BG Reads | News You Need to Know (March 31, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
BG Podcast EP. 136: Q1 2021 Review: Austin's Residental Real Estate Market
Today's episode (136) features a conversation with Austin Board of REALTORS® CEO Emily Chenevert.
She and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss the Q1 2021 performance of Austin’s residential real estate market.
You can listen to all episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. New content every Wednesday. Please like, link, comment and subscribe!
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
Special Called Meeting of the Austin City Council (4/1 @10AM) - AGENDA
Regular Meeting of the Austin City Council (4/8 @10AM) - AGENDA
[THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE]
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (5,348)
LINK TO FILED SENATE BILLS (2,476)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Tesla now hiring for 300 jobs in Austin area; Exec hints at opportunities to partner with local businesses (Austin Business Journal)
With a wide expanse of rooftop in place and pieces of heavy equipment rolling in, Tesla Inc.'s future $1.1 billion gigafactory in Travis County is starting to look more and more like a manufacturing facility.
And with CEO Elon Musk's timeline for the factory to produce vehicles by the end of this year, it's no surprise that Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) has ramped up hiring efforts over the last few months. It is just one of the many ways the electric carmaker is beginning to impact the Central Texas economy.
By publication time, more than 280 job openings in Austin were posted on Tesla's website, with positions available in a wide array of engineering and managerial capacities.
The company has said it plans to eventually employ about 5,000 people with an average annual salary of about $47,000. But that may be a low estimate: Manufacturing experts have said 15,000 jobs could be created at the gigafactory because of the scope of the carmaker's planned operations.
Tesla plans to produce its Model 3s, Model Y SUVs, Cybertrucks and Semi tractor-trailers in Central Texas. The factory will also host a battery cell manufacturing unit.
"We're adding on every day," Chris Reilly, Tesla's director of recruiting and workforce development, said about its job opportunities in Central Texas during a March 25 panel hosted by YTexas, a business network for companies relocating or expanding in the state.
Tesla's factory is pegged as a monumental gain for the region, especially with workers displaced because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Austin metro's unemployment rate was 5.6% in February, up from a seasonally adjusted rate of 2.6% a year prior.
The company has established relationships with Austin Community College, Huston-Tillotson University, the University of Texas and the Del Valle Independent School District, Reilly said. The car manufacturer is well known for not requiring college degrees for some of its jobs, but Reilly said part of the work they're doing with the local colleges is "thinking about recruiting students who can graduate high school and start a career at Tesla while continuing their education."… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin’s added jobs in 9 of the last 10 months, still down 3% since February 2020 (KXAN)
Austin’s job market has bounced back considerably since the COVID-19 pandemic claimed about 137,000 jobs, the Austin Chamber of Commerce said in a report released Tuesday by Beverly Kerr, the chamber’s vice president of research.
Nonfarm payroll jobs in the Austin metro area dipped 12% from this time last year due to the pandemic, but there’s been a 75% rebound with job growth in nine out of the last 10 months, the report said.
In February, the Austin metro area added 6,700 jobs back to the workforce after it shed 9,900 jobs in January, according to statistics by the Texas Workforce Commission referenced in the report.
Austin had an estimated 1.14 million nonfarm payroll jobs before the pandemic hit, and after the big job hit, gains for the past 10 months have resulted in 102,400 jobs being recovered. While it’s still a net loss from pre-pandemic levels, it’s still encouraging.
Compared to anywhere in Texas, Austin is performing the best of any metro area when it comes to limiting year-over-year job loss, the chamber’s report said. Of the 50 most populous metro areas in the country, Austin’s 3% job loss from February 2020 to February 2021 is tied for the second-least amount with the Jacksonville, Florida metro area. Only Salt Lake City has seen the most resilience in its job market with just 1% job loss year-over-year.
San Antonio has seen a 3.3% dip in jobs in the timeframe, and Dallas is not far behind with a 3.4% decline. The Fort Worth area recorded a 4.5% job loss and the Houston area took a 6.8% hit.
The leisure and hospitality industry in Austin has been wrecked by the pandemic. It sustained the highest year-over-year loss of any industry in the metro area over the past year with a nearly 22% reduction (29,300 jobs), but it has regained 52% of the jobs it lost in March and April 2020… (LINK TO STORY)
State senators spar over Lake Austin tax exemption bill (Austin American-Statesman)
State Sen. Dawn Buckingham on Monday laid out a Senate bill that aims to allow hundreds of Lake Austin shoreline properties to disannex from the city of Austin. Buckingham, R-Lakeway, faced a series of questions from Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, whose district encompasses properties owned by hundreds of people who are being charged city of Austin property taxes this year for the first time after having enjoyed a special exemption for decades. Eckhardt, D-Austin, has told the American-Statesman that she does not support Buckingham's bill or similar legislation Buckingham authored that would remove the Lost Creek neighborhood in West Austin from the city for similar reasons.
Eckhardt repeatedly questioned Buckingham's contention that the Lake Austin properties — which had a property tax exemption granted to them in 1986 but repealed in 2019 by the Austin City Council — were not receiving city services. Few get water service from Austin Water, but most get electricity from Austin Energy. They also fall under the jurisdiction of the Austin Police Department and Austin Fire Department. Emergency medical services in Austin are headed by one countywide agency that reports mainly to the city.
