Fifty years ago, Austinites against integrating neighborhoods worked to put up a petition on the ballot to fight housing integration. They called Austin’s Fair Housing Initiative “Forced Housing.” IndyAustin and its allies are fighting the same fight—they want to freeze Austin’s neighborhoods in amber and forbid more homes west of I-35 in Central Austin, thus accelerating the rapid change and displacement happening in the East. In their attempt to block adoption of CodeNEXT, Austin’s new land development code, they hope to maintain our unaffordable, segregated status quo.
By taking money from Big Billboard to fight against a future for Austin, IndyAustin has shown their true nature: opposition to economic integration. AURA continues its call for an Austin for Everyone, and that means planning our city so that as many people as want to live in a neighborhood can afford to.
IndyAustin’s petition isn’t just bad for Austin, though: It’s a fraud. The fraudulent petition is illegal under state law, which doesn’t allow for ballot initiatives on this type of zoning matter. Any lawyer worth his salt would know what the Texas Local Government Code § 211.015 says on the matter, or at least do some research.
AURA looks forward to the rejection of this invalid, illegal, and fraudulent petition by the City Council. If for some reason a ballot initiative gets to voters anyway, we hope Austinites embrace the future, continue to be a welcoming city, and bury this effort in our exclusionary past. Their fraudulent petition misled Austinites and was an intentional distraction from the real issues of sustainable and affordable growth.
Capital Metro has bids out for 16 infill stations on the MetroRapid 801 and 803 lines. We’re excited! The stop spacing on the MetroRapid lines has been too far apart. In AURA’s Connections 2025 position statement we called for standard stop spacing every quarter mile. We were encouraged to see additional stops proposed.
However, also in that response, we asked that the stations be brought online as quickly as possible. Riders should not have to wait on construction of expensive “branded” stations. The current stations are difficult to implement due to the need for electrical connections to power their countdown clocks and wireless internet. While these are great amenities, we would rather have the infill stops implemented quickly.
Unfortunately, on and off the MetroRapid lines, Capital Metro has a poor track record of building bus stations that do not protect riders from the elements. The MetroRapid stations were created out of a special design process, but are particularly bad when it comes to shielding from sun or rain—worse than the stations on the regular bus lines.
In 2016, we published our Transit City report, which outlined AURA’s vision for transit in Austin. One of Transit City’s calls for immediate in the action was improved bus stations:
Build generous stations similar to those at Houston’s MetroRail and Dallas’s DART rail platforms at Austin’s busiest bus hubs like the 4th Street/Republic Square and West Mall stops by 2017. They should be sufficiently long and wide to comfortably provide shelter to all riders at peak times. Substantially increase the number of stops with basic shelters throughout the city. The design of these shelters must prioritize effectively shielding riders from sun and rain at a reasonable cost so that as many as possible can be built.
Last year, when we evaluated Capital Metro’s progress toward the Transit City goals, we found that bus shelters were an area that could still use improvement:
Capital Metro has a new, cheaper design for bus shelters, which will enable the agency to deploy them at many more stops. Unfortunately, these new shelters still do not consistently provide shade or protection for the elements. AURA calls for CapMetro to find a shelter design that can be widely implemented and actually provide basic shelter.
Unfortunately, the bid documents for the MetroRapid infill stations demonstrate that Capital Metro will be using the same “branded” MetroRapid station design for the new stations. These stations are expensive and difficult to construct, meaning riders will have to wait longer for badly needed additional stations. Furthermore, they provide little to no protections from the elements. Riders would be better served if Capital Metro could move to a simpler station design that could be implemented quickly, while providing better shelter.
2018 NEED: $300 MILLION IN NEW AFFORDABLE HOUSING BOND FUNDS
AURA advocates for an Austin for Everyone. That means an Austin where everyone can afford housing that works for their families. While we believe that market rate construction is a key component of ensuring people can have a place to live that does not leave them cost-burdened, we are realistic. We know that no matter how much private development we allow, not everyone can afford market rate for their home, and “capital A” Affordable housing is critical to providing a city that welcomes all. With the 2018 bond, we have the opportunity to live our values as a city. To truly be an inclusive city, we need to make sure we build enough housing so that longtime residents and newcomers alike have a place to live. The market won’t build enough on its own; we need public investment to ensure homes for people from all income levels.
