Month: March 2023

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University Democrats & AURA Call on Council to Expand Student Housing

An aerial view of the University of Texas at Austin

AURA has partnered with the University Democrats at UT Austin to send a joint letter to the Mayor and City Council calling for addressing student housing costs by expanding the University Neighborhood Overlay (UNO) and increasing the supply of student housing. If your organization would like to sign onto this call to action, please email us at info@aura-atx.org.

Here’s the full text of the letter sent to Council:

Mayor Watson, Mayor Pro Tem Ellis, and City of Austin Council Members:

Students, like most Austinites, are adversely affected by our city’s lack of housing. Smart, young people across our state move to Austin to pursue higher education and participate in our vibrant culture. Once they arrive, many find that they spend an exorbitant amount of their income on housing, often having to maintain jobs on top of their academic responsibilities. Some must live far away from the campus at which they study. Housing costs are quickly becoming a huge barrier to getting an education in Austin. We pride ourselves on educating much of our state, yet our housing costs are turning away many working class students from seeking higher education, or forcing them to take on higher levels of debt. We can and should do better by this city’s college students.

In recognition of this problem, the City of Austin has created the University Neighborhood Overlay (UNO) District in the West Campus area near the University of Texas. Within UNO, developers are allowed to build more student housing as long as they also provide high-quality pedestrian infrastructure and dedicate a percentage of the units as subsidized, or Affordable.

UNO has been a great success. It has allowed tens of thousands of students to live near the UT Campus. Rents in the overlay area have increased at a slower rate than in surrounding neighborhoods. It has created one of the most walkable, bikeable, and transit supportive areas in the entire city. UNO residents have lower car ownership and use alternative transportation more than most anywhere else in the city, helping Austin reach our climate and mode share goals. It has also produced a staggering percentage of the city’s affordable housing units, despite covering such a tiny area of the city.

Despite its success, the small amount of land we have designated as being within UNO is not enough to meet the housing demands of the University of Texas population, to say nothing of the growing student populations attending other colleges throughout our city. We must extend the benefits of UNO to more of the city’s students. 

We request that the Austin City Council expand UNO to more areas that are appropriate for student housing. In particular, we suggest areas close to universities or community colleges, especially where there is already a concentration of students living but without the benefits of UNO. Examples of areas that we believe are ready for expansion of UNO include:

  • – Expanding Outer West Campus district westward to Leon Street
  • – Expanding Outer West Campus district westward to Salado below 29th and to San Pedro below that
  • – A new district bordered by Guadalupe to the West, 27th to the south, 31st to the north, and Duval to the East
  • – A new district around Red River, east of I-35, and north of Dean Keaton

Maps for the current and proposed UNO districts can be found at https://bit.ly/UNO-expansion. These zones are only meant as a starting point for discussion.

In addition, we would like the city council to look into ways to improve the existing districts to allow more students to have the advantages of UNO. An example of this might be raising height limits. 

Finally, we would urge the City Council to initiate consideration of the expansion of UNO to other areas of Austin with existing college campuses, including but not limited to St. Edward’s University, Huston-Tillotson University, and all Austin Community College campuses. This will allow us to better serve the housing needs of all higher education students in Austin and retain our excellent reputation with younger Austinites as a place to live, learn and stay.

We appreciate your prompt attention to these requests and look forward to discussing these proposals in greater detail at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

UDems
AURA

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Give Input on Bike & Transit Lanes for Downtown Transportation Plan

Cross-section of a street with bike lanes and street trees

The City of Austin is seeking input from the community on the Austin Core Transportation (ACT) Plan. The survey is open until March 31 and asks about your preferences in allocating street space in Downtown Austin for protected bike lanes and transit-priority lanes. The survey also asks for your opinion on converting one-way streets to two-way.

Survey Link: Austin Core Transportation Plan: Phase 2

Survey Guide

We believe more space downtown should be allocated to sidewalks, bike lanes, and transit-priority lanes, and this guide reflects that point of view.

Typical Street Cross-Sections

We recommend higher scores for options with more space for protected bike lanes and sidewalks.

  • Current Great Streets design (typical): 1
  • Great Streets (Pedestrian Dominant): 5
  • Potential Option 1: 5
  • Potential Option 2: 10
  • Potential Option 3: 6

Transit Street Cross-Sections

We recommend higher scores for options with more space for protected bike lanes and sidewalks.

