BG Reads | News You Need to Know (September 8, 2021)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
Joint Meeting of Williamson County Commissioners Court and Taylor ISD, Today at 5PM (Agenda)
Discuss, consider and take appropriate action on a resolution to support Samsung Austin Semiconductor, LLC’s selection of Williamson County as the location of its semiconductor plant; on a Chapter 381 Economic and Development Program Agreement and Development Agreement with Samsung Austin Semiconductor, LLC; and to authorize the County Judge to execute such resolution and agreements.
Council Public Health Committee, Today at 10AM (Agenda)
Council Mobility Committee, Thursday at 1PM (Agenda)
Work Session of the Austin Council (9.28.2021 at 9AM)
Regular Meeting of the Austin City Council (9.30.2021 at 10AM)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
OUT NOW - BG PODCAST EP. 145: Talking Austin's FY22 Budget and Beyond
The team discuss the City of Austin's recent FY22 budget season, and challenges ahead in FY23 and on.
Featuring Bingham Group CEO A.J., and Jimmy Flannigan, Bingham Group Advisory Board Member and former Austin Council Member.
CASE STUDIES
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Austin to update urban design guidelines (Austin Business Journal)
Austin's urban design guidelines, used by many architects and developers, are the latest development rules targeted for an overhaul.
The urban design guidelines are recommendations that outline the city's vision of public-use elements of projects, such as plazas and streetscapes. City leaders have long said these guidelines no longer reflect Austin's current design needs, especially as downtown continues to evolve. Additionally, the guidelines have not been widely applied to projects throughout fast-growing Austin, though that was the intent of the city more than a decade ago.
Austin City Council approved a resolution on Sept. 2 that kickstarted an update to the guidelines, which could take a few years to finalize. That means it might be a while before development teams have to worry about any changes. There will also be several opportunities for feedback throughout the process.
The Design Commission recommended to Council that the guidelines be updated and outlined a few priorities for the process. The idea is to made the guidelines more applicable throughout Austin's urban core; align the guidelines with other community goals such as affordability, mobility and equity; and to make the guidelines easier to use to create a more predictable review process, according to city documents.
"Good urban design should not be limited to the Central Business District," the Design Commission stated in its recommendation. "Safety, walkability, and active streetscapes should be a shared pedestrian experience throughout the growing urban fabric of Austin."
These guidelines also play a key role in density bonuses downtown. The Design Commission is responsible for determining whether projects applying to the Downtown Density Bonus Program comply with the urban design guidelines. The DDBP is also being retooled to keep up with Austin's growth.
"We’re looking forward to getting this process started, it’s been a long time coming," David Carroll, chairman of the Austin Design Commission, said of updating the urban design guidelines. "As the plan indicates, it won’t be a short process, and public stakeholders will play a key role in getting this right. That said, we’re confident this update will produce guidelines that are easier to use, more inclusive, and better aligned with the City’s adopted goals."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Hays, fastest-growing county in Texas, draws dozens of big businesses (San Antonio Express-News)
Hays County grew faster than any other U.S. county with at least 100,000 residents from 2010 to 2020, according to census figures, so it’s little wonder that employers large and small are coming to town. “Businesses know that people are here, which means they have workforce,” said Jason Giulietti, president of the Greater San Marcos Partnership. “All skill levels are here.” And the proximity to surging populations in and around Austin and San Antonio sweetens the deal. Take the case of Amazon, which ranks second on the Fortune 500 list. It’s taken a shine to Hays County, which lies along the I-35 corridor between a glut of customers in Austin and another in San Antonio. That’s not to mention online shoppers among the booming populations between and around the two cities.
The Seattle-based company is the biggest employer in Hays County, with more than 5,000 workers in its warehouses, according to the Greater San Marcos Partnership. And it’s about to open its fourth warehouse there. Giulietti spoke to the Express-News recently at the edge of the new San Marcos site. He looked on as construction workers buzzed in and out of the distribution facility, which covers more than 1 million square feet and will store products that are larger than a suitcase. He couldn’t contain his excitement. Companies look at the I-35 corridor and say, “We need to be here. We know the growth is here. There’s opportunity. There’s land to build facilities, and there’s people to then occupy those jobs,” he said. Just down the street sits a “spec” building, which a developer builds speculating that businesses will arrive and need a place to set up shop. Giulietti’s business development group announced last week that the new 85,000-square-foot facility will welcome an East Coast-based company that uses robotics to provide automated laundry services to major hotel chains. Giulietti said Cooperative Laundry did a market analysis and found that more hotel rooms were coming online in Austin than in New York City. “So they said, ‘We need to be down here,’” he said. Last year, Hays County welcomed six large companies, according to the Greater San Marcos Partnership… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
34-story apartment tower planned for West 12th Street near Texas Capitol (Austin American-Statesman)
As Central Texas' real estate market continues to thrive, Austin-based Stratus Properties said Tuesday that it plans to develop a 34-story high-rise with 300 apartments in downtown Austin.
The tower is to be built at on West 12th Street between San Antonio and Guadalupe streets, a few blocks west of the Texas Capitol, at a cost of about $185 million, said Beau Armstrong, Stratus' chairman and CEO.
The existing Delta Kappa Gamma building at 416 W. 12th Street will be razed to make room for the new tower, Stratus said. A rail stop is planned at 12th and Guadalupe.