AUSTIN’S STRATEGIC HOUSING BLUEPRINT
The Austin Strategic Housing Blueprint (ASHB), adopted by city council in 2017, identifies the following needs to be paid for in part by local funds:
45,000 new homes affordable to people making below 60% of median income—20,000 for those making up to 30% median income and 25,000 for those between 30 and 60% median income. In 2017, that covered the range of people making effectively no income up to a family of four making $48,850.
The ASHB found that there was a gap of 48,000 homes affordable to those making below $25,000 per year.
Over $6 billion in need for affordable housing funding was identified. Not all of this amount can or should come from bonds, but the demand for affordable housing funds is enormous, and will likely grow as Austin grows.
PAST BOND PERFORMANCE
Austin voters approved a $65 Million affordable housing bond in 2013. It is expected to be entirely spent before the end of 2019.
Midway through the bond cycle, each unit of affordable housing developed with the help of local bond funds cost an average of $38,000. These funds were matched 7:1 by a mix of federal and other funds.
Housing was provided for a wide range of populations—from people transitioning out of homelessness with very little income, to families of four making closer to 60% of median income.
FUTURE NEED
The recent US tax “reform” efforts are expected to cause a 14% decline in funds for the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, which helps finance 90% of affordable housing developments nationwide.
Proposed budgets from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development gut other affordable housing programs.
Over the next 4 years, prospects for continued federal funding of affordable housing are dim. Austinites must be willing to help make up the difference if we want to continue ensuring that low-income people can stay in the city.
Austin should “go big” and ensure that the 2018 City of Austin bond program this year has a sizeable component for Affordable Housing to ensure that we remain a welcoming place for people of all income levels. We call on City Council to present a bond to voters including $300 million in new affordable housing funds.
AURA supports Proposition B: Parks and Conservation Easements.
As seen in the bond project list, too much funding in Proposition A goes to expand sprawl-serving roads and travel infrastructure. Despite the inclusion of some bicycle projects, Proposition A mostly subsidizes sprawl. In contrast, Proposition B includes parkland dedication and conservation easements outside the city limits as a way to preserve green space and make sprawl that much more difficult.
More information on the bonds is available at the Travis County bond website.
AURA is a grassroots urbanist organization focused on building an Austin for everyone by improving land use and transportation through policy analysis, public involvement, and political engagement.
Over the last two years, AURA members have advocated a bold, visionary overhaul of Austin’s land use rules that would create a more environmentally friendly, livable, and affordable city.
The release of the CodeNEXT Draft 2 last weekend made clear that consultants and staff are unwilling to rise to the task of making meaningful strides toward AURA’s goals. Both drafts leave in place most of the barriers to abundant housing that have been driving up rents and accelerating displacement. Continuing this broken status quo is not acceptable.
AURA demands a CodeNEXT that provides the following measurable improvements in affordability, alternative transportation use, and environmental quality:
We need a code that makes Austin more affordable by encouraging the construction of new housing stock in the central city where people want to live. In particular, we need a code that will create the conditions to actually add at least 150,000 new homes on the ground in Austin’s city council District 9 within ten years, in addition to new housing elsewhere in the city. Actual construction is different from “zoning capacity”—building 150,000 new units will require entitlements for half a million.
We need a code that makes Austin more affordable by adding a significant amount of “missing middle” housing—triplexes, fourplexes, sixplexes, and row homes—the cheapest housing to build: at least 40% of the new units added under the new code must be missing middle housing, not counting ADUs.
We need a code that makes Austin more affordable by affirmatively furthering Fair Housing: at least 75% of the land area in every urban core neighborhood must be eligible for a realistic affordable housing density bonus, as called for in the 2016 fair housing resolution.
