BG Reads | News You Need to Know (April 12, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
BG Podcast EP. 137: Q1 2021 Review: Austin Transit Partnership with Sam Sargent, Director, Program Strategy
This BG Podcast Episode (137) features a Q1 2021 review with Sam Sargent, Director, Program Strategy, at the Austin Transit Partnership (ATP).
Formed following the passage of Project Connect in November 2020 (an historic $7.1 billion comprehensive overhaul of Austin's transit system) ATP was established as an independent organization to guide the Project Connect investment with transparency and accountability throughout the program.
You can listen to all episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. New content every Wednesday. Please like, link, comment and subscribe!
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
[THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE]
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (5,500)
LINK TO FILED SENATE BILLS (2,519)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Suit alleging Austin Energy charged illegal electric rates can continue, Texas Supreme Court rules (Austin American-Statesman)
Ruling against the city of Austin, the Texas Supreme Court said Friday that Data Foundry, a large retail electric customer, can continue its lawsuit accusing Austin Energy of charging illegal and unreasonable rates. The court rejected the city's arguments that Data Foundry, an internet service provider that operates data centers in Austin, lacked standing to file suit in search of lower rates. In a 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court said a trial judge erred when she tossed out Data Foundry's lawsuit in 2017 because the company did not allege a specific injury. On the contrary, the state's highest civil court said, the company has standing to sue based on its claim that Austin Energy is charging excessive fees.
"Data Foundry thus alleges an injury that is particularized to it — Data Foundry suffers financial harm because it must pay Austin Energy a particular sum of money that exceeds what Data Foundry contends it should have to pay," Justice Rebeca Huddle wrote for the court. The Supreme Court, however, did not rule on a central question in the case — whether the 1975 Public Utility Regulatory Act bars retail customers like Data Foundry from turning to the courts to challenge power rates charged by Austin Energy and other city-owned utilities. Austin argued that the Legislature did not create an appeals process for city residents — something lawmakers could easily have done because they gave nonresidents a path to protest rates before the Public Utility Commission. The Supreme Court, however, said the issue was not properly before the appeals courts. "Our decision does not preclude the City from raising this argument in the trial court on remand," Huddle wrote… (LINK TO STORY)
City to create disaster-relief hubs (Austin Monitor)
Spurred into action by Winter Storm Uri, City Council has moved to establish emergency hubs across the city where residents can go during a natural disaster to find food, water and shelter – belatedly acting on plans from two years ago.
The city, working with community groups, will pilot six of these “community resilience hubs” before eventually setting up one in every neighborhood. The hubs will be located at schools, libraries, rec centers and other gathering places, and will be able to maintain power and water during outages.
In a resolution, Council directed City Manager Spencer Cronk to develop plans, a timeline and a budget for the pilot hubs by June.
The city gave similar guidance in its 2019 Climate Emergency Declaration, but plans stalled due to the pandemic. The winter storm showed that the hubs are sorely needed.
“It’s something that we’ve been talking about for years,” Council Member Greg Casar said on Thursday, “and now I think more than ever, we can very clearly see why these resiliency hubs are so critical.”
Though several impromptu hubs were set up during the storm, the lack of planning left them disorganized and short on supplies. Some even succumbed to water and power outages.
“I worried about communicating to too many people that these hubs were available,” Casar added, “because we didn’t always know if we had enough people or supplies.”
Casar shared how his staff used their connections in city government to find port-a-potties for one warming center that lost water. “I appreciate them stepping up and doing that,” Casar said, “but it shouldn’t be City Council aides making sure that there are bathroom facilities at our resilience hubs.”
Council members apologized for the city’s lack of preparation. “We really dropped the ball,” Council Member Pio Renteria acknowledged.
“It is not okay that we are letting this type of policy direction go by without actual, tangible movement on it,” said Council Member Vanessa Fuentes – who was not on the dais in 2019. “Lives are at stake.”
Council Member Alison Alter told the city manager to explain to Council by May how the 2019 plans could have made a difference during Uri.
Once the hubs are established, they will serve communities not only during natural disasters but during non-emergencies. The city envisions the hubs as community spaces, similar to the roles schools, churches and libraries already play, Council Member Kathie Tovo explained. “This is really just enhancing what is already a wonderful asset that we have here.” Tovo also emphasized that planning for the hubs “has to be community driven.” … (LINK TO STORY)
3 towers move closer to reality amid Austin's push for density bonus changes (Austin Business Journal)
Three residential towers with a total of more than 1,000 units will rise soon downtown after garnering density bonuses from Austin City Council.
At its April 8 meeting, Council approved three density bonuses for planned developments in the Rainey Street area. Council postponed these tower requests from the prior meeting because of an ongoing discussion about potential tweaks to the Downtown Density Bonus Program, which could lead to more required community benefits from developers.
That discussion will continue at the next Council meeting on April 22, which is when Council Member Kathie Tovo's request to amend the program will be taken up. The current Downtown Density Bonus Program was created in 2014 and has not been updated with new formulas for calculating affordable housing requirements to reflect Austin's economy today. Density bonuses allow developers to exceed the typically allowed floor-to-area ratios, which translates into taller buildings for small downtown sites.
