Author: AURA

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Land Development Code Draft 2 Release Statement

AURA is a grassroots, all-volunteer organization that advocates for an Austin that is inclusive, open to change, and welcoming to everyone.

Unfortunately, the second draft of the new Land Development Code rewrite is a significant step backward from the first. Despite council passing many important pro-housing amendments, significant resolutions and goals were either not incorporated, or rolled back entirely. Meanwhile, the current draft includes changes from the first draft that ignore or exacerbate our city’s housing crisis that are not referenced anywhere in any council directives.

In particular, we were disappointed to see the following:

The rollback of transition zones in Central and West Austin. 

We believe this is directly counter to council’s directive to increase capacity in Central and West Austin, and counter the intent of council’s May 2019 resolution to increase opportunities for everyone in these high-opportunity areas.

The effective decrease in occupancy limits.

Our interpretation of the second draft is that The Group Residential and Co-housing use definitions have changed in such a way that makes their total occupancy 1/3 of a standard by-right development.

We cannot find any council direction to suggest that occupancy limits should be decreased from the current code, much less the first draft of the rewrite.

The status quo is broken and we need to take strong confident steps forward to address our housing crisis. We believe that council can address these issues, and other discrepancies, from the dais on the second readings. We look forward to working with them to create a new code that all proponents of affordability, sustainability, and equity can proudly support.

“Given the results of the 2018 election, City Council knows they have a mandate to pass a new Land Development Code as soon as possible. We encourage them to continue to listen to the truly progressive voices that elected them and deliver a code that meaningfully increases the supply and diversity of housing, particularly in central Austin.”

Kevin McLaughlin, Chair AURA Land Use Committee

Contact:
Kevin McLaughlin, Chair AURA Land Use Committee
+1 817-312-6800
kevin.mclaughlin70@gmail.com

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What Would Obama Think of Austin’s Land Development Code?

“We can work together to break down rules that stand in the way of building new housing and that keep families from moving to growing, dynamic cities.”

— President Obama, remarks to the U.S. Conference of Mayors,
January 21, 2016

In 2016 the Obama Administration released its Housing Development Toolkit to help address the “local barriers to housing development [that] have intensified, particularly in the high-growth metropolitan areas increasingly fueling the national economy”. 

The toolkit lists several actions communities can take to help cities:

  1. “protect homeowners and home values while maintaining housing affordability”
  2. “reduce commute times, and increase use of public transit, biking and walking”
  3. “reduce economic and racial segregation”
  4. “[reduce] greenhouse gas emissions”

Needless to say, Austin is one such “high-growth” metropolitan area, where “housing production has not been able to keep up with demand”, thus “exacerbating the housing affordability crisis.”

That affordability crisis along with protecting the environment and decreasing traffic are the main reasons that our city is rewriting its Land Development Code. Below we list the recommendations from the Obama Housing Toolkit and how they are implemented, or not, in Austin’s proposed Land Development Code.

“In more and more regions across the country, local and neighborhood leaders have said yes, in our backyard, we need to break down the rules that stand in the way of building new housing – because we want new development to replace vacant lots and rundown zombie properties, we want our children to be able to afford their first home, we want hardworking families to be able to take the next job on their ladder of opportunity, and we want our community to be part of the solution in reducing income inequality and growing the economy nationwide.”

From Obama’s ToolkitIn Austin’s Code Rewrite
Establish by-right development
“by-right” development allows projects to be approved administratively when proposals meet local zoning requirements. Such streamlining allows for greater certainty and more efficient development and, depending on a locality’s regulatory approach, supports lessening of barriers from density limits and other zoning requirements.		The new code allows more by-right development in almost every part of Austin, be it multi-family apartments along corridors, missing middle housing (duplexes up to 10-plexes) in transition zones, or accessory dwelling units and duplexes in small-scale residential lots. 
Streamline or shorten permitting processes and timelines 
Permitting processes can introduce yet another source of cost and uncertainty in the effort to increase housing supply through production. Unnecessarily lengthy permitting processes restrict long-run housing supply responsiveness to demand.		The new code streamlines the patchwork of regulations that make up our current code into a simpler, more unified code.
  Eliminate off-street parking requirements
Parking requirements generally impose an undue burden on housing development, particularly for transit-oriented or affordable housing… By reducing parking and designing more connected, walkable developments, cities can reduce pollution, traffic congestion and improve economic development.		The new code reduces or eliminates minimum parking requirements along major corridors defined in the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan and the Imagine Austin comprehensive plan.
Enact high-density and multifamily zoning
Local zoning code changes that allow for the development of higher-density and multifamily housing, especially in transit zones, can help to alleviate some of the pressure of the growing population in many city centers.		The new code allows for denser multi-family apartments along major corridors, and “missing-middle” homes like 4-plexes and townhomes in “transition zones” near corridors.
Allow accessory dwelling units
Accessory dwelling units can expand the available rental housing stock in areas zoned largely for single-family housing and can address the needs of families pulled between caring for their children and their aging parents.		The new code allows for Accessory dwelling units (garage units, granny-flats, etc) in almost all areas of Austin.
Establish density bonuses
Density bonuses encourage housing development and incentivize the addition of affordable housing units by granting projects in which the developer includes a certain number of affordable housing units the ability to construct a greater number of market rate units than would otherwise be allowed.		The new code includes density bonus programs that incentivize the addition of Affordable units everywhere in Austin.

