BG Reads | News You Need to Know (June 18, 2021)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Council gives final OK on tank farm site rezoning (Austin Monitor)
City Council voted 10-0 last week to grant planned unit development zoning on the former site of the East Austin tank farm at 1011 and 1017 Springdale Road. Council Member Pio Renteria made the motion to approve rezoning for the site, which sits in his district. Council Member Mackenzie Kelly was off the virtual dais.
With Council’s action, developer Jay Paul Company now faces the challenge of turning the property, used for decades to store tanks filled with toxic chemicals, into an office complex, and at the same time provide $8 million worth of community benefits.
After the vote, the company praised Council’s action in a news release. COO Janette D’Elia said, “This site has had a challenging history – but it is a challenge we are ready to take on. We’re proud of all the work that everyone has put in to help move the Springdale Green vision forward, including the neighbors, city staff, the Environmental Commission, the Planning Commission, and especially, City Council. By approving this rezoning, Council has led the way on charting a new future for this site. I appreciate the vote of confidence, and look forward to bringing the Springdale Green vision to life.”
With its history of storing toxic chemicals, the site has been deemed unsuitable for residential or agricultural uses. But it is still an appropriate place for the planned office tower. Attorney Michael Whellan, who represents the developer, has explained that the 93-foot height will allow the company to reduce the site’s impervious cover from what would have been allowed under the previous zoning category, GR.
Whellan told Council, “at its core (the case) boils down to a single policy question: Whether to leverage an increase in height in return for better outcomes on environmental restoration, sustainability and housing and neighborhood benefits. Or in other words, whether to leverage the ability to do two additional stories – that’s a 15 percent increase in square footage, that’s all we’re asking for in order to obtain an $8 million value in benefits, every dollar of which is above and beyond what would be required under the current zoning GR.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Unhoused moved to "Bridge Shelter" as city HEALs its first encampment (Austin Chronicle)
Nearly all of those who have been living outside of the Terrazas Branch Library in East Austin have been moved into “bridge shelter,” in the first effort to relocate people and clear campsites as part of the Housing-Focused Homeless Encampment Assistance Link (HEAL) initiative approved by City Council in February. City officials confirmed for the Chronicle that 20 people were placed into rooms at the SouthBridge shelter, a former Rodeway Inn which had become a Protective Lodge for those experiencing homelessness and facing high health risks from COVID-19; it began operating as transitional housing this week. As a condition for staying in the shelter, residents must engage with case managers to try to secure longer-term housing, but the hope is that people will be allowed to move on at their own pace and increase their stability before entering a housing program.
In May, Council approved a $1.4 million contract with Family Eldercare and a $500,000 addendum to a $2 million contract with Integral Care to provide rapid rehousing (RRH) as a next stop for people who accept temporary shelter as part of HEAL. Both contracts would cover about 16 months of housing, which is typical; RRH programs are primarily for people who suddenly lose housing rather than those with long-term experience of homelessness. But this would still allow time for those sheltered under HEAL to access stabilizing services (such as health care) and potentially move into future permanent supportive housing (PSH) or other affordable housing options. The HEAL resolution Council adopted in February did not specify Terrazas as the first site, and indeed didn’t name any locations outright; it instead offered direction to staff filled with hints about encampments that have frustrated neighborhoods and their Council members. It referred to an East Austin location “on a sidewalk or public easement adjacent to or leading to a public library”; the area is represented by CM Pio Renteria, who lives a few blocks away. While Terrazas, along with other Austin Public Library branches, has been closed during the pandemic, the Downtown Austin Community Court has operated there since August 2020, having outgrown its original home on East Sixth Street… (LINK TO STORY)
Cement prices newest obstacle facing Austin homebuilders (Austin Business Journal)
In Austin, a city starving for new housing, homebuilders are feeling the strain of a global lumber shortage.
Now, cement prices are spiking, potentially pouring more cold water on Austin’s attempts to bulk up housing inventory.
In April, cement prices hit a record high, according to industrial research company The Freedonia Group. The material is critical for homebuilders, who literally use it as the foundation for their business. Analysts project demand for cement will continue rising by nearly 3% each year.
Matthew Hurley, an analyst from The Freedonia Group, said the cement shortage is the result of “a perfect storm of factors stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic.”
An increased demand for home construction and renovation, a dearth of workers, decreased production capacity and changes in trucking schedules have all combined to strain the cement market further, Hurley said.
Cement is king when it comes to foundation building, making it difficult for homebuilders to find workarounds. Alternatives have sprung up around the market — things like “hempcrete,” or hemp-based concrete, and other more environmentally friendly options — but none have gained enough ground to be an obvious viable alternative… (LINK TO STORY)
Downtown Austin's Indeed Tower being sold for $580 million (Austin American-Statesman)
A California firm is buying Indeed Tower, the newly completed 36-story office high-rise in downtown Austin that is the city's tallest office tower, for $580 million.
