BG Reads | News You Need to Know (May 21, 2021) )
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
[THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE]
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (6,404)
LINK TO FILED SENATE BILLS (2,821)
Council adopts new interim fees for Downtown Density Bonus program (Austin Monitor)
Developers of some downtown towers will have to pay more toward affordable housing after City Council voted 10-0-2 on Thursday to increase the Downtown Density Bonus program’s in-lieu fees.
The program offers developers more height and density in exchange for on-site affordable housing and/or fees-in-lieu toward housing vouchers and permanent supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness. The projects also must adhere to green building standards and urban design guidelines.
The program is one of several density bonus schemes the city uses to capture community benefits that developers might not otherwise provide. Well-calibrated fees, which benefit both developers and the city, are crucial to the success of such programs. Set the fees too high and developers won’t participate. Set the fees too low and the city could miss out on community benefits.
Because the new fees were calculated in 2019 as part of the failed Land Development Code rewrite, they are not perfectly calibrated. But they are only temporary. By August, city staffers will provide up-to-date fees for Council to adopt, adding them to the city’s fee schedule. The old fees were set in 2013.
Council Member Kathie Tovo pushed to adopt the 2019 fees as soon as possible. In April, she said that with the 2013 fees still in place, “We are really leaving money on the table.”
Others weren’t in such a rush. Mayor Pro Tem Natasha Harper-Madison and Council Member Paige Ellis preferred to adopt fees tuned to current conditions. Both abstained from Thursday’s vote on those grounds.
“I look forward to staff bringing us the recalibrated fees for our existing code in August,” Harper-Madison said. “However, I do still have serious concerns about implementing fees that were calibrated for a different code in different market conditions.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin City Limits music festival announces lineup; tickets for both weekends sold out in record time (KXAN)
Tickets for both weekends of this year’s Austin City Limits music festival sold out Thursday in less than three hours, which organizers said happened in record time.
A little after 3 p.m., organizers announced fans bought up all the three-day tickets for ACL’s opening weekend, Oct. 1-3, and the following one, Oct. 8-10. Tickets went on sale at noon.
However, hope is not lost for people to still attend the outdoor event. ACL Festival stated in its latest tweet that limited one-day tickets will go on sale at noon on May 25.
Organizers will also announce that morning the lineup of performers by day.
“After an incredibly challenging year for the Austin community, artists, crews and the music industry in general, today’s sell out is a resounding message that fans are ready to gather safely and to see live music again. We are really excited to see this lineup in person and to reunite in Zilker Park this October,” Amy Corbin, a promoter for C3 Presents, said in a statement Thursday afternoon.
This year’s lineup for the festival’s 20th anniversary was announced at 10 a.m. Thursday.
Headlining the shows in October are George Strait, Billie Eilish, Stevie Nicks, Miley Cirus, Rufus Du Sol, Dababy and Erykah Badu.
Organizers said more than 20 of the artists are from Texas, including Strait, Badu, Megan Thee Stallion, Black Pumas, St. Vincent (Weekend One), Marc Rebillet, Surfaces, Dayglow, Missio, Charley Crockett, Heartless Bastards (Weekend Two), Asleep at the Wheel (Weekend One), Nané, Riders Against the Storm (Weekend Two), Mike Melinoe (Weekend Two), Deezie Brown (Weekend One).
Austin City Limits tickets include three-day admission to the concerts in Austin’s Zilker Park. Interest will likely be high as the state and the nation reopen thanks to dropping infection rates and increased vaccinations.
In-person events for this year’s festival — along with several others in Austin and nationwide — were cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. ACL Fest first made the announcement to cancel its traditional events in July, saying: “We would have loved to put on another memorable show this year, however, with the uncertainty surrounding the current situation in Texas, this decision is the only responsible solution.”
The festival’s cancellation, according to a 2019 study, presented a blow to Austin’s economy, as the event brought almost $1.5 billion to the area that year. The cancellation also came months after Austin’s other iconic music festival, South By Southwest, made the decision to cancel for the first time in its 34-year history.
While ACL held its entirely online 2020 festival via a YouTube lineup of past performances, this year’s events will showcase a return to form.
The 2021 events will coincide with the 20th anniversary of the festival… (LINK TO STORY)
Senate passes statewide camping ban, bars Austin from using parks for shelter (Austin American-Statesman)
The Texas Senate approved legislation Thursday that would create a statewide camping ban after adding a change, directed at the city of Austin, to prohibit the use of public parks to provide temporary shelter for those experiencing homelessness.
The 28-3 vote returned House Bill 1925 to the House to consider that change and one other that struck a reference to arresting campers in an effort to reduce the criminal penalties faced by those without a home.
HB 1925, however, would still make it a crime to camp in a public area — a Class C misdemeanor that carries a maximum $500 fine with no jail time.
The bill also requires police to advise campers where they can legally stay and encourages cities and counties to direct campers toward diversion programs that can keep them out of the criminal justice system — provisions that can soften the bill's impact, said Sen. Dawn Buckingham, R-Lakeway.