The discussion at Council by press time has been centered around updating the program to recalibrate formulas for fees-in-lieu and on-site affordable housing requirements for developers who wish to exceed the 15:1 floor-to-area, or FAR, cap of the Downtown Density Bonus Program. Affordability has been a growing concern in Austin as companies and people flock to the city and housing supply is low.
Tovo and Council Member Ann Kitchen were the only ones to vote against the three density bonuses.
“Rainey is one of those areas that isn’t encumbered by a capitol view corridor. It’s also one of the few neighborhoods in Austin where people can live comfortably without having to own a car,” Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison said at the April 8 meeting. “The more housing we can build here gives more people access to the benefits of living in a walkable complete community. It also means less housing that gets built on undeveloped green fields that are far from jobs and stores and other amenities that people need, which compounds our traffic problems.
“All three of these projects are able to include on-site affordability through the density bonus program. It’s rare that we see downtown projects with on-site affordable units and it’s clear to me that the additional FAR makes that possible for these projects.”
Urbanspace Real Estate + Interiors has been cleared to develop a 51-story condominium tower at 90 and 92 Rainey St. with a floor-to-area ratio of 32:1.
Urbanspace founder and CEO Kevin Burns, one of Austin's top Realtors, said the project will include 400 units, 20 of which will be available for those making 80% of median family income. The 2019 median family income for the Austin area was about $95,000, according to the Texas Real Estate Research Center.
The development team is also contributing nearly $1.3 million to the city's affordable housing fund… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Texas lawmakers want state to find a way to halt evictions until backlogged rental relief is sent (Dallas Morning News)
The Texas legislature wants the state agency handling federal rent relief distribution to find a way to halt eviction proceedings while it works through a backlog of requested relief payments. The Texas House Committee on Urban Affairs delivered that message to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs at a hearing this week. It followed a scathing report that detailed how the agency had disbursed less than 1% of its $1.3 billion in the first 45 days of the program. The agency has contended that the state established its program faster than most others due to its understanding of the urgent need for relief. Bobby Wilkinson, the state agency’s executive director, told the committee that he expects the number of relief payments being sent to landlords and tenants to increase exponentially in the coming weeks.
“We have a huge pipeline building,” Wilkinson said. The agency declined to provide a timeline or goal for those disbursements, arguing that it needed at least the next couple of weeks to onboard the additional vendors that it brought onto the relief program. The consulting firm it originally hired with a $42.6 million contract has struggled to launch the online application system. The state agency also said it is negotiating with the contractor, Horne LLP, to potentially decrease the total amount it will pay under the contract, given a failure to deliver adequate software and other struggles with the program’s rollout. Lawmakers on the committee pointed out that eviction bans have been effectively lifted before the program could distribute any significant amount of aid. It asked the agency to work with Gov. Greg Abbott to halt evictions statewide until more aid can be sent. The agency agreed to look into it, but it isn’t known if Abbott would issue such an order or whether the Texas Supreme Court would reverse its decision to let the eviction ban expire last week. Texas Tenants Union director Sandy Rollins said lawmakers could pass a bill on an emergency basis to address the issue. Rollins called the state supreme court decision to let the eviction ban lapse “disgusting.”… (LINK TO STORY)
'No one is ever here': Downtown Houston faces uncertain future with pandemic's end in sight (Houston Chronicle)
Diana Garcia spends most of her day alone in the gift shop she manages, one of the few stores with lights on in her corner of the tunnel underneath Louisiana Street. The three neighboring restaurants that once brought hundreds of people past Glamour’s Gifts — and many of them inside — remain dark, more than a year after the coronavirus pandemic emptied downtown office towers of workers. “No one is ever here,” Garcia said. Few areas of the local economy were hit as hard by the pandemic as downtown and few face as much uncertainty as the service sector — shops, restaurants, dry cleaners, hair salons — that depends on people coming to work in the city’s center. Even as the pandemic’s end appears in sight and companies begin to bring workers back to the office, it remains unclear how fast employees might return downtown and whether they will come back in the same numbers.
Already, some companies are planning to continue the remote working arrangements forced by coronavirus and embraced by both employers and employees. The financial services company JP Morgan Chase, which has some 2,300 employees in two buildings downtown, recently said it will keep some positions remote and reduce the number of people in its U.S. offices, reconfiguring them to reduce the space it uses by up to 40 percent. The chemical company LyondellBasell, which has about 2,300 employees in its downtown office, said it will consider flexible, remote alternatives to in-person work. The pipeline company Kinder Morgan, which has about 20 percent of its 2,100 working in its headquarters on Louisiana Street, said it has not determined when and how it will bring back other workers. A recent survey by Central Houston, an organization that focuses on the redevelopment and revitalization of downtown, found that 75 percent of downtown employers expect at least 10 percent of their workforce will transition to a mix of in-person and remote work. Only about 18 percent of employees are working from the office downtown, according to Central Houston’s survey. About half the companies said they expect to bring 50 percent of their workers back to the office by June and 70 percent said they expect to have half their workforce in the office by September… (LINK TO STORY)
This North Texas city projects a population jump from 30,000 to 160,000 in 10 years (WFAA)
The Collin County city of Celina is booming, both in terms of rooftops and residents. Residential building permits were up 50% last year and they’re pacing to jump even more this year as the city tries to surpass the much larger city of Frisco in single-family home growth. Celina’s population of about 30,000 has tripled in the past four years and is expected to hit about 160,000 people by the end of the decade.
