BG Reads | News You Need to Know (February 22, 2022)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Home builders struggling to keep up with demand of housing in Austin (FOX 7)
In January, the median sales price of a house in the Austin-metro area rose 30 percent to $476,000.
While it's getting tougher to find housing in Austin, home builders are struggling to keep up with demand.
The president of the Home Builders Association of Greater Austin Scott Turner says with higher demand in the city, people are having to look further outside of Austin city limits to find homes.
"Austin’s unprecedented economic growth shows no signs of stopping, with announcements of new projects almost daily. While this is great for Austin long term, our capacity to house people cannot keep up, with people having to drive further outside city limits to find a home they can afford," said Turner.
Turner said while builders and buyers want new homes built as quickly as possible, the land development code in Austin is outdated and complicating the development pipeline.
"Ten years ago, Austin acknowledged that the land development code was inadequate to meet our growing housing needs. Today, we still have the same issues, and it takes longer than ever to navigate the permit process," Scott said. "We need a new code that allows more housing to be built, and we need the city to make the changes necessary to deliver permits in a reasonable time. Until then, home prices will continue to increase like they have for the past decade."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Longtime Travis County Commissioners face challenges from their left (Austin Chronicle)
In the races for Travis County Commissioners Court Precincts 2 and 4, two strong challengers face two incumbents with decades of experience. As they tussle over criminal justice reform, affordable housing, and infrastructure disparities, liberal stalwarts Margaret Gómez and Brigid Shea find themselves attacked from the left by community advocates with big plans for the county seat. The March 1 Democratic primary will decide the final outcome – there are no additional candidates who could force a May run-off, and no Republican has filed for either seat.
Precinct 4 encompasses southeastern Travis County, including the county's poorest areas with the least amount of services – a disparity that Susanna Ledesma-Woody has flagged ever since her first challenge in 2018 to Margaret Gómez, the longest-serving member of the Commissioners Court, in office since 1995. (Should she be reelected, she'll become the longest-serving Travis commissioner in history, surpassing N.L. Gault's 26-year tenure, which ended in 1974.) Ledesma-Woody has been active in Precinct 4 for more than a decade, having been a Del Valle ISD trustee since 2011. She founded the Del Valle Community Coalition in 2010, a nonprofit advocating for access to food and health care, with which the county has partnered on COVID relief and vaccine outreach. "Many parts of Precinct 4 are recognized as either food deserts or health care deserts; there's no excuse for this in one of the most progressive counties in the state," Ledesma-Woody says. Bob Libal, the former director of Grassroots Leadership who is running against incumbent Brigid Shea in Precinct 2, has made the Tesla deal a major plank in his campaign platform. "Tesla was coming, regardless of whether we gave them tax breaks or not. They were really there to extract that public resource from us. And that's bad public policy. Frankly, Commissioner Shea from 10 years ago, when she was running for mayor, agrees with me." Shea, who served on City Council from 1993 to 1996, ran in 2012 against incumbent Mayor Lee Leffingwell; she won the county seat in 2014. The current Shea justifies the decision saying that Tesla will bring jobs targeting those without a college degree and that "the previous landowner was a sand and gravel operation, [who] literally paid $640 a year [in taxes] to the county; Tesla's going to pay close to a million [dollars] or more each year. That money will go into diversion and prevention programs, social service programs, job training, all the kinds of things that we really do need to fund."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Supporters of injured Austin BLM marchers seek apology from city manager (CBS Austin)
Supporters of Black Lives Matter marchers say they're still stinging from a statement by Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk saying he doesn't agree with police officers being indicted for allegedly injuring protestors.
A coalition of local groups is asking Cronk to apologize to the district attorney, and they say they believe the people of Austin are behind them.
The Austin Justice Coalition says no officers were fired or disciplined after march participants were seriously injured by police in the first local Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, so it hurt to see the city manager write that he didn't believe criminal charges against the officers were appropriate either.
In a written statement Cronk said in part, “We are disappointed to be in this position, and we do not believe criminal indictments of the officers working under very difficult circumstances is the correct outcome."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Tesla, Elon Musk plan grand opening party for Austin facility in April (Austin American-Statesman)
If you've been hoping for a peek inside Tesla's $1.1 billion Austin-area manufacturing facility, you might get an opportunity this spring. The automaker plans to hold a grand opening party April 7 for the plant in southeastern Travis County, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Saturday on Twitter. Musk replied to a tweet asking about the long-anticipated event, first saying it would be on April 1 but later clarifying the date. In December, Musk said the factory — which the company has dubbed Giga Texas — would have a grand opening party sometime in early 2022, but he gave few details and no date. Little has been disclosed since about what people can expect from the grand opening, but Musk did say previously that the company will give factory tours to the public.
The event could be similar to the Giga Fest the company held at its new factory in Berlin, which included music, food, games and an appearance by Musk. Construction has moved quickly since Musk announced in July 2020 that he had selected the Travis County site for the facility. Tesla received tax breaks from Travis County and the Del Valle school district valued at more than $60 million combined to build the plant. Musk has said it could eventually employ 10,000 workers. In October, the company announced that it was moving its headquarters to Austin. Company filings in December revealed that the headquarters is at the same site as the company's manufacturing facility, where Tesla owns more than 2,000 acres. Earlier this year, the company confirmed that it has started to produce its Model Y SUV at the site, and it has said it eventually will produce its Cybertruck, Semi and Model 3 compact sedan there… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Daryl Kunik's vision for big East Austin creative hub moves forward (Austin Business Journal)
Central Austin Management Group is moving forward with plans to build hundreds of apartments and a significant chunk of commercial space on the east side.