Kilroy Realty Corporation, a publicly traded real estate investment firm, announced the purchase. Local commercial real estate brokers said the sale shows Austin is a hot commodity for investors.
The acquisition "will bring immediate financial and strategic benefits to the company, including the opportunity to grow earnings and create value through additional lease-up, the creation of a platform for future growth in the region and the enhancement of the company’s already strong tenant credit profile," Kilroy said in a written statement.
The transaction is expected to close by the end of the third quarter, subject to certain closing conditions… (LINK TO STORY)
Project Connect Orange Line design reveals proposed locations for rail stations in North, South Austin (Community Impact)
As Project Connect progresses through the design phase, Austin residents will now have a clearer picture of station locations along one of the longest-planned light rail lines.
Leaders with Capital Metro and the Austin Transit Partnership—the government entity overseeing the $7.1 billion investment in transit—unveiled their plan during the ATP board meeting June 16 for the stations along the north and south sections of the Orange Line that would run along North Lamar Boulevard, Guadalupe Street and South Congress Avenue.
As part of the presentation on the line's 15% draft design package, Peter Mullan, ATP chief of architecture and urban design, and Deputy Program Officer John Rhone discussed 11 stops along the line’s north section, which consists of the Tech Ridge Park & Ride to the Drag.The section connecting the Tech Ridge and Parmer Lane stations is currently proposed to be elevated over I-35 if it eventually becomes rail. However, the stops from Rundberg Lane to Tech Ridge will be a part of future line extensions and will be MetroRapid bus stops in the interim.
The line will make its way down North Lamar from Tech Ridge to the Triangle station. It will then wind down Guadalupe all the way to the Drag… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin's big wave surf pool still closed 3 years after purchased by world's greatest surfer (Austonia)
Austin's surf park made a splash when it opened in 2016, astounding the city's land-locked surf-lovers with new artificial wave technology. Two years after a company led by the world's most famous surfer took over, an Austonia drone photo survey shows a desolate site where there once was a thriving attraction that brought surfers from both coasts, and beyond.
Surf pools drained and empty, wave generating equipment apparently dismantled, parking lots empty, surf shop and pub closed. Mud, weeds, and only the sound of prairie wind, where once big waves broke to the sounds of joy from excited surfers.
Formerly known as NLand Surf Park, the artificial wave pool sits east of the airport on U.S. Highway 71. Dreamed up by Coors beer heir Doug Coors, the park served fun from its opening until November 2018, when it closed its doors for the season and never reopened… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Critics denounce Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick’s “invasion” rhetoric on immigration, saying it will incite violence (Texas Tribune)
Democrats and immigration rights advocates are condemning Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick for describing immigrants crossing the border as an “invasion” this week, calling the rhetoric “dangerous” to Latino communities while pointing out that it mirrors language used by the accused El Paso shooter two years ago.
“We are being invaded,” Patrick said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon about Abbott’s border wall plans. “That term has been used in the past, but it has never been more true.”
Abbott said Wednesday that “homes are being invaded” as he announced the state would be spending an initial $250 million to construct a barrier at the state’s southern border with Mexico. He repeated the sentiment at a signing ceremony for several gun bills Thursday, saying property owners along the border are being “invaded.”
“State leaders disavowed this kind of language after that racially motivated massacre, but now that the bodies are cold, here we go again,” said state Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso. “The border isn’t a political football. There are no invaders here — only people.”
Neither Abbott’s nor Patrick’s office responded to requests for comment.
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, condemned Abbott’s and Patrick’s remarks in a tweet shortly after the Wednesday border press conference.
“If people die again, blood will be on your hands,” Escobar wrote… (LINK TO STORY)
Gov. Greg Abbott makes interim Public Utility Commission appointment (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday named Lori Cobos, a government and utilities lawyer, to an interim seat on the Public Utility Commission, the agency that oversees the state’s power grid, as well as its water, wastewater and telecommunications utilities.
Cobos has spent the last two years heading the Office of Public Utility Counsel, the state agency charged with representing residential and small commercial consumers in utility proceedings.
