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Austin ranks among US cities where housing affordability is falling fastest (KXAN)
When it comes to housing, there are plenty of cities more expensive than Austin — but there are few that have seen affordability decline as rapidly recently. Losing bang for the buck is now the American norm. After two years of steady affordability growth in the U.S. housing market, March brought a nationwide decline in affordability, according to a report by First American Financial Corp. (NYSE: FAF). The Austin metro area showed the fifth-biggest drop in housing affordability among 50 major markets.
The study used the real house price index, or RHPI, which measures changes in housing price, income levels and interest rates to determine actual homebuying power. The higher the RHPI, the less affordable the market. Kansas City, Missouri, topped the list with a 16.2% year-over-year increase in RHPI, followed by Phoenix; Tampa, Florida; Seattle; and Austin, which had a 12.1% increase. Recently, Austin City Council voted to increase the fees commercial developers will have to pay to build high-priced condos in high rises that exceed height/density limits — and those dollars will go into the City of Austin’s Affordable Housing Fund. Alternatively, developers can elect to provide affordable housing on their property instead of paying the fees. The City of Austin says it’s received about $1 million in fees for affordable housing since the program’s start in 2014… (LINK TO STORY)
As Austin's Black community shrinks, moves to suburbs, community leaders push for change (Austin American-Statesman)
More Austin families have started to move to neighboring Central Texas cities over the past decade, and local leaders attribute that to a combination of factors, including the rising cost of living in Austin, the tightening housing market, the desire for more space, and the importance of good schools and welcoming communities.
The trend is particularly apparent in communities of color — primarily Black and Hispanic communities — which have seen sluggish growth in Austin over the past decade. But even through families have continued to move out of the city, many return each week to embrace and celebrate their East Austin roots.
Since 2010, Austin’s total population has grown about 19%, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
In the 1960 census, the percentages of Austin's population that were Black and Hispanic were about equal. Over time the percentage of African Americans has declined to less than 10% of Austin's total population, and for the first time in 60 years it has fallen below the percentage of Asians, according to demographic data from the city.
Today, of the 950,807 people in Austin, census data show the Black population to be 70,618, growing about 14% since 2010, while the Asian population, which has grown by about 53%, is 71,576.
“If African Americans are migrating away from Austin, the question is why do people not plant their lives here?” said Colette Pierce Burnette, president and CEO of Huston-Tillotson University. “People want to plant their lives where we want to grow and have good experiences, where our children can have a good education, good jobs, arts and music they are attracted to, and be close to restaurants with foods we like.”
Nelson Linder, president of Austin’s NAACP chapter, said that seeing Austin’s already small, and once thriving, Black population continue to decline is a concern.To reverse the trend, he said, the city needs to invest in affordable housing, make sure jobs pay high enough wages for people of color, and put money back into the community and programs that foster Black culture.
“We need to put the money where it belongs,” Linder said, “so that we have a city where everyone can live here and have the same life experiences. We will just have to keep fighting for it.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Rocket maker Firefly to add hundreds of jobs in Cedar Park (Austin Business Journal)
Firefly Aerospace Inc. secured a $4.3 million economic development agreement with the city of Cedar Park as the rocket maker embarks on an expansion that will create at least 682 jobs with an average salary of $90,000.
Firefly must purchase a 40,000-square-foot facility in the master-planned Scottsdale Crossing Technology Center business park by Oct. 31, and create the full-time jobs by Nov. 30, 2030, as part of the agreement.
The city will provide the company with a number of incentives in return, including employee relocation incentives, building incentives and membership to the city's chamber of commerce. It passed unanimously during the May 27 council meeting.
Firefly, founded in 2014 in Cedar Park, currently employs 165 people, according to council documents. Firefly is developing its first rocket, which it hopes to launch into space later this year. It has also developed a lunar lander and received a $93.3 million contract from NASA to deliver payload to the moon in 2023. The company announced last week that it awarded a contract to SpaceX to launch its Blue Ghost lunar lander in 2023… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin real estate market leads the nation in new homes for sale (CultureMap Austin)
In a new report by Homes.com, Austin ranks No. 4 in the U.S. for the newest homes for sale, with 34.6 percent of listings being built in 2000 or later.
Ahead of Austin, the top locations for the newest homes being sold are: (1) New Orleans, 40.8 percent; (2) Raleigh, North Carolina, 38.4 percent; and (3) Nashville, Tennessee, 35.4 percent.
Elsewhere in Texas, Houston appears at No. 8 (29.3 percent), and Dallas appears at No. 17 (23.5 percent).
