BG Reads | News You Need to Know (October 7, 2021)
Laguna Gloria 2016 (Spawnzilla, CC BY-SA 4.0)
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[MEETING/HEARINGS]
[BINGHAM GROUP]
AWARDS // Associate LaRessa Quintana will be honored this month with the 2021 Rising Star Award by the Young Hispanic Professional Organization of Austin. She was selected because of her previous work to elevate and support the Austin Latino community, and her commitment to continue this important and necessary work. Congratulations, LaRessa!
EVENTS // Thursday, October 28 (6PM - 10PM0, A Night In Verde Presented by St. David’s Healthcare - benefiting the 4ATX Foundation (Austin FC’s non-profit arm).
Link-> https://seatgeek.com/a-night-in-verde-presented-by-st-davids-healthcare-tickets/mls/2021-10-28-7-pm/5497856?preview_token=5R39m8VbKk
***NEW*** BG Podcast Ep. 147: Redistricting, Austin's Mayoral Election, and a New Police Chief
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Ex-Austin mayors, billionaire activist George Soros add political muscle to Prop A fight (KXAN)
Three former Austin mayors and a Democratic billionaire activist have waded into the political battle over Proposition A. At a news conference on Tuesday, Save Austin Now — the political action committee pushing the ballot measure — announced former mayors Lee Leffingwell, Lee Cooke and Ron Mullen have thrown their support behind the proposition, alongside current Austin City Council member Mackenzie Kelly. If passed, Prop A would add hundreds of officers to Austin’s police department by requiring a ratio of two officers for every 1,000 residents. As KXAN has reported, the cost could land between $271.5 million and $598.9 million over five years, according to a memo from the city’s chief financial officer.
“There is nothing wrong with having too many police officers, but there is a lot wrong with having too few,” Leffingwell said. Opponents believe the passage of Prop A could lead to funding cuts within the fire department, along with parks, pools, and libraries. Last week, Democratic billionaire and activist George Soros donated $500,000 to anti-proposition Equity PAC, the group behind the ‘No Way on Prop A’ campaign. The contribution was made through Soros’ Open Society Policy Center, according to financial records. His money, along with a $200,000 donation from the Fairness Project and $120,383 in other contributions reported in a recent campaign filing, means Equity PAC and ‘No Way on Prop A’ have $820,383 headed into the Nov. 2 election. Save Austin Now has raised $731,732, according to its most recent filing. “The 115 organizations against Prop A comprise one of the largest and most diverse groups in the history of Austin politics, in addition to a growing list of 38 current and former elected officials,” said Laura Hernandez Holmes, campaign manager for ‘No Way on Prop A.’ Last week, the Austin Firefighters Association announced it would not support Prop A, saying the Austin Police Department is fully funded and already has the money to hire hundreds of more officers… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
How much would more remote participation cost the city?(Austin Monitor)
Since March 2020, when Gov. Greg Abbott suspended certain requirements of the Texas Open Meetings Act to allow city officials to hold virtual meetings, the public has been allowed to participate by phone. Austin residents have participated in remote testimony with a good deal of enthusiasm.
At one meeting after the governor’s order expired, the Law Department advised City Council that it could no longer allow the hybrid public participation. Now, however, the lawyers have changed their minds and say such participation is legal, causing city staff to reschedule 24 zoning cases from last week’s meeting.
Last month, City Clerk Jannette Goodall told Council that she and the city’s technical specialists estimated it would cost $540,000 a year to continue accepting participation by citizens over the phone. She noted that a virtual meeting requires the work of six to 11 people.
According to Goodall, a minimum of eight to 10 staff members who are physically present at Council meetings manage logistics such as presentations and helping move staff and meeting participants to and from the main meeting panel. In addition, one full-time staff member from Communications and Technology Management is needed and two City Clerk staffers have the task of exporting and cleaning up online registration data, a task that can take 10-15 hours for each Council meeting, she said.
At this point, witnesses are not allowed to participate virtually in board and commission meetings. But Mayor Steve Adler and Council members Alison Alter, Greg Casar, Vanessa Fuentes and Kathie Tovo want to know how much it would cost to extend the choice of holding board and commission meetings virtually and allowing the public to participate by phone as well as in person.
Adler has posted a memo on the City Council Message Board noting that he and his colleagues would be sponsoring a resolution on next week’s agenda asking City Manager Spencer Cronk to advise them of the cost of a budget amendment to allow remote participation, not only at Council meetings but at all the city’s board and commission meetings.
In addition to the cost, the changes would require rewriting a certain portion of city code, Adler noted, which also comes with a cost.
Either way, the clerk has indicated that she would not advise changing how the public testifies, so that speakers will continue to speak in random order, not addressing agenda items as they are being discussed by Council… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin's live music scene survived the pandemic. Can it survive the city's growth? (KUT)
People packed in line waiting to get into Zilker Park for the Austin City Limits Festival on Saturday. They took selfies as soon as they entered, wherever they could find open space. Despite the enhanced COVID protocols, it felt like ACL two years ago.