We need a code that gets people out of their cars and into alternative modes of transportation that alleviate Austin’s gridlock and reduce carbon emissions: the number of Austinites getting to work some other way than driving alone mustdouble from 25% to 50% within ten years as a result of land use reform under the new code according to realistic, credible forecasts. We need zoning that takes the share of solo trips by car below 50%.
We need a code that minimizes impervious cover at the metro area level: CodeNEXT should minimize our geographic footprint by encouraging housing in places and forms that use less impervious cover per person in order to mitigate flood risk and improve water quality.
CodeNEXT Draft 2.0 makes some incremental progress toward these goals:
It allows construction of ADUs in more places
It allows residential uses in commercial zones
Despite these improvements, the draft still falls short on the AURA goals enumerated above. To wit:
By City consultant firm Fregonese’s own admission, the new drafts adds only 19,481 new housing units in District 9— and that’s capacity, not a true forecast.
That District 9 number is far less than the 32,231 projected net new units in District 1. This allocation of housing capacity continues pushing development out of Central Austin into the East Side.
Only 18% of the projected new units under Draft 2—again by Fregonese’s own admission—are in missing middle housing. For the most part, missing middle will still be missing if nothing changes from here. That’s a small improvement over the status quo, but it is not the bold reform we need.
From the Affordable Housing Bonus Program maps we’ve seen, it appears essentially zero neighborhoods will be even 50% density bonus eligible. Even with improvements that extend the density bonus program to more places, eligible land is still a tiny portion of most neighborhoods and completely unavailable in our most common zones.
We have not seen numbers on mode shift, but it strains credulity to believe that the draft’s mere tinkering around the edges of the status quo will produce the car-independence we need.
The broken system of lot-level impervious cover percentages, which has resulted in the paving of tens of thousands of acres of hill country, forest, and prairie in and around Austin, remains in place. This approach has long been recognized as counterproductive by the EPA. We need smarter, more holistic approaches.
Cities are growing, dynamic entities. If we do it right, CodeNEXT can give Austin the tools it desperately needs to allow our neighborhoods to provide enough homes for the next generation. Providing enough homes will require change—a meaningful departure from the broken status quo that has created the housing shortage that is devastating our community with high rents and rapid displacement all over Austin. AURA calls on our City staff, consultants, and leaders at the Planning Commission and City Council to show courageous leadership and use CodeNEXT to create an Austin for Everyone.
One year ago this week, AURA released its Transit Vision for the city of Austin. It recommended a set of small, incremental improvements that collectively would have a greater effect than a multibillion rail line or set of rail lines. For transit, we recommended frequent bus routes and transit priority rather than a single magic bullet. We recommended disincentivizing parking and driving to work by reducing parking minimums across the city, enacting parking maximums in downtown, and creating cash-out programs at major employers instead of free parking. Other steps like finishing the sidewalk and bike network, increasing connectivity, and allowing more housing near transit corridors set up an urban space where walking, biking, and using transit is encouraged rather than discouraged. AURA still believes that these steps are critical to enabling a more multimodal transportation system. The rest of this post steps back from the day-to-day grind of transportation planning in Austin to evaluate how the major transportation agents have achieved or not achieved these goals.
CAPMETRO: GRADE: A-
Capital Metro, for all its problems, has been the most successful at implementing the transit vision.
STEP: IMPLEMENT A FREQUENT NETWORK:
Most critically, In March 2017, the CapMetro board approved the framework for Connections 2025, a long-range plan that will create a network of frequent routes across the city. This is a very encouraging step that will go a long way to providing improved bus service for CapMetro’s customers. Although there were concerns that some riders would lose access to their current jobs, a joint analysis by AURA and Farm & City showed that the new network would provide frequent access to transit and, with it, greater economic opportunity to 10,000 low-income households. AURA urges CapMetro to implement Connections 2025 as quickly as possible.
STEP: FARE PARITY BETWEEN METRORAPID AND LOCAL ROUTES:
In January, Capital Metro eliminated the fare differential between the MetroRapid routes and its local routes. The higher fare for MetroRapid had long created a two-tier system where wealthier riders could choose a better service. This step has already caused ridership to increase on the MetroRapid corridors. Some riders are switching from the locals to the MetroRapid, but the change has likely attracted new bus riders as well.