Meanwhile, Corson Cramer Development, a new Dallas-based residential land development firm, has purchased 220 acres for a new community named North Sky Celina west of Preston Road off Louisiana Drive. As planned, the community will have 783 residential homesites. The homes are expected to range in price from the low $200,000s to the $400,000s. Celina has created a 30-year plan for how they want the city to grow and a vision that allows developers to deliver high-quality communities more quickly than in other North Texas cities, City Manager Jason Laumer said. “We have a lot of people moving into the Metroplex from out of state,” Laumer said. “Someone told me the other day they were driving down Preston and saw an Arizona license plate and a California license plate an Illinois license plate.”… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
CEOs plan new push on voting legislation (The Wall Street Journal)
Dozens of chief executives and other senior leaders gathered on Zoom this weekend to plot what several said big businesses should do next about new voting laws under way in Texas and other states. Kenneth Chenault, the former chief executive of American Express Co. , and Kenneth Frazier, CEO of Merck & Co., urged the leaders to collectively call for greater voting access, according to several people who attended. Messrs. Chenault and Frazier warned businesses against dropping the issue and asked CEOs to sign a statement opposing what they view as discriminatory legislation on voting, the people said. The new statement could come early this week, the people said, and would build on one that 72 Black executives signed last month in the wake of changes to Georgia’s voting laws. Mr. Chenault told executives on the call that several leaders had signaled they would sign on, including executives at PepsiCo Inc., PayPal Holdings Inc., T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Hess Corp. , among others, according to the people.
PayPal confirmed it has signed the statement. PepsiCo, T. Rowe Price and Hess didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. As more companies and their leaders have spoken out on the issue in recent weeks, their stands have drawn the ire of Republican state and federal legislators who say companies are miscasting the matter and shouldn’t act as shadow lawmakers. Meanwhile, activists and others have said that the actions leaders are taking aren’t strong enough. Many CEOs now feel a duty, or pressure, to make their views explicitly known to employees and others, executive advisers said. Plenty of companies remain wary of wading into politically charged areas. One executive from a Fortune 100 consumer-products company said board members, employees and vendors are pressing leaders to speak out, but doing so could put a bull’s-eye on the company. “It’s really a no-win situation from a corporate standpoint,” the executive said. Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, who also owns the Atlanta United soccer team and PGA Tour Superstore, said on the call he believes a large share of fans of the National Football League, Major League Soccer and Professional Golfers’ Association want the groups to make their positions known on voting rights, people on the call said. Mr. Blank, a co-founder of Home Depot Inc., also said some fans are expecting the NFL to say more now compared with five years ago when NFL player Colin Kaepernick first spoke out on racial justice, the people said… (LINK TO STORY)
Trump lashes his enemies anew as G.O.P. dances around his presence (New York Times)
The first spring donor retreat after a defeat for a political party is typically a moment of reflection and renewal as officials chart a new direction forward. But with former President Donald J. Trump determined to keep his grip on the Republican Party and the party’s base as adhered to him as ever, the coming together of the Republican National Committee’s top donors in South Florida this weekend is less a moment of reset and more a reminder of the continuing tensions and schisms roiling the G.O.P. The same former president who last month sent the R.N.C. a cease-and-desist letter demanding they stop using his likeness to raise money on Saturday evening served as the party’s fund-raising headliner. “A tremendous complication” was how Fred Zeidman, a veteran Republican fund-raiser in Texas, described Mr. Trump’s lingering presence on the political scene.
The delicate dance between Mr. Trump and the party — after losing the House, the Senate and the White House on his watch — was evident in some actual shuttle bus diplomacy on Saturday, as the party’s top donors attended a series of receptions and panels at the Four Seasons Resort before traveling to Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s private club, to hear Mr. Trump speak. The former president’s insistence on leading the party “affects every member,” Mr. Zeidman said, as lawmakers and would-be elected officials jockey for a Trump endorsement that was as powerful in a Republican primary as it could be problematic in a general election. As donors and G.O.P. leaders looked on Saturday night, Mr. Trump quickly cast aside his prepared remarks and returned to his false claims that the election was stolen from him. He referenced “Zuckerberg” and $500 million spent on a “lockbox” from which, he said, every vote was marked, according to remarks described by an attendee. “Biden. Saintly Joe Biden,” he said. Mr. Trump praised loyalists like Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff, while lashing his enemies — among them Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker; former President Barack Obama, whom he called “Barack Hussein Obama”; Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser; and Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, whom he berated anew for not helping overturn Mr. Biden’s win in the state… (LINK TO STORY)