Last weekend marked the return of Austin’s first big in-person music festival since things shut down in March 2020. And whether you were excited or skeptical about its return, we all found out during the pandemic how hard it is to live without live music — and just how fragile the Austin music ecosystem is.
A 2014 study conducted by research firm TXP found the live music industry brings the city $1.8 billion annually. Reenie Collins, CEO of the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, puts it this way: “Our entire economy is driven by live music and festivals and musicians and tourism to come to see this live music destination.”
Austin is consistently cited as one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, and music is one of the main attractions. But the city’s inability to adjust to that growth has threatened the creative class; it’s led to skyrocketing property costs, which, in turn, have created an affordability crisis for a lot of folks. Especially musicians.
“What some people don’t realize is that musicians really don’t earn the kind of income that they think they do,” Collins says. “Most musicians earn the [same wages] they earned 10 years ago. Bar covers remain the same. People are still expected to take what's given at the door or tip jars.”
It can be hard for musicians to even make rent. According to data from RealPage Analytics, the average monthly rent in Austin has nearly doubled since 2010, going from $811 to $1,511.
“[One established guideline is] you should be paying 30% or less of your income on rent,” says Cody Cowan, executive director of the Red River Cultural District. “If rent of an apartment is between $1,500 and $2,500 a month, you calculate that up and that means people should be making like $90,000 in order to afford the level of rent right now.”
Affordability is also an issue for venues. Rents in Austin were high even before the pandemic, and most venues' profit margins are pretty slim… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin apartment market again frothy but experts see possible cooling (Austin Business Journal)
The Austin apartment market is once again in growth mode, with September's price and occupancy metrics well above pre-pandemic levels — but experts say momentum should slow in the coming months.
While the numbers are still trending upward, the rate at which prices are increasing has been slowing each month. This, paired with normal market seasonality, spells a likely winter cool down for the multifamily sector.
In September, metro-wide apartment occupancy was at 92.7%, according to ApartmentData.com. This occupancy rate is fairly standard for the area — over the last 10 years, the rate has hovered around there. What is significant, though, is that the market went from a decade low of 88.1% in 2020 to a healthy occupancy so rapidly.
“That’s a huge dump in a 12-month cycle,” said Cindi Reed, vice president of sales and business development for ApartmentData.com. “It’s not unusual to see a 1% jump, sometimes a 2% jump, but one this big is very very unusual.”
Rent, too, has increased precipitously, with Austin renters paying a whopping 25% more on average than a year ago, according to the data. In September, Austin’s median rent was $1,535, well above Houston’s rate of $1,162 and San Antonio’s of $1,120. The Dallas-Fort Worth metro prices are closer to Austin’s, with a median of $1,352.
Reed said she anticipates a 4%-5% increase in rents overall in 2022, but in class A apartments and new developments, she said that rents may go up as much as 8%… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Housing and Planning Committee examines barriers to ADU construction (Austin Monitor)
The city’s Housing and Planning Committee met Tuesday to discuss the regulations for accessory dwelling units, secondary housing units located somewhere on a residential lot. As Austin’s housing crisis persists and the median sale price of homes continues to rise, ADUs can sometimes provide a more affordable housing option. But cumbersome local policies regulating ADUs can deter or prevent homeowners from building accessory units, and limit who may reside in those spaces.
The average sale price of an Austin home has risen steeply over the past decade, reaching about $550,000 this year – a price higher than most locals can afford. The committee met with a shared desire to rethink ADU regulation to make these units more accessible to average Austinites who might be struggling to find housing options within their price range, and to provide more homeowners the opportunity to make passive income by renting out living spaces in their backyard.
This isn’t the first time the city has looked inward at these policies. In 2020, City Council passed a resolution intending to make it easier for residents to build ADUs, and this summer the Housing and Planning Department issued a response to that resolution, outlining further options for the city to explore. City staff noted that financing obstacles were still making it challenging for homeowners to construct ADUs, despite streamlined permitting put in place, and that regulatory barriers were continuing to spike ADU construction costs.
Greg Casar, the chair of the Housing and Planning Committee, began Tuesday’s meeting with the goal of looking for “small places and small programs (that) can provide big wins” for people in the market to build secondary homes on their property. The meeting featured speakers discussing alternative options and programs aimed at making ADU construction more accessible.
Erik Preston, who represented Villa Homes, a California-based company that builds prefabricated ADUs at a lower cost than a stick-built home, said in a sample of about 330 people surveyed, half of those interested in building an ADU on their Austin property were disqualified based on zoning alone, a statistic Council members seemed to find jarring.
Prefab ADUs, Preston said, can be a simpler and more affordable option because they’re built in compliance with federal regulation and often able to bypass local regulation. According to Preston, Villa Homes ADUs can cost less than $200,000 per unit, a sticker price tens of thousands of dollars cheaper than their stick-built counterparts.
The meeting also featured members of the local nonprofit Community Powered Workshop, which offers help building ADUs as a source of secondary income for historically underserved communities. The program has facilitated the construction of 18 “alley flats,” a number they say is not representative of expressed interest.