It’s no wonder that these Texas markets stand so tall on the newer-home ladder. According to the National Association of Home Builders, the Austin area ranked No. 5 for most permits issued last year for new-home construction (21,653). Houston had more than anywhere else in the U.S. (48,208), and Dallas-Fort Worth ranked second (43,884).
Whether new or old, the inventory of homes for sale in the Austin area is shallow, with the Austin Board of Realtors reporting that in April, homes were on the market a mere seven days… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Bill penalizing Texas cities that cut funding for police heads to governor’s desk (Austin Monitor)
Texas lawmakers on Friday gave final approval to a bill that would financially punish large cities that cut their police budgets, including prohibiting them from raising new property tax revenue. The legislation now heads to Gov. Greg Abbott, who has said he would sign such a bill. If so, the law would go into effect Sept. 1.
“My hope is that we never have to use this bill,” Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston), one of the measure’s sponsors, said in response to questions before the Senate vote Monday. “My hope is that all the cities protect their police; don’t defund the police.”
Lawmakers took their final vote on House Bill 1900 nearly a year to the date after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd and people across the country, including in Austin, began protesting racial injustice. Following the outcry, Austin City Council members voted to cut millions from the police budget.
HB 1900 applies to cities with a population of more than 250,000; lawmakers say that includes 11 Texas municipalities, including Austin, Dallas and Houston.
Under the bill, if a city funds its police department at a level lower than it has for the past two fiscal years it loses its right to raise property taxes more than it did the year before. (Cities will be allowed to ask the governor’s office for permission to reduce their police budgets.)
The bill also outlaws a “defunding municipality” from raising public utility rates or annexing new land, and requires that a city reducing its police budget let residents of neighborhoods annexed in the past 30 years vote to de-annex themselves.
If HB 1900 becomes law, the state will hold back sales tax revenue for cities that cut their police budgets and reappropriate some of that money to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
“The bill is designed to tell municipalities, do not defund the police, and if they do, there are some serious consequences,” Huffman said during debate on the bill.
Gov. Abbott started calling for lawmakers to pass a bill like HB 1900 last summer, the same day Austin cut its police budget.
“Some cities are more focused on political agendas than public safety,” he said in an emailed statement. “Public safety is job one, and Austin has abandoned that duty. The legislature will take this issue up next session, but in the meantime, the Texas Department of Public Safety will stand in the gap to protect our capital city.”
All totaled, Austin City Council reduced the budget by roughly $142 million. Half of that money isn’t going toward anything new; it’s being spent on divisions that were moved out from under police control, like the city’s Forensic Sciences Department.
Council members moved roughly $20 million of the police budget to the city’s pandemic response and housing for those living on the streets, and put another $45 million into a transitionary fund, which Council said it would decide how to spend later. (Since that time, nearly half of that money has gone back to the police department.)… (LINK TO STORY)
With feelings raw over voting bill's demise, Texas Legislature wraps up — for now (Texas Tribune)
The Texas Legislature closed out its regular 140-day session Monday with sniping among the state’s top political leaders and lawmakers already well aware they will be back this calendar year for an overtime round.
“We will be back — when, I don’t know, but we will be back,” House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, told members from the speaker’s dais. “There’s a lot of work to be done, but I look forward to doing it with every single one of you.”
Talk of a special session — and questions about how soon one may happen or what additional issues Gov. Greg Abbott could task legislators with — has largely defined the last weekend of the Legislature’s 140-day stretch after lawmakers left unfinished a number of GOP priorities and tensions between the two chambers escalated.
That drama reached new highs Sunday night when House Democrats staged a walkout and broke quorum, making it impossible to give final approval to Senate Bill 7, a massive GOP priority voting bill that would tighten the state’s election laws, before the midnight deadline.
Abbott quickly made clear that the bill, along with another other priority legislation that would have made it harder for people arrested to bond out of jail without cash, “STILL must pass” — and said that the two issues “will be added to the special session agenda.”
The governor, who is the only official who holds the power to convene a special session, has not yet specified whether he plans to order one ahead of an overtime round already planned for the fall to handle the redrawing of the state’s political maps. An Abbott spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment earlier Monday… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas lawmakers pass power grid reform bill, as experts warn it falls short (Houston Chronicle)
Texas lawmakers on Sunday passed a final proposal to shore up the state’s power grid in response to this year’s deadly outage crisis, agreeing on a raft of reforms that experts welcomed but also fear won’t go far enough. The legislation, Senate Bill 3, would require power plants and some natural gas suppliers to prepare their operations for extreme cold, a step that state regulators and many companies have avoided for decades despite repeated blackouts and promises that market incentives would ensure reliability. It would also create a statewide emergency alert system, force industry participants to communicate more often and mandate that key gas facilities be registered as critical so their power isn’t unintentionally shut off during shortages. Hundreds of gas facilities reportedly lost power during the winter storm, pinching off fuel supplies to power plants.