As the OPUC’s chief executive, she is also an ex-officio board member of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid operator. Cobos fills a term previously held by Chairman DeAnn Walker, who resigned in March in the aftermath of the February power outages… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas loses again as Supreme Court dismisses multi-state challenge to Obama health law (Dallas Morning News)
Rejecting a Texas-led lawsuit, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday preserved the Affordable Care Act for a third time, saving the health insurance coverage of tens of millions of Americans. In a 7-2 ruling, justices said Texas and 17 other Republican-led states and two individuals do not have legal standing to overturn Obamacare. The decision kept the entire law intact, reversing lower courts in New Orleans and Fort Worth, and thwarting a three-year effort by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton’s suit threatened the health coverage of more than 20 million Americans at a time when the coronavirus pandemic and economic upheaval forced more workers and families into the ranks of the uninsured. Spokesmen for Paxton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Texas, which leads the nation in both the number and share of its residents who lack health coverage, has refused to expand Medicaid to low-income adults of working age, despite Obamacare’s strong inducements. Other key elements of former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement protect people with pre-existing health conditions, offer a range of no-cost preventive services and allow children to stay on their parents’ plans until they turn 26. Also left in place is the law’s now-toothless requirement that people have health insurance or pay a penalty. In 2017, Congress reduced the penalty to zero. The move provided an opening for Paxton and other Republicans to claim that with repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, Chief Justice John Roberts’ 2012 opinion upholding the law’s constitutionality should no longer apply. Congress has power to tax people who lack health insurance, Roberts wrote. Paxton said elimination of the penalty erased the justifying tax, and with it, the requirement for individuals to buy health insurance. Without the individual mandate, all of the law’s other provisions should fall, too, he said. But as in 2012 and 2015, when the law also was upheld, the Supreme Court on Thursday frustrated Obamacare’s diehard opponents… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
What the push to celebrate Juneteenth conceals (The Atlantic)
The proliferation of Juneteenth events is taking place at the same time as the banning of critical race theory and curricula focused on slavery’s lasting effects. It is impossible to celebrate Juneteenth and simultaneously deny the teaching of America’s foundational legacy.
This disconnect exists because there is a pointed difference between history and memory. History is the study of the past. History consists of facts, events, people, and irrefutable occurrences. History is American slavery and the Civil War and emancipation. How Americans understand slavery, the Civil War, and emancipation, though, is colored by memory, which tends to honor only the most shallow aspects of history. Statues, flags, and songs are part of the tangible manifestations of memory, and what is worthy of remembering in this country is often highly contested. In my years of work as a historian, I have found that the public usually uses history and memory interchangeably, though they are not the same. History is immovable. Memory is malleable… (LINK TO STORY)
‘Pure insanity’: How Trump and his allies pressured the Justice Department to help overturn the election (Washington Post)
The Justice Department leaders were losing their patience. For weeks, President Donald Trump and his allies had been pressing them to use federal law enforcement’s muscle to back his unfounded claims of voter fraud and a stolen election. They wanted the Justice Department to explore false claims that Dominion Voting Systems machines had been manipulated to alter votes in one county in Michigan. They asked officials about the U.S. government filing a Supreme Court challenge to the results in six states that Joe Biden won. The president’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, even shared with acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen a link to a YouTube video that described an outlandish plot in which the election had been stolen from Trump through the use of military satellites controlled in Italy. “Pure insanity,” Rosen’s deputy Richard Donoghue wrote to him privately. In the last weeks of 2020 and the first of 2021, the demands from Trump and his allies pushed the department to the brink of crisis.
Though most scoffed at their increasingly far-fetched and desperate claims, one relatively high-ranking Justice Department lawyer seemed to entertain Trump’s requests — pushing internally to have the department assert that fraud in Georgia was cause for that state’s lawmakers to disregard its election results and appoint new electors. Trump contemplated installing him as attorney general, as other Justice Department leaders considered resigning en masse.
The new details laid out in hundreds of pages of emails and other documents released Tuesday by the House Oversight and Reform Committee show how far Trump and his allies were willing to go in their attempts to use the Justice Department to overturn Biden’s win — a campaign whose full contours are still coming into view five months after Trump left office. The endeavor involved the White House chief of staff and an outside attorney, who peppered department officials with requests that they said came on behalf of Trump himself to investigate baseless claims of election fraud. Their efforts intensified in the days before Congress was set to formally recognize the election results Jan. 6 — and culminated in an Oval Office showdown Jan. 3. This account is based on those documents as well as interviews with several people involved in or briefed on the events of late 2020 and early 2021. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a politically sensitive matter… (LINK TO STORY)
Why some states push back as the Biden Administration doles out relief money (NPR)
In the last few weeks, the Biden administration began distributing an unprecedented amount of money to states: $195 billion dollars from the American Rescue Plan that congressional Democrats passed in March.
With the sheer scale of dollars at stake, a huge fight has already begun brewing between some GOP-led states and the administration over exactly how to use that money, part of a larger trend of partisan warfare between state capitols and Washington over the past decade.
"These funds are important to ensure we have a strong, robust recovery ... but also that it's an equitable recovery," Gene Sperling, the Biden administration's point person for coordinating the rollout of COVID-19 relief money, told NPR… (LINK TO STORY)