Nuances in the code rule out many, if not most, homeowners from building and renting out ADUs. While most of these nuances are difficult to enforce, their existence alone has the potential to ward off rule-followers. Different types of units require different lot sizes, parking requirements, zoning districts or resident types, Brent Lloyd of the city’s Development Services Department explained. For example, guest houses have lax regulations, but must only be occupied by non-paying guests. “Accessory apartments” are units attached to the original housing structure, but can only be occupied by residents with disabilities or over the age of 60, and cannot be garage conversions. ADUs can be built to provide on-site employee housing only if they’re on a lot at least 15,000 square feet in size, and residents are employed on a project housed on that very lot.
Thomas Medina of Community Powered Workshop says these regulations can function as barriers to people interested in their program. Oftentimes, he said, moderate-income households want to convert their garage into an ADU, which sheds construction costs, but their zoning doesn’t allow for a garage conversion. He also said sometimes the development process is just too confusing and cumbersome for homeowners to persevere through.
The committee will be taking a closer look at the barriers outlined Tuesday in an effort to pave the way for an easier development process. Council Member Kathie Tovo, who is not on the Housing and Planning Committee, announced that her team has drafted a resolution that includes options for making an investment in ADUs more financially accessible, including financial incentives and pre-approved architect plans. These proposals will be heard at an upcoming City Council meeting… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Trump's shadow looms over Abbott's all-governor border tour (Houston Chronicle)
A dozen business leaders in San Antonio — including the CEOs of the Spurs, USAA and Valero Energy — said Monday that they are spearheading an initiative aimed at combating the racial and economic inequality plaguing the nation’s seventh-largest city.
The partnership, called the Corporate Partners for Racial Equity, may be the first of its kind in San Antonio. Members will contribute a combined $13.8 million over five years to support efforts in education, economic opportunity, and safety and justice.
In recent years, major corporations across the U.S. have come under increasing pressure to take stands against police brutality, voter suppression, and gender and LGBTQ discrimination. San Antonio’s large employers, however, have largely stayed quiet on these problems.
“It’s time for our community to listen to each other and to learn about the disadvantaged areas of our community and the impact of inequality that that has on communities over the course of their lives,” Spurs Sports & Entertainment CEO R.C. Buford said in a video provided by the company.
SS&E, owner of the Spurs, has been the group’s main organizer.
Several of the partnership’s CEOs said George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020 and the ensuing conversations they had with people of color were the prime motivators for creating the partnership… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff says he won’t run for re-election (KSAT)
Wolff made the announcement during his 2021 State of the County address to the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.
Wolff said he made his decision not to seek another term while reading an article in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago that had a picture of an aging, senior executive being wheeled out on a dolly with a potted plant in his lap.
“I showed that picture to Tracy (his wife), and said, ‘I don’t want to go that way. I want to walk out with my head held high and go when I think I’m at the top of my game,’” Nelson told the attendees.
Wolff said he will serve out the rest of his one year and three months left in his term so that plenty of “good candidates” can have time to make their announcement before the March Primary in 2022.
He was appointed to the position in 2001 and successfully won re-election five times. He has spent 32 years in public office, which include positions as state representative, state senator, city councilman and county judge. He unsuccessfully ran for U.S. representative twice… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Faced with losing their jobs, even the most hesitant are getting vaccinated (NPR)
In the quest to get more Americans vaccinated, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: Vaccine mandates work.
Nowhere is that more apparent than at United Airlines.
On Aug. 6, United became the first U.S. airline to tell its workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 if they wanted to keep their jobs.
The announcement was deeply unsettling for Margaret Applegate, a San Francisco-based customer service agent with United for 29 years. She was proud of how United had handled the pandemic up until then — the lengths the airline had gone to keep workers and customers safe, even partnering with Clorox on cleaning and disinfecting… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Rift widens between business groups and House GOP (The Hill)
Lobbying efforts by some of the nation’s biggest business groups are falling on deaf ears with House Republicans just a few years after the two worked in lockstep to craft the 2017 tax bill that delivered massive corporate tax cuts.
Even after every major business group in Washington, D.C., urged House Republicans to support the Senate-passed $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, only a handful of GOP lawmakers have said they would vote for the measure, according to The Hill’s tally.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in particular, has drawn public attacks from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other Republicans, revealing deep divisions between the two forces that were closely aligned for decades.
House Republican leaders kicked the Chamber off their coalition calls this week after the Chamber’s top lobbyist criticized them for whipping votes against the infrastructure bill.
“People care what their local Chambers of Commerce and business owners have to say, not the U.S. Chamber,” said Brett Horton, chief of staff to House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.). “If the U.S. Chamber sent me a meeting request right now, I wouldn’t even staff that meeting out to an intern, and I don’t see that changing.”
House GOP leaders are at odds with every major business group, including the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers, over the infrastructure package. But their disagreement with the Chamber is personal… (LINK TO FULL STORY)