"I'm advocating for the folks who are really struggling to pay the taxes that aren't getting any services," Buckingham said during Monday's meeting of the Senate Committee on Local Government. Property taxes generally fund services such as police and fire. Water, wastewater, power and trash collection are fee-based, meaning property owners who do not receive the services are not charged for them… (LINK TO STORY)
Prop H critics want more inclusivity in ‘democracy dollars’ program (Austin Monitor)
Advocates for local immigrant workers have come out against the “democracy dollars” ballot proposal set to go before voters in May, and are pushing City Council to pass an ordinance expanding its eligibility if the initiative succeeds.
Proposition H would create a city-funded campaign finance program giving vouchers totaling $100 to registered voters, which they could donate to City Council and mayoral candidates in election years. The proposition, which was largely modeled after a program in Seattle, is intended to increase participation in elections and reduce the influence of wealthy donors on local races.
Groups such as Workers Defense Fund and Union Local 23, which represent large populations of working immigrants with green cards who are unable to register to vote, have criticized the proposal because it excludes those residents as well as those who have lost the ability to vote due to their criminal history.
Those groups also want new limits put in place on individual donations and total fundraising amounts.
Bo Delp, a political organizer with Union Local 23, which represents local food service workers, said opening the program only to registered voters limits its impact and prevents thousands of residents from having a role in local elections. Data gathered from 2017-2019 showed that there were 15,770 green card holders in Travis County.
“What the city of Austin would do if Prop H passes is exclude this group of people … many of whom are food service workers who have immigrated here from other countries,” he said.
“The question isn’t whether democracy dollars is good as a concept. What we have is a very specific proposal that we have to evaluate, including the consequences of its passage and having a situation where people are being excluded, and I’m not sure that solves some of the inequities we see in our city.”
Council Member Greg Casar has drafted an ordinance to amend the proposal if it passes. The ordinance would call on the clerk’s office to create a parallel funding program open to all residents who are legally able to contribute to elections regardless of their residency status and would establish fundraising limits for candidates who opt to receive funds from the democracy dollars program… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Texas high-speed rail could be first in line for funding from Biden, Congress (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
The federal government is serious about spending money on high-speed rail, and Texas could be among the first beneficiaries. The recent interest in investing in bullet trains capable of going 200 mph or faster comes at a time when many Texans — after hearing promises about high-speed rail for the past 12 years — are skeptical that such a project will ever come to fruition. But Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is talking up the potential of using modernized passenger trains to revolutionize the way people travel across the Lone Star State. And several members of Congress, including a former official with the proposed Texas Central Railway high-speed rail project who now represents Massachusetts in the House of Representatives, have filed a bill that would provide $205 billion in funding for projects nationwide over the next five years.
The Texas Central Railway project, which is backed by private investors, would provide a high-speed rail connection from downtown Dallas to Houston, using the same technology as Central Japan Railway Co., also known as JR Central. Several other projects are under study in Texas as well. One proposal would extend high-speed rail from the Texas Central Railway station in Dallas to Arlington and Fort Worth — with possible future connections to Austin, San Antonio and perhaps Monterrey, Mexico. The Regional Transportation Council, the Dallas-Fort Worth area’s federally-recognized planning body, also is making a pitch for a Hyperloop test track to be built in the region. Hyperloop is a new, yet unproven technology in which a very small amount of electrical energy is used to power a magnetic system that allows passenger pods to travel at incredible speeds inside a tube. Buttigieg championed Texas high-speed rail during several recent public appearances, including during a Wall Street Journal podcast March 23 in which he mentioned the state by name without being prompted… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas moves to kill gas bans proposed by Austin, others (Bloomberg)
Texas moved to stop the city of Austin and others from imposing a California-style ban on natural gas in new homes and buildings, the latest salvo in the gas industry’s bid to protect itself from local climate regulations.
The Texas House of Representatives advanced a bill Tuesday that would bar cities and towns from restricting natural gas hookups in new construction or utility services. The measure gained initial approval along with a series of bills designed to prevent a repeat of last month’s catastrophic blackouts that left millions in the dark for days and killed more than 100.
The move comes after Austin weighed a proposal to phase out use of the fossil fuel as part of the city’s climate plan. More than 40 cities in California including San Francisco have passed measures designed to end gas connections into homes amid concerns over the fuel’s contribution to global warming.
Democratic state representative Joe Deshotel, sponsor of the bill, said the legislation is needed to preserve “customer choice” for energy supplies.… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas will provide rapid COVID-19 tests for summer camps (Texas Tribune)
Texas will provide state-licensed summer camps with COVID-19 rapid tests in an effort to prevent potential outbreaks, Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement Tuesday.
Last summer, most summer camps were shuttered across the country because of the pandemic.
The tests will be voluntary for both staff and campers. Summer camp organizers need to apply to participate.
"As normalcy returns to Texas, we must remain vigilant against the spread of COVID-19 by identifying positive cases and mitigating any potential outbreaks," Abbott said in the statement. "I encourage qualifying summer camps to apply for this program so that we can continue to keep Texans safe."
This comes after Texas ended most of its coronavirus-related restrictions earlier this month.
Texas has a series of health recommendations revised this month for summer camp operators, including social distancing rules, prohibiting parent or guardian visits except to pick up or drop off a child and separating campers and staff into smaller cohorts that do not mix for the duration of the camp. Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says summer camps can reopen safely if they follow a number of protocols.
Staff members or campers who test positive should be immediately isolated and then removed from the camp, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Parents are told to pick up their children within eight hours if they become infected.
Many parents across Texas rely on summer camps — some which operate daytime hours and not overnight — for child care while school is out for summer break… (LINK TO STORY)