On December 9, 2021, the Austin City Council and Mayor Steve Adler met for their last regular meeting of the year to vote on resolutions that could help address the affordable housing issues the city is facing. Since 2018, the city has attempted to rewrite multiple times the land development code to encourage more dense development. However, all those initiatives failed to pass due to significant pushback from property owners and other community members concerned about how the zoning changes could impact their neighborhood, property, and business. The last attempt to make a change led to 19 residents filing a lawsuit against the City based on the premise that the City violated the local government code when it did not notify residents of potential zoning changes. Although the case is still pending, the city council and Mayor Adler are focused on making any possible individual changes to the code in the meanwhile.
Mayor Adler continues to stress the importance of moving forward with changing the land development code in a “piecemeal fashion.” When discussing this strategy back in June, Adler said “I think we need to do everything we can… The court case will get decided. I think it’s an important case for the courts to decide, however they go. … But in the meantime, we should figure out what are the things on the land development code that we can all agree to, and at the very least, do those.”
The council approved the following resolutions.
Change the land development code to allow residential uses in commercial zones
The council approved the resolution (item 56), initiating an amendment to City Code Title 25 to create a voluntary housing incentive program that allows residential uses in commercial zoning districts. This proposed code amendment would allow residential uses associated with corresponding affordability requirements in the commercial zones. This would allow residential uses. The zoning districts CS, CS-1, GR, LR, GO, and LO currently only allow commercial uses.
During the meeting, Council Member Harper-Madison, a strong proponent for changing the land development code, stated: “By making the rules less exclusionary we can help home builders create more housing. Until we stop treating apartment buildings as a threat to single family homes, we are not going to achieve the compact and connected city that our comprehensive plan imagines. It will be hard to support our multimillion-dollar transit investments. We’ll fall short of the housing goals that we adopted in the strategic housing blueprint.”
Remove certain restrictions on accessory dwelling units.
The council approved the resolution (item 64) that relates to policies and programs that encourage affordable housing development and preservation, and to financial opportunities and regulatory options that may encourage or facilitate the development of accessory dwellings; and initiating amendments to Title 25 (Land Development Code) relating to accessory dwellings.
Conduct a study of the overall costs of building homes in Texas and how the costs are passed down to owners and renters.
The council approved the resolution (item 62), directing the City Manager to perform an analysis of the cost of producing housing in Austin and to identify potential options for reducing this cost. The analysis will come out in December 2022, with an interim update due next May.
Although these resolutions were passed, the council is still required to gather input from stakeholder groups and city commissions before considering a final approval for the amendments.