The following recommendations are either not allowed under Texas State Law (2, 8, 9), or would be enacted separately from the land development code rewrite:

2. (Tax vacant land or donate it to non-profit developers)
8. (Employ inclusionary zoning)
9. (Establish development tax or value capture incentives)
10. (Use property tax abatements)

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Land Development Code Draft 1 Takeaways

On October 5th, the day after the release of the first draft of the Land Development Code, over 50 AURA members and allies met to read through the code and provided code-level comments. 

You can see all of those comments, organized by categories and tag on our website here. 

We’ve also created an annotated PDF version of the code with the same comments inline here.

Finally, you’ll find both a summary and the details of the criteria for each zone here.

Note: the website and PDF comments are interlinked so you can click on a page number on the website to open the comment in the PDF or click on the footnote in the PDF to open the comment on the website.

Below is a summary of our most important findings. We look forward to working with staff and the City Council going forward to create a pass the best possible code we can so we can make Austin more affordable, environmentally sustainable, with opportunities that are open to everyone.

The Good and Great

We’re excited to see zoning for mid-scale residential housing like 4-plexes and 8-plexes near Enfield, 45th, and elsewhere in West and central Austin. These are high opportunity areas with short commute times to downtown and other job centers that have been excluded from more affordable housing development for too long. Council’s direction called for wider transition zones in areas like these that are not vulnerable to displacement, and we’re happy to see that reflected on the map.

We’re excited that the proposed code text would generally make ADUs easier to build in more places and in more ways. As discussed in the Obama administration’s Housing Development Toolkit, ADUs help remedy a number of housing needs including providing more affordable housing in every neighborhood, providing tax relief through rentals options, and helping “address the needs of families pulled between caring for their children and their aging parents, a demographic that has been growing rapidly in recent years”. Allowing ADUs in almost all of Austin will fulfill the council’s goal of adding all kinds of homes, for all kinds of people, in all parts of town.

We’re excited that duplexes are allowed to be larger than single-family homes in Residential House-Scale zones (because duplexes are allowed more floor area ratio [FAR]). This will provide a much-needed incentive to build more homes instead of just larger ones. Under the current code, even on lots where two units are allowed, too often we see demolitions result in only a larger single-family home being built instead of two homes. The increased FAR for duplexes will help mitigate that.

Strong Potential

Limited Site Plans are a great idea, but their usefulness will come down to the details. More work and more reform may be needed to make Missing Middle projects easier to build.

We’re hopeful for the preservation bonus — we love the idea in principle. We’re eager to see testing to evaluate its feasibility on the ground.

Needs to Change

Minimum lot sizes in Residential House-Scale zones are reduced slightly, but still enormous at 5,000 square feet. AURA has long called for eliminating minimum lot sizes entirely, and we will continue to do so. It is crucially important that we at least reduce them by half or more in this revision if we want to become a more affordable and equitable city.

Minimum lot sizes serve no other function than to make neighborhoods more expensive (See The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein). They are big a reason why Austin is among the most segregated city in America by race and income. 
Council direction to staff recommended reducing minimum lot sizes “to achieve the goals elsewhere in this document”. While the current draft nominally follows this guidance, it is our firm belief that it needs to taken significantly farther.

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Land Development Code Draft Release Statement

AURA is a grassroots, all-volunteer organization that advocates for an Austin that is inclusive, open to change, and welcoming to everyone.

The first draft of the new Land Development Code is a solid step in the right direction. While any new policy of such complexity and magnitude is bound to have issues, we believe that the first draft demonstrates the city’s commitment to making a more affordable and environmentally sustainable Austin with opportunities that are open to everyone.