"I hope you will join me in taking this important first step in ending this homelessness crisis," Buckingham told senators.
HB 1925 would apply to those who erect a tent or temporary structure in a public area and take other steps that show an intention to remain, such as digging holes, using fires to cook and stacking belongings for extended periods.
"If somebody is just lying on a bench, or if they fell asleep on a sidewalk, and they are covered up with a blanket, does that violate this?" asked Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston.
"That does not," Buckingham replied. "You have to have a shelter and you have to have those other signs of planning on living there for a while."
Buckingham also amended HB 1925 to ban the use of public parks for temporary campsites, saying she was motivated by a proposal that was presented Tuesday to the Austin City Council that listed 18 parks among 45 possible locations for city-sanctioned encampments to shelter Austin's homeless population.
Setting up a fence in a park and allowing one to set up their tent is not the humane answer solving homelessness," she said. "That still leaves these folks vulnerable and is another way the city of Austin is trying to ignore will of voters and this bill."
The city proposal on temporary campsites was part of a still-developing response after 57.7% of voters supported reinstating a public camping ban in the May 1 election.
Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, voted against the bill, saying it does not address access to housing, health care and meaningful work that would go much further in addressing an issue of statewide importance.
"I will not defend the city of Austin for lifting a camping ban (in 2019) without a plan, because it didn't help these poor people find their way to a home, but I also cannot support a statewide camping ban that does very little to help these poor people find their way to a home," Eckhardt said.
And while the bill would provide $12.4 million a year in state grants to help cities provide shelter, Eckhardt called the money a drop in the bucket that pales in comparison with what cities and counties are spending to meet the needs of those without a home.
"But I'll take it," Eckhardt added, noting that the state spends very little on affordable housing and similar issues.
Other provisions of HB 1925 would require cities and counties to gain approval from the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs before creating camping sites. The bill also bans cities and counties from adopting or enforcing policies that allow public camping, and it authorizes the state to take legal action against local governments that do not comply.
The bill also would require cities and counties that set aside camping areas to provide a range of services such as health care, mental health care, public transportation and law enforcement.
The Texas House, where HB 1925 was approved largely along party lines on May 6, can agree to the changes made Thursday and send the bill to Gov. Greg Abbott, or it can create a conference committee to work out the differences between the House and Senate versions… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Allocating $16 billion in coronavirus relief funds will be part of special legislative session in the fall, Gov. Greg Abbott says (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott told lawmakers Thursday evening that he would place the allocation of nearly $16 billion in federal funds for COVID-19 recovery on their plate during a special session in the fall.
Abbott already planned to call a special session later in the year for the Legislature to do its decennial redrawing of Texas political maps, which was delayed because of the Trump administration's handling of the census. But the allocation of the federal COVID-19 relief funds adds another item to their to-do list and allows the Legislature to participate in the administration of those funds.
House members were notified of the plan in an email Thursday evening. In a statement to The Texas Tribune, Abbott congratulated lawmakers for crafting a “conservative and balanced budget that will secure a more prosperous future for Texas” that keeps “government spending under control.”
“As everybody knows, I will be calling a special session for redistricting in the fall, and have committed to Lt. Governor [Dan] Patrick, Speaker [Dade] Phelan, Chairs [Jane] Nelson and [Greg] Bonnen, and Vice Chairs [Eddie] Lucio and [Mary] Gonzalez that I will place the allocation of the nearly $16 billion in Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Relief federal funds on the same special call so the entire legislature can participate in the allocation process in a way that best serves all Texans,” the statement said.
Lawmakers from both the left and the right had criticized Abbott’s hold over federal coronavirus relief funds while the Legislature was not in session.
In their version of the $250 billion budget, House lawmakers had added a key provision to rein in the governor's spending power and ensure that the Legislature would participate in decisions over how to spend federal relief money. An amendment by Rep. Geanie Morrison, R-Victoria, which would have barred spending any federal relief funds without the approval of the Legislature, was approved 147-0.
But in a conference committee to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions of the budget, that amendment had was stripped, leading to grumblings from House lawmakers about forcing a potential special session. The only bill the Legislature is legally obligated to pass every two years is the budget.
“The Morrison amendment, voted unanimously out of the house, allowing the entire legislature to decide how federal stimulus money would be used through out the state was stripped in the budget reconciliation with the Senate," Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, wrote on Twitter. "The disrespect shown will put us in a special session."
By announcing that legislators will have some power over nearly $16 billion in federal relief funds in the fall, Abbott could stave off criticism that he is consolidating spending power in his office, in contradiction to the state constitution's mandate that the legislative branch control the state's purse.