“This bill offers significant reforms that will strengthen communication, coordination, oversight, and the reliability and resiliency of the ERCOT grid,” said Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown. “These reforms are necessary to ensure the problems faced during the Valentine’s Day winter storm never occur again.” The measure passed unanimously in the House and with just one opponent in the Senate. The proposals address several longstanding weaknesses, though still amount to a gamble in the wake of one of the state’s deadliest natural disasters, leaving its already isolated power grid vulnerable to similar disruptions for the coming winter, before key weatherization requirements would take effect. Energy experts have warned that without quick structural improvements to power plants, gas wells and the supply chain that connects them, millions of Texas homes could again be without power in dangerously frigid conditions. February’s storm knocked out power to an estimated 4.5 million homes and killed at least 200 people — and likely many more… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Republicans fear Trump will lead to a ‘lost generation’ of talent (Politico)
As Donald Trump ponders another presidential bid, top Republicans have grown fearful about what they’re calling the party’s “lost generation.”
In conversations with more than 20 lawmakers, ex-lawmakers, top advisers and aides, a common concern has emerged — that a host of national and statewide Republicans are either leaving office or may not choose to pursue it for fear that they can’t survive politically in the current GOP. The worry, these Republicans say, is that the party is embracing personality over policy, and that it is short sighted to align with Trump, who lost the general election and continues to alienate a large swath of the voting public with his grievances and false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
Trump has driven sitting GOP lawmakers and political aspirants into early retirements ever since he burst onto the scene. But there was hope that things would change after his election loss. Instead, his influence on the GOP appears to be as solid as ever and the impact of those early shockwaves remain visible. When asked, for instance, if he feared the 45th president was causing a talent drain from the GOP ranks, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — perhaps inadvertently — offered a personal demonstration of the case.
“Thank you for checking in,” he replied. “I am out of politics and life is good.”
For Trump and his allies, this is a positive development. Establishment Republican politicians, in their estimation, were out of touch with the popular sentiment of Republican voters. And the degree to which Trump helped with that reorientation has been a good thing: realigning the party with working-class voters and encouraging a new cohort of non-traditional politicians to run for office. Many in the party point to lawmakers like Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., Sen. Josh Hawley, (R-Mo.), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Rep. Elise Stefanik, (R-N.Y.) as a new era of GOP leaders… (LINK TO STORY)
Battle brews over banning natural gas to homes (Wall Street Journal)
A growing fight is unfolding across America as cities concerned about climate change consider phasing out natural gas for home cooking and heating. Major cities including San Francisco, Seattle, Denver and New York have either enacted or proposed measures to ban or discourage the use of the fossil fuel in new homes and buildings, two years after Berkeley, Calif., passed the first such prohibition in the U.S. in 2019. The bans in turn have led Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kansas and Louisiana to enact laws outlawing such municipal prohibitions in their states before they can spread. Ohio is considering a similar measure. The outcome of the battle has the potential to reshape the future of the utility industry, and demand for natural gas, which the U.S. produces more of than any other country. Proponents of phasing out natural gas say their aim is to reduce planet-warming emissions over time by fully electrifying new homes and buildings as wind and solar farms proliferate throughout the country, making the power grid cleaner.
Homes and businesses account for about 13% of the nation’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, mostly because natural gas is used in cooking, heating, and washers and dryers. Climate activists say reducing that percentage is critical for states with goals to slash carbon emissions in the coming decades. Opponents in the gas industry counter by citing the higher costs of making many homes fully electric, and pointing to the added security of having a second home energy source to heat and cook with during extreme weather events. They also highlight the preference many home and professional chefs have for using gas-fired stoves. New all-electric homes are cost-competitive with those that use gas in many parts of the country, but retrofits can be considerably more expensive, depending on the existing heating and cooking systems and the cost of effectively converting them. A recent study by San Francisco found that retrofitting all housing units that now use natural gas would cost between $3.4 billion and $5.9 billion, costs that would fall on residents, the city or both. Induction ranges, which use magnets to heat pots and pans directly, can be more expensive to buy than gas ranges, especially in professional kitchens. Restaurant associations across the nation have raised concerns about going electric… (LINK TO STORY)