STEP: IMPROVE BUS SHELTERS
Currently, far too many bus shelters in Austin are totally bare bones with no shade or even no bench. This makes them practically unusable in the hot summer months, as well as unwelcoming to those with mobility challenges who cannot stand for long periods of time. Capital Metro has a new, cheaper design for bus shelters, which will enable the agency to deploy them at many more stops. Unfortunately, these new shelters still do not consistently provide shade or protection for the elements. AURA calls for CapMetro to find a shelter design that can be widely implemented and actually provide basic shelter.
FOR 2017-2018
Going forward, Capital Metro’s major initiative right now is Project Connect 2.0, which is concluding its first phase in June. The first phase recommended 16 different corridors for future study, including 3 commuter routes, 10 “connectors” on major arteries through the city, and 2 downtown circulators. AURA is concerned that the process may end up committing too many limited transit dollars to low-value suburban commuter projects, but we are also encouraged by the inclusion and high scores of many high ridership bus corridors, especially the strong result for the Lamar-Guadalupe connector corridor.
CITY OF AUSTIN: GRADE C-
The city of Austin has made halting steps towards a more multimodal city, but they let themselves be hamstrung by forces that would maintain a suburban status quo.
STEP: FULLY FUND THE BICYCLE MASTER PLAN AND HIGH PRIORITY SIDEWALKS
The city of Austin half-accomplished this step with the Go Big Mobility Bond, passed by voters in November 2016. That bond commits $137 of its $720 million to local mobility projects, mostly sidewalks, urban trails and bike lanes. It is true, as the mayor says, that this is the largest investment the city has ever made in active transportation. Unfortunately, it is still woefully inadequate, since it allocates only a quarter of the estimated $400 million to implement the bike plan and high priority sidewalks. It is also peanuts compared to regional highway funding: the US 183-A expansion will cost $650 million; the cost overrun alone on the MoPAC express lanes was $200 million.
The largest part of the mobility bond is reserved for the corridor plans: seven existing plans for major roads in the Austin area. The city is still determining which projects identified in the corridor plans it will fund, and those decisions will determine whether this effort is a success for transit or not. Projects range from excellent—like the transit priority lanes on Guadalupe, to the misguided—like bus pullouts on major corridors, to the disastrous—like the $110 million plan to widen and speed up FM 969 east of 183, creating yet another sprawl accelerator to the periphery of the city. The ultimate success of the mobility bond will depend on the city choosing projects wisely.
STEP: ALLOW AND PROMOTE ABUNDANT HOUSING NEAR EXISTING TRANSIT.
The major driver here is Austin’s land development code, currently being rewritten as CodeNEXT. The goal of CodeNEXT was to enact the Imagine Austin plan and “promote a more compact and connected city” by enabling more missing middle housing in the urban core and upzoning the corridors identified for future density. At these tasks, it has thus far failed completely. The new code is more complex than the current code, does not enable abundant housing, and may in fact make it more difficult to build small-scale infill housing. Inexplicably, the new zoning map largely replicates our existing housing map rather than supporting Imagine Austin’s mandate and goals.
Absent substantial changes between the current draft and the final product, the timidity of the CodeNEXT result ensures that Austin’s most desirable, most transit-friendly neighborhoods will fail to provide housing sufficient to meet demand and will persist as low density enclaves for the wealthy. Scarce and unaffordable housing in the central city will also continue to drive young families to the suburbs, where transit options are limited and driving is required for almost every trip.
STEP: TRANSIT PRIORITY
Transit priority is arguably the single most important thing Austin can do to help Capital Metro provide effective bus service. The city has made some strides here, with some signals getting transit priority treatments, but there are many lost opportunities and very little political will to enact change.
Center for Transportation Research study table showing Scenario 1 – with a transit lane in each direction on Guadalupe – reducing travel times
The Guadalupe corridor is illustrative. The city started a study of the Guadalupe Corridor, i.e. the Drag, in 2014. Almost all of Austin’s major bus routes use this corridor, where they get caught in significant traffic going past the University. An AURA study showed that at rush hour there are nearly as many travellers riding buses as in cars, despite the buses taking up a tenth of the space. In Spring 2015, modeling from the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Texas showed that implementing transit priority lanes on Guadalupe would accelerate buses and cars (see table above). In 2016, the City’s draft corridor report recommended transit lanes.