But outside of that chunk of federal money, Abbott will still have the power to spend billions of dollars in unspent federal aid between now and a special session in the fall… (LINK TO STORY)
1 in 3 Texans are now fully vaccinated against COVID (Houston Chronicle)
Eight days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officially approved the use of Pfizer’s vaccine for children between the ages of 12 and 15, Texas has hit two major vaccination milestones: one-third of all Texans have now been fully vaccinated and 50 percent of all Texans 12 and older have had at least one dose of the vaccine, according to a Houston Chronicle data analysis. This milestone coincides with a more sobering threshold, as the state recorded its 50,000th COVID-related death Thursday, the third-highest mark in the country. On Sunday, Texas reported zero COVID-related deaths for the first time since March 2020, as the average number of daily deaths has fallen to about 40.
Following last week’s addition of children between the ages of 12 and 15 to the pool of Texans eligible to receive a vaccine, the rate of vaccinations has picked up after trending downward for weeks. Currently, the state reports that an average of 146,000 doses are administered per day. And adolescents are a big chunk of that: the 12- to 15-year-old group has received more than 12 percent of all doses administered since they were made eligible. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo reported that on May 13, 35 percent of the first vaccine doses administered at NRG Park went to that age range. Still, Texas lags behind much of the country with its vaccination efforts, ranking 37th out of all 50 states in terms of the percent of the total population vaccinated, according to data from the CDC. Even with the lower vaccination rate, and the state far from herd immunity, the COVID situation has improved in the state. Across Texas, the rate of hospitalizations and infections have both leveled off in recent weeks. Currently, the seven-day average of newly reported cases across the state is hovering slightly above 2,000 — the lowest it's been since June 2020. Additionally, the positive test rate is below 4 percent, the lowest it’s been since the state started keeping track, according to Department of State Health Services data… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas pushes to obscure the state’s history of slavery and racism (Houston Chronicle)
Every morning, schoolchildren in Texas recite an oath to their state that includes the words, “I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God.”
Now, a flurry of proposed measures that could soon become law would promote even greater loyalty to Texas in the state’s classrooms and public spaces, as Republican lawmakers try to reframe Texas history lessons and play down references to slavery and anti-Mexican discrimination that are part of the state’s founding.
The proposals in Texas, a state that influences school curriculums around the country through its huge textbook market, amount to some of the most aggressive efforts to control the teaching of American history. And they come as nearly a dozen other Republican-led states seek to ban or limit how the role of slavery and pervasive effects of racism can be taught.
Idaho was the first state to sign into law a measure that would withhold funding from schools that teach such lessons. And lawmakers in Louisiana, New Hampshire and Tennessee have introduced bills that would ban teaching about the enduring legacies of slavery and segregationist laws, or that any state or the country is inherently racist or sexist.
“The idea that history is a project that’s decided in the political arena is a recipe for disaster,” said Raul Ramos, a historian at the University of Houston who specializes in the American West.
Some of the positioning is politics as usual in Texas, where activists have long organized to imbue textbooks with conservative leanings. An especially active Republican-controlled legislative session has advanced hard-line measures from a host of new voting restrictions to a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Real-estate frenzy overwhelms small-town America (Wall Street Journal)
Local buyers bid against one another as well as against investors who now comprise about a fifth of annual home sales nationally. Online platforms such as BiggerPockets and Fundrise make it easier for out-of-town investors to buy real estate in smaller cities across the U.S., said John Burns of California-based John Burns Real Estate Consulting.
Often, Mr. Burns said, “the cash flows are better in the Tulsas and Allentowns of the world” for those seeking to rent out properties. In the fourth quarter of 2020, nearly a fifth of homes sold in the Allentown area were bought by investors, according to Mr. Burns’s data.
The median listed price for a house jumped 24% in January from a year earlier in the metropolitan area surrounding Allentown, the Rust-Belt city whose decline was memorialized in a 1982 Billy Joel song, according to data from Realtor.com. It was the same in such spots as Martin, Tenn., a small city 150 miles from Nashville, where the median asking price went up 159% over the same period; in Kendallville, Ind., about 30 miles outside Fort Wayne, it climbed 56%.
The average price for a house in the Allentown metro area, which includes Bethlehem, was about $225,000 a year ago, Mr. Campbell said. It has since shot past $270,000 in a market so hot that open houses trigger traffic jams, and properties sell in 48 hours.
With the exception of a few urban markets, including Manhattan and San Francisco, the U.S. is seeing “a chronic shortage of inventory, heavy sales volume and prices rising at levels wildly ahead of income growth,” said Jonathan Miller of New York-based Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants. The Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index reported a 12% annual gain in February, a figure seen only a few times in the history of the index, said Craig Lazzara, a managing director at S&P DJI… (LINK TO STORY)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
BG Podcast EP. 139: Q1 20201 Review: COVID-19's Impact on the Built Environment with Michael Hsu
On today’s episode we speak with return guest, Austin-based Michael Hsu, Principal and Founder of Michael Hsu Office of Architecture.
He and Bingham Group CEO A.J. catch up from their June 2020 show, updating on impacts to the design/built environment sector through Q1 2021.
You can listen to all episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. New content every Wednesday. Please like, link, comment and subscribe!