The historical A.O. Watson house, which sits next door to the Delta Kappa Gamma building on West 12th Street, will be renovated and expanded to offer amenities to residents of the new apartment tower, while preserving the property’s historical and architectural features, Stratus said. Those amenities could include a club, a neighborhood restaurant, a private pool and an outdoor gathering space and garden, Stratus said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Gov. Greg Abbott calls special legislative session for redistricting, other conservative priorities starting Sept. 20 (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday announced a third special legislative session that will begin on Sept. 20 and tackle redistricting, restrictions on transgender student athletes and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
"The Texas Legislature now has the opportunity to redraw legislative and congressional districts in accordance with the new census numbers," Abbott said in a statement. "In addition to redistricting, there are still issues remaining that are critical to building a stronger and brighter future for all Texans."
Lawmakers, who will meet in Austin for the fourth time this year, will also be tasked with allocating $16 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds and with deciding whether state or local governments can mandate COVID-19 vaccines. Abbott also included on his five-item agenda a bill that would ban the tethering of dogs outside with heavy chains, which he had vetoed earlier this year. Abbott asked lawmakers to address concerns he had about the specificity of the bill and "over-criminalization."
The Legislature just wrapped its second overtime round on Thursday, delivering on major conservative priorities like an elections law that restricts how and when voters cast ballots, a ban on how teachers can talk about race and history in classrooms, billions of dollars in additional border security funding and further restricting abortion access.
But lawmakers failed to deliver on two issues pushed by the GOP base: requiring transgender student athletes to play on teams based on the gender assigned to them at or near birth, and banning COVID-19 mandates.
Abbott had asked lawmakers to ban mask mandates in schools during the second special session but lawmakers could not get that proposal over the hump. Now, Abbott is asking the Legislature to decide whether state or local governments can mandate COVID-19 vaccines.
The bills about transgender student athletes and COVID-19 mandates will likely turn up the heat on an already contentious 30-day session. Lawmakers will take up their decennial redrawing of the state's political maps, meaning some legislators will be fighting for their political lives. (Redistricting usually takes place during the first legislative session after the census, but it was delayed this year because of setbacks spurred by the coronavirus and the Trump administration's handling of the census data.)… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Mexico decriminalizes abortion, a dramatic step in world’s second-biggest Catholic country (Washington Post)
Mexico’s supreme court voted unanimously on Tuesday to decriminalize abortion, a striking step in a country with one of the world’s largest Catholic populations and a move that contrasts sharply with tighter restrictions introduced across the border in Texas. Eight of the 11 supreme court judges had expressed support for decriminalization in arguments that began Monday, making the decision virtually inevitable. The vote comes as a powerful women’s movement is transforming Mexico, where female politicians now make up half of Congress. While abortion remains illegal in most of Latin America, there has been a surge in demonstrations demanding more rights for women, particularly focused on rising violence.
“This will not only have an impact in Mexico; it will set the agenda for the entire Latin American region,” said Melissa Ayala, coordinator of litigation for the Mexican feminist organization GIRE. She called the ruling “a historic moment for feminists and activists” who have pressed for women’s rights for years in Mexico’s state legislatures, health ministries and law schools. Four countries in Latin America allow abortion under virtually all circumstances early in pregnancy: Argentina, Cuba, Uruguay and Guyana. Some nations forbid abortion for any reason. In El Salvador, women accused of aborting a fetus can be prosecuted on assault or homicide charges, and face decades in prison. Four of Mexico’s 32 federal entities have broadly legalized the procedure — Oaxaca, Veracruz, Hidalgo and Mexico City. One of Mexico’s biggest opposition parties, the conservative National Action Party, declared its opposition to the arguments advanced in the supreme court. “We are in favor of defending life from the moment of conception until natural death,” it said in a statement. It called for more measures to avert abortion, such as improving adoption services and providing more assistance to pregnant women. Yet the decision was out of the hands of politicians. The court was asked to rule on a law in the northern state of Coahuila that establishes jail terms of up to three years for women who procure illegal abortions… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Colleges penalize unvaccinated students as Delta surges (Politico)
After months of coaxing students with thousands of dollars in prizes — everything from gift cards to sports tickets to free parking — colleges are starting to punish the unvaccinated.
The institutions started the summer by waving the prospect of scholarships, laptops, game consoles and more in front to students who got a Covid-19 shot. Now, as millions move back to campus, hundreds of schools are mandating vaccines and penalizing students who resist without a medical or religious reason.
Quinnipiac University students who aren’t vaccinated will be fined up to $200 per week and lose access to the campus’ Wi-Fi until they get the shot. The University of Virginia booted more than 200 unvaccinated people from its rolls before the semester began. And Rutgers University, the first university in the U.S. to mandate vaccination for students, is threatening to disconnect email access and deny campus housing for students who don’t comply. Some colleges used similar tactics last year to get students to follow testing procedures.
The hard mandates, which put colleges on the front line of the nation’s newest culture war, could help decide when the latest resurgence of the virus subsides — and when the next one arrives.
Schools, risking conservative backlash, see the aggressive vaccines policies as a critical component of America’s effort to halt the progress of the virus. The institutions are uniquely situated to deal with the least vaccinated groups: young people.
“The Delta variant has been a game changer, and we need to respond accordingly,” said Anita Barkin, co-chair of the American College Health Association’s Covid-19 task force. She noted that schools with immunization requirements have a distinct advantage over schools that have to use incentives to get students vaccinated.
The Delta variant and low vaccination rates have fueled a summer surge of Covid-19 infections in young people, causing some college leaders to worry about needing another online-only semester. The incentives they’ve offered students to line up for a shot have helped boost vaccine rates at some institutions. But in many places, they aren’t enough.
Teens and 20-something adults have some of the lowest vaccination rates among eligible populations, likely making them a larger factor in spreading the virus. About 60 percent of people ages 18-24 have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, compared to about 95 percent of people 65-74, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…(LINK TO FULL STORY)