  • Potential Transit Street Option 1: 1
  • Potential Transit Street Option 2: 5
  • Potential Transit Street Option 3: 10
  • Please tell us what you like or do not like about the transit-priority street cross-sections.
    • This one is optional, but here are some ideas for comments:
      • Like protected bike lanes in both directions
      • Dislike drive lanes wider than 10′
      • Dislike that all the transit cross sections had 3 drive lanes and none had 2 drive lanes
  • Do you support providing transit-only lanes if it would require the removal of general-purpose vehicle lanes? 5 (strongly support)

Bicycle/Micromobility Network

Ranked best to worst:

  1. Scenario 3 (complete bicycle/micromobility network coverage)
  2. Scenario 2 (balanced bicycle/micromobility network coverage)
  3. Scenario 1 (minimal changes, maintain vehicle network)
  4. Existing conditions

One-way and two-way street conversions

The survey suggests two-way streets reduce speeding and improve mobility within downtown, so we suggest a preference for two-way conversion.

  • Level of support for existing conditions: 2 (somewhat oppose)
  • Level of support for Alternative 1: 3 (no opinion)
  • Level of support for Alternative 2: 4 (somewhat support)
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Tell City Council You Support Equitable Transit-Oriented Development

On March 9, City Council will consider approving a plan to implement equitable transit-oriented development (ETOD) around current and planned transit stops in Austin. ETOD aims to give Austinites of all income levels more access to housing, jobs, transit, and other amenities, and a quality ETOD implementation is crucial to the success of public transit in Austin.

How you can help

We need to send the message to City Hall that Austinites strongly support ETOD and want to see ETOD done right. You can help by contacting City Council Members via email or phone, and you can speak at the City Council meeting on March 9 in-person or by calling in.

Contacting City Council

You can get a lot of impact by directly reaching out to your own City Council member (look up your Council District).

DistrictNamePhoneEmail
1Natasha Harper-Madison512-978-2101natasha.madison@austintexas.gov
2Vanessa Fuentes512-978-2102vanessa.fuentes@austintexas.gov
3José Velásquez512-978-2103jose.velasquez@austintexas.gov
4José “Chito” Vela512-978-2104chito.vela@austintexas.gov
5Ryan Alter512-978-2105ryan.alter@austintexas.gov
6Mackenzie Kelly512-978-2106mackenzie.kelly@austintexas.gov
7Leslie Pool512-978-2107leslie.pool@austintexas.gov
8Paige Ellis512-978-2108paige.ellis@austintexas.gov
9Zohaib “Zo” Qadri512-978-2109zo.qadri@austintexas.gov
10Alison Alter512-978-2110alison.alter@austintexas.gov
MayorKirk Watson512-978-2100kirk.watson@austintexas.gov

You can also send an email to all of City Council at once using this form.

Speaking at the Council Meeting

City Council will meet on March 9th in Austin City Hall (301 W 2nd St, Austin, TX 78701) at 10:00 AM, which is when we’ll be making comments. Before discussing agenda items, Council will take comments from the public.

You can sign up to speak using this form:

  1. Select “March 9 – Regular Council Meeting”
  2. Respond “No” to “Are you a zoning applicant or zoning applicant’s representative?”
  3. Under “Regular Meeting Agenda Item Number” select “016”
  4. Stance: For
  5. Respond “Yes” to “Do you wish to speak?”
  6. Select “in-person” or “remote” (which is via phone call)
  7. Fill in your name and contact info
  8. Filling in the topic is optional, but you can mention that you are in favor of ETOD
  9. Submit form

Online registration closes at 12 PM the day before the meeting, and you can only register for remote speaking using online registration. In-person speakers can register at City Hall using the kiosks up until 9:15 AM on the day of the meeting.

Talking Points and Tips

  • Contacting or speaking to City Council doesn’t require you to be an expert or make polished comments, just share your thoughts, preferably in your own words
  • Mention that you support agenda item 16 to approve the ETOD plan
  • Austin voters overwhelmingly approved Project Connect, which included ETOD
  • The success of Project Connect, and transit in general, depends on good ETOD
  • We need to zone for significantly more density/height and more mixed-use development within walking and biking distance of transit
  • ETOD zones should have no minimum parking requirements
  • Hitting our climate and affordability goals depends on successful transit and ETOD

You can read the full Council meeting agenda and find more details about the ETOD policy plan resolution (item 16) here.

If you have any questions, feel free to email us at info@aura-atx.org.