The development group, run by Daryl Kunik, will transform 21 acres off U.S. Highway 183 into a community-oriented, mixed-use project designed to offer affordable access to both commercial and residential space. Kunik's group has developed similar but smaller projects in the area, such as the Springdale General office park and Canopy.
The details are still in flux, but the unnamed development could offer up to 535,000 square feet of commercial space — about as much space as downtown's Frost Bank Tower. The site allows for office, retail, restaurant, brewery and clean industrial uses, and 10,000 square feet will be offered at 60% of market rent to businesses in the creative sector or other vulnerable business communities.
The residential portion of the project could also span anywhere from 341 to 742 apartments, 10% of which will be available to those making 60% of the median family income level.
The proposed development will touch on several mounting issues in Austin, including rising affordability concerns, low housing stock and dwindling space for Austin's creative class. Many musicians and artists have been displaced in recent years because of rising housing prices, and the pandemic further worsened things. Access to cultural spaces is one of the issues the new Austin Economic Development Corp. has been asked to address… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Beaumont plans to sue Netflix, Hulu, and Disney, alleging the companies owe Texas cities money (Houston Chronicle)
The City of Beaumont is suing Netflix, Hulu, and Disney for failure to pay franchise fees. At Tuesday’s city council meeting, the city attorney was officially authorized to file the lawsuit. The city alleges that the companies violated the 2005 Texas Video Service Providers Act, according to a public notice published last week. “The city’s desired outcome in pursuing the litigation is to recover from the VSPs damages owed to the city for failure to pay franchise fees and obtain an order requiring the VSPs to pay the franchise fees going forward,” the public notice stated. This is not a nationwide law, City Attorney Sharae Reed said. It is Texas specific, and to her knowledge, Netflix, Hulu and Disney are not paying the franchise fees to any cities in Texas.
“I’m not privileged to say what other cities are doing, but I am aware of some other cities who are in a class action lawsuit,” Reed said. “It’s each city filing their own individual lawsuits, and then we’re coming together.” All three companies are expected to vigorously oppose the charge, so the city is hoping to employ highly-skilled lawyers on the case. Beaumont intends to work with three law firms on the lawsuit — McKool Smith, P.C., Ashcroft Sutton Reyes LLC, and Korein Tillery LLC. McKool Smith was founded in 1991 and was recognized in 2020 as one of leading firms for commercial litigation by Chambers USA, the domestic branch of an international company that ranks the skill of law firms and individual lawyers. McKool Smith was also named a “Texas Powerhouse Firm” in 2019 by Law360, which authors news on the legal profession. Ashcroft Sutton Reyes was founded in 2008 by former U.S. Attorney General, Missouri Gov. and Sen. John Ashcroft. It is composed of several former high-ranking government officials who bring years of expertise in government law. They have a track record of helping governments recover billions of dollars lost to contractual breaches, tax evasion, theft, waste, fraud and abuse… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
UT Austin President Jay Hartzell defends faculty tenure after Lt. Gov. Patrick proposes to end it at all public universities (Texas Tribune)
University of Texas at Austin President Jay Hartzell said Monday that removing tenure for faculty would hurt the university’s ability to hire the best professors, countering a proposal from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick last week to eliminate tenure for new hires at all public universities in Texas.
“Removing tenure would not only cripple Texas’ ability to recruit and retain great faculty members, it would also hurt Texas students, who would not be able to stay in state knowing that they will be learning from the very best in the country,” Hartzell said in a letter to the university community. “It would also increase the risk of universities across the state making bad decisions for the wrong reasons.”
Academic tenure is the indefinite appointment for distinguished university faculty that guarantees lifetime job security and can only be terminated under extraordinary circumstances… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Mexico to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz: At least our presidential candidates accept defeat (Associated Press)
Sen. Ted Cruz has accused Mexico of “undermining the rule of law,” and Mexico’s government has shot back, saying at least candidates in Mexico concede defeat when they lose elections. The exchange came after the Texas Republican claimed earlier this week there was “deepening civil unrest in Mexico and the breakdown there of civil society, the breakdown of the rule of law.” Cruz was referring to recent killings of journalists and politicians in Mexico. In a terse open letter to Cruz late Thursday, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States wrote that Mexico’s government likewise condemns violence and is taking steps to address it, but the reality is “very different” than Cruz depicts. And, wrote Ambassador Esteban Moctezuma Barragán, “I invite you to look at what happened in our federal elections last June. All parties, with no exception, accepted the results and kept moving forward to strengthen our democracy and freedom of expression.”
That was a clear reference to Donald Trump’s ongoing insistence that the 2020 election was stolen – a claim that found no traction in dozens of state and federal courts, and which elections officials in every state debunked – and to Cruz’s own role in the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Cruz led a group of 11 GOP senators who championed Trump’s false claims of voter fraud and tried to block congressional certification of President Joe Biden’s victory. Lately Cruz has asserted that the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol that day was incited by the FBI, a conspiracy theory for which there is no evidence. Mexico’s President Andés Manuel López Obrador himself brushed off Cruz’s criticism Friday, saying “it is to be expected” given their political differences. “If he praised me, I might start thinking we weren’t doing things right,” López Obrador said. “But if he says we are wrong, well that for me is something to be proud of.” Cruz is no stranger to controversies involving Mexico… (LINK TO FULL STORY)