In particular, we were pleased to see the following:

  1. The draft allows for far more accessory dwelling units (ADUs) than the current code. ADUs are critical to creating more market-rate and affordable housing in every neighborhood in Austin.
  2. The draft eliminates or reduces parking minimums near many central corridors, demonstrating the city’s commitment to shifting from car-focused transportation to a truly viable public transit system.
  3. While far from perfect, the transition zones will begin to allow for more dense, mixed-use, and transit-supportive housing within a ten-minute walk of major corridors.

Overall, we look forward to working with staff and council over the coming months to turn this draft into the best possible code it can be so our city can become more affordable, environmentally sustainable, and create more opportunities that are open to everyone.

“Given the results of the 2018 election, City Council knows they have a mandate to pass a new Land Development Code as soon as possible. We encourage them to continue to listen to the truly progressive voices that elected them and deliver a code that meaningfully increases the supply and diversity of housing, particularly in central Austin.”

Kevin McLaughlin, Chair AURA Land Use Committee
Contact:
Kevin McLaughlin, Chair AURA Land Use Committee
+1 817-312-6800
kevin.mclaughlin70@gmail.com

Note: a previous version of this release suggested that daycares would not be allowed in all Austin neighborhoods. They are, in fact, allowed in every zone.

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Intro to Austin’s Land Development Code

A brief introduction to Austin’s Land Development Code rewrite.

What is it?

Our land development code is the city’s rules for what we’re allowed to build – apartments, duplexes, restaurants, and offices – where we’re allowed to build them, and how much we’re allowed to build.

The current land development code, ie the rules we’re operating under today, was written in 1984. Alot has changed about Austin since then so the city is rewriting the code to do a better job guiding growth and development.

Why is it important?

First and foremost, the code will determine how much housing we can build in Austin, which determines how many people can affordably live in Austin.

Second, the types of homes we build and where we build them determine where and how people in Austin live. For example, if we can build more apartments in central Austin, then more people can live in central Austin with fast and affordable access to job centers like downtown. 

When is it happening?

City staff will release a draft of the code on October 4th. This is only a draft and will not take effect until City Council votes to approve the code, which will likely happen between January and March of 2020.

You can see the full timeline here.

What do we want?

Simply stated we want a land development code that lets us build more types of housing throughout Austin and particularly in central Austin where many people want to live, so our city can become affordable, environmentally sustainable, and full of opportunities for everyone.

Want to learn more?

News outlets

Official documents

If you like to get involved, joins us at one of our events or shoot us an email at info@aura-atx.org.

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Micromobility Fees Open Letter to Council

Mayor Adler, Mayor Pro Tem Garza, and City Council,

We write today to urge you to adjust the proposed per-ride fee for micromobility vehicles down considerably from the $0.40 proposed by staff to somewhere in the range of $0.10 to $0.15.

This matter is exceedingly small on the scale of the city budget: at approximately 2.5 million rides per year, a $0.40 fee would bring in $1m — a good budget for some things, but nowhere near enough to make a significant difference compared to the size of the need for safe micromobility infrastructure. And yet, by making Austin one of or perhaps even the single most expensive city to run a micromobility fleet in the entire world, this sum threatens to do great harm to the availability of micromobility for Austin’s citizens. This is counter to Austin’s goals to move to more climate-friendly transportation modes like micromobility.

Urban transportation is not an optimal public revenue stream. Public transportation is subsidized through tax funds, both bond funds for capital budgets and sales tax for operational budgets. Private transportation via cars is dependent on massive expenditures at every level of government to pay for highways, county roads, city roads, traffic signals, and the staff to maintain, optimize, clean, and police them. 

Newer, cleaner modes of transportation are subsidized even more. The city of Austin grants drivers of electric vehicles not only all the benefits that it offers other owners of private automobiles, but additionally city-paid charging infrastructure, preferential treatment for buildings that install their own charging infrastructure, and thousands of dollars for each driver who purchases such a vehicle. These are the kinds of things a city does when it wants to nurture and grow a method of transportation.

And yet, this budget contemplates taxing micromobility users at a rate considerably higher than the general sales tax rate. Many studies have found that micromobility uses are often in direct competition with TNC companies for rides. This tax threatens to shift the balance between cars, scooters and bikes, back to cars, both directly by making scooters and e-bikes more expensive and indirectly, by reducing scooter and e-bike availability.

This mode of transportation remains young and vulnerable. If, over time, we are able to prove out that $0.10 or $0.15 is not too much to stop mode shift, we will have years ahead of us to adjust our rates. But $0.40 today is the sort of measure that could scale the industry back in Austin considerably.