The case could not be clearer. And yet, at a recent urban transportation committee (UTC) meeting, Austin Transportation Department’s director for strategic planning refused to commit to transit priority on Guadalupe, awaiting the results of the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan (ASMP). While it is good to have a strategic mobility plan, and AURA has provided feedback on transit priority in the ASMP, transit priority lanes, especially in a corridor where they are as badly needed as they are on Guadalupe, should not have to wait four years and multiple planning cycles for implementation.
OTHER STEPS: CONNECTIVITY, CASH-OUTS, PARKING REQUIREMENTS
AURA recommended several other steps to reduce car dependency and promote alternative modes of transportation, like increasing grid connectivity, giving an option for employees to take cash instead of a free parking spot, and reducing requirements for parking at new developments across the city. The city of Austin has made halting progress in these areas. Connectivity is a part of the Mobility Strategic Plan. The city does not have a cash-out for parking program yet, but it has started offering paid time off for employees who don’t drive every day. Unfortunately, parking minimums have not been reduced. The minimum number of parking spots required has been slightly decreased for some uses in the draft version of CodeNEXT, but they remain untouched or even increased in other areas of the proposed code. In particular, AURA is concerned about the persistent high levels of parking required for bars and cocktail lounges, which is just an invitation for people to drive to alcohol, and then to drive home drunk. The city needs to seriously consider the effect requiring so much parking has on our city, and the behavior of its citizens.
FOR 2017-2018:
In the next year Austin will finish its strategic mobility plan and its new land use development code. These major projects must make serious commitments to transit priority on our streets and more housing in our neighborhoods. It may be unpopular with some, but it is the only step forward to make a multimodal city.
OTHER REGIONAL PARTNERS: GRADE F
TxDOT, CTRMA, and CAMPO continue to pay lip service to alternative modes of transportation while greenlighting and building major highway projects all over the city, spending billions of dollars to swallow more land for cars.
Even these organizations’ meager efforts towards multimodality are undone by the harm their highways do. CTRMA is committing to build park-n-rides connected to the city of Austin by express bus lines. But park-n-rides are not an effective way to get people out of their cars. To move even 100 commuters a day requires a parking lot an acre in size. To make a substantial dent in the percentage of single occupant vehicle commuters, then, would require paving over 10 or 20 square miles, or building expensive multi-story garages, neither of which is cost-effective.
These organizations aren’t even succeeding at providing decent car mobility because of induced demand, the phenomenon by which new highway capacity is rapidly absorbed by new highway drivers, resulting in even more congestion than before the capacity was built. An example in Austin is 183-A, a toll road built to the rapidly growing suburbs of Cedar Park and Leander. 183-A was one of CTRMA’s first highway projects; it opened as an empty, brand new road in 2007. Less than ten years later CTRMA has proposed building two express lanes at a cost of $650 million, equivalent to funding both Austin’s bicycle plan and the high priority sidewalks. CAMPO, the agency in charge of responsible transportation in the Austin area, was not consulted.
183-A also directly competes against CapMetro’s Red Line to Leander, crippling its effectiveness.
FOR 2017-2018:
As they look to the future, these agencies must admit that geometry is against them. They cannot provide enough highway capacity to satisfy the demand their highways will generate, nor can they build enough parking lots to accommodate meaningful transit commuters. Instead of paying lip service to transit, they must make meaningful commitments. For instance, rather than build highways that compete with commuter transit, CTRMA could fund the operating costs of Express Buses or the Red Line.
CONCLUSION
A year after its publication AURA’s transit vision still charts necessary and important steps to creating a city where alternatives to a car dependent lifestyle are more widely accessible. Some of these steps will require hard choices that disrupt Austin’s status quo of a city built for cars. But they are desperately needed as we seek to become a more sustainable city. The region and the planet simply cannot keep up with a vicious cycle of suburban housing leading to highways, feeding even more suburban sprawl, leading to more highways. Some progress has been made in the last year, but the focus for 2017-2018 for the city and its regional partners must be to really commit to a future where transit is viable.