Micromobility fleets are indeed a goose that lays golden eggs for the city. But the golden eggs they lay are not about dollars, but about achieving the city’s policy goals of mode shift and reducing our carbon footprint. More and more Austinites are beginning to see safe, all-ages bike lanes as being something for “us” and not just for “them.”  Please nurture and grow this mode of transportation. 

Thank you,

AURA Board of Directors

Nina Rinaldi

Cesar Acosta

Brennan Griffin

Timothy Bray

Caroline Bailey

Samuel Franco

Eric Goff

Kevin McLaughlin

Kelan Robinson

Josiah Stevenson

Liza Wimberley

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Rewriting The Land Development Code

As we write a new land development code we are not merely choosing which buildings we’re allowed to build and where we’re allowed to build them. We are making a choice about what kind of city we want Austin to be. Do we want to be a city that looks backward to an imagined golden past, while becoming increasingly more expensive, environmentally destructive, and exclusionary? Or do we want to be a city that looks forward to a better future? One that’s affordable, environmentally sustainable, and full of opportunities for everyone?

In this past year’s election, Austin’s voters firmly resolved on the latter. Therefore, to create an affordable and sustainable Austin with opportunities for everyone, this council must pass a land development code that supports our values by allowing and actively encouraging abundant, transit-oriented housing with walkable access to community needs everywhere in the city and especially in the urban core.

First, for housing costs to go down, we must build enough housing not only to meet current demand but also to meet any future demand.  Over the next ten years, 635,000 new people will move to the Austin Metro region, while 128,000 new Austinites will be born here. To make sure all of these people have somewhere to live, we will need to build over 300,000 additional homes. And if we want housing costs to go down, we’ll need to build even more.

Next, unless we want to force all of these people to constantly drive on I-35 or Mopac, we must build the majority of this new housing compactly in the urban core. Today an average metro-resident travels over 180 miles in their car every week, which is why transportation causes 36% of Austin’s 13.5 metric tons of CO2 emissions. To reduce these numbers and prevent paving over the Hill Country and the consequent flooding and water quality concerns, we must create new public transit options. However, for any new mobility plan to work, we must build far more new housing in core neighborhoods and along major transit corridors.

Finally, to build integrated, diverse, complete and accessible communities with opportunities that are open to everyone, we must build a variety of housing, amenities, and businesses for everyone in every neighborhood in Austin. Today Austinites have to travel all over the city to drop off their children at daycare centers and schools, to shop for groceries, and to take care of elderly parents, all on top of driving just to get to work. To lessen these burdens we must build essential services within neighborhoods where people can easily walk to them.

To support these values and achieve these ends, AURA proposes that the three policies set out below must be adopted in our new land development code.

First, we must allow missing middle housing such as six-plexes, row homes, townhomes, and accessory dwelling units by-right everywhere in Austin. As we allow more missing middle housing, we divide the cost of land between more people. That, in turn, lets more people, and especially families, live in Central Austin and enjoy the walkable access to transit, small businesses, jobs, opportunities, and communities that come with that.

Furthermore, development under the current code has restricted the potential for truly affordable units in the urban core and has pushed new market-rate housing into areas the city has traditionally neglected, putting disproportionate pressure on Austin’s poorest residents and communities of color in particular. To combat the displacement resulting from our current code, we need to open up the urban core, and west Austin in particular, to far more market-rate and Affordable housing. Missing middle housing provides the best way to do that.

Second, we must design transition zones that allow for dense, mixed-use, and transit-supportive housing within a ten-minute walk of major corridors. The only way to reduce traffic and CO2 emissions is to get people out of their cars and onto bikes, scooters, buses, and trains or walking – whether that’s for getting to work, taking care of children and elderly parents, or running errands. But people cannot bike, scoot, or walk from Round Rock to downtown Austin. Nor can buses or trains develop the ridership necessary to grow and sustain a public transit system without more people living within walking distance of transit routes.

To achieve this transit-supportive density, we must eliminate minimum parking requirements along corridors to ensure valuable corridor space is not taken up by unnecessary parking. We also either need to relax compatibility standards to allow maximum-density apartment complexes along major corridors or we need to eliminate separate compatibility standards altogether and “zone for compatibility” by mapping high-density, mixed-use zoning on corridors, moderate density within a third of a mile of corridors, and lower missing middle density for residential cores.

Third, we need to relax residential-only restrictions so essential services such as daycares, grocery stores, pharmacies, and doctors can develop within walking distance of where people live. People need convenient access to these services without having to get in a car. Relaxing residential-only zoning restrictions will also give members of different communities the opportunity to start small businesses that help their neighbors live, work, and play in their neighborhood.

Today, Austin is the most segregated city in America by both income and race. It is also one of the most car-dependent and fast becoming one of the most expensive. Our antiquated, woefully inadequate, land development code exacerbates all of these challenges.

We all love Austin despite these problems. To solve them we need a new land development code. We need a code that allows missing middle housing everywhere in Austin. We need a code that creates transit-friendly corridors in every part of Austin. And we need a code that provides complete, walkable communities with essential services in every neighborhood in Austin.

In short, we need a land development code that reflects our values of affordability, environmental sustainability, and opportunity. Only then, can we create an Austin that is truly for Everyone.

AURA Land Use Working Group
Kevin McLaughlin – Chair
Caroline Bailey
Josiah Stevenson
Liza Wimberley
Jordan McGee
Timothy Bray

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AURA Board Elections

AURA will be holding board elections at the end of February to fill five of our eleven board seats. Board members are elected by a membership vote, and any member of AURA may run for the board. To be considered for a board seat, please fill out this form by February 20, 2019.  Voting will take place from Feb 21-Feb 28, 2019. If you have any questions about what serving as a board member entails please feel free to email the current board at board@lists.aura-atx.org

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Austin Strategic Mobility Plan Response

AURA sent the letter below to the Austin Transportation Department and members of Austin City Council on January 13, 2019. 

AURA, a grassroots organization that believes in an Austin for Everyone, began its existence as a transit advocacy organization. Since then, we have released multiple reports and engaged in continual advocacy around transportation and transit issues. The Austin Strategic Mobility Plan (ASMP) will be a key document in shaping the future of Austin. As it stands, our current mobility policies have largely led to unaffordable, disconnected, unhealthy, unsafe, and environmentally destructive sprawl.  With the ASMP, especially in combination with land use reforms, we can begin charting a new course—one that includes environmental justice and greenhouse gas reductions, economic vitality, effective transit, and safer, more walkable communities everywhere.

The draft ASMP needs significant work to get to that point. There are nods to many good, if vague, policies throughout the written document, but it nowhere lays out the overarching vision and clear policy priorities that we need to get to a brighter future.  There are tradeoffs in many of the decisions that must be made about mobility: “prioritizing multimodal solutions” and a “culture of safety” are not necessarily compatible with “increasing highway person-carrying capacity,” since highways are the locus of a large percentage of our automotive-related deaths and serious injuries.  

Policies that do not aim to set clear, measurable goals, with baselines and projected improvements, are incredibly hard to evaluate. Without that guidance, and a clear hierarchy of priorities, and when there are too many general policy pronouncements, virtually any decision can point to whichever policy best justifies it. These policies will guide technical documents including new Street Design Guide and the Transportation Criteria Manual. These are critical documents that will determine street safety, development patterns, and Austin’s environmental footprint, potentially for decades. But these manuals get very little concrete direction from the policies enumerated. By contrast the Strategic Housing Blueprint identified clear goals for the production of different types of housing, and the Watershed Master Plan shows specifics of the types of watershed projects that need to occur and where. The ASMP needs to follow a similar track and provide much more clarity.

To deliver the kind of city that is mandated in Imagine Austin and countless resolutions since, the goals of the ASMP should include:

  • Clear mandates on reducing Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT) and greenhouse gases
  • Policies that prioritize safety, including clear targets of when and how Austin will accomplish its VisionZero goals.  
  • Prioritizing transit, cycling, and other low-environmental impact mobility solutions over single occupancy vehicles, including targets on improving modeshare for those alternatives.  
  • Efficiently managing parking in line with current best practices.
  • Remove all ‘crash gates’. The city must reject a handful of vocal residents to disconnect a neighborhood.
  • Initiate a Streets Master plan to identify and reconnect the traditional streets grid in addition to mapping street grids for future subdivisions.
  • Disallow subdivision approval without full connectivity.
  • The city should plan major protected bike/scooter highways that connect Downtown/UT to other parts of the city.
  • Moratorium on new traffic signals, explore small scale roundabouts instead.
  • Specific direction to reduce/eliminate parking minimums, and ideally enact parking maximums
  • Identify more east-west streets for 4->3 road diets and protected bike lanes.
  • Remove road widenings in the Barton Springs Zone. In particular, the Oak Hill parkway must be carefully planned to minimize environment impacts in this sensitive area.

With clear, ambitious, but achievable goals, the ASMP can help us on the path to a much brighter future for Austin, but that vision is currently lacking in the draft.  We hope that future drafts will begin to address these issues.

Contact:

  • Brennan Griffin, brennan.griffin@gmail.com.