Mayor Adler was right: the maps are wrong. “The CodeNEXT maps revealed yesterday are so deeply flawed that further tinkering block by block around the edges of a few neighborhoods and corridors will not be enough to enable CodeNext to meaningfully address Austin’s worsening affordability, mobility, environmental, and segregation problems,” said Josiah Stevenson, a member of AURA’s Working Group on CodeNEXT.
AURA members, along with many other community advocates and Austin taxpayers, are in disbelief that the City of Austin spent $6 million and over two years only to maintain the status quo. The nominal differences between current and future land maps are a slap in the face to the Austinites who have spent hundreds of volunteer hours in the hopes of improving our city.
The draft maps fall far short of AURA’s CodeNEXT and Mapping Expectations. AURA believes that we need at least urban neighborhood zoning (T4) throughout the entire urban core, and for that zoning to unequivocally allow missing middle housing types. Among the biggest problems with the maps:
There is not enough increased housing capacity in Central and West Austin to offset the inequitable housing pressures on East Austin. We must recognize that our current land use code has been a major catalyst for gentrification and displacement. Failing to address this inequity will only further segregation.
Allowable density is actually decreased in some areas of the central city compared to what is allowed under today’s regulations! For example, some homeowners who were previously allowed to construct ADUs now cannot. Some apartments have been mapped out of compliance. Heights and zoning capacity in many single family zoned areas are even further restricted. We should not be moving backwards.
Missing middle housing is still missing from most central city neighborhoods. Rowhouses in particular are only allowed right along major arteries. We must remove barriers to constructing the new missing middle building types in the draft code text and zone more areas with the transect zones that allow them. A moderate density zone that would include rowhouses and other medium density building types was added to the toolbox on Tuesday—put it on the map!
There are too many missed opportunities to allow living space to be built along major corridors (Airport, South 1st, etc), where density is needed to increase public transit ridership and reduce sprawl. Consultants, staff and Austin’s political leadership must optimize CodeNEXT for more and better transportation options, paying special attention to potential transit ridership and transit corridors of opportunity.
The maps also lack useful “transition zones” between major corridors and single-family areas. Rather than transitioning density over several blocks, corridors like South Lamar are mapped with a very narrow ribbon of high density directly next to single-family zoning. Instead, we should widen the high density corridors and transition gradually to the medium densities appropriate for the interiors of urban core neighborhoods.
Finally, CodeNEXT fails to make Austin’s code simpler and clearer—instead, it makes matters worse. CodeNEXT would effectively give the city three separate zoning paradigms: transect, non-transect, and unmodified legacy zones. The result is more than sixty zoning categories and very few increases in by-right entitlements.
AURA members are very concerned with the direction of CodeNEXT; a recent internal survey asked AURA members to rate their level of concern with the current CodeNext draft on a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being very concerned.) 42% believe the code “needs a large number of edits” and rated their concern at a 4; 58% are “very concerned” about the direction of CodeNEXT at 5. Zero members expressed a 1 through 3.
There are a few bright spots that AURA applauds. The map of downtown comes a lot closer to implementing the Downtown Neighborhood Plan than the current code. Some areas along major corridors that are currently zoned “commercial” have been replaced with zones that permit mixed and residential uses, allowing more housing to be built in those areas. However, limited improvements in only a few areas will ensure the continuation of Austin’s current development patterns leading to even more sprawl, congestion, gentrification and segregation.
Replacing the old code with nearly the same one at such a high price tag is an insult to all Austinites, but especially to middle and working class homeowners and renters who are being squeezed out of Austin by the quickly-rising cost of living in their homes. This displacement epidemic is the result of an acute housing shortage that is directly caused by our land use regulations.
Mayor Adler has the opportunity to lead Austin past the decades of segregation and poor land use choices in our past. We hope that he and our City Council will take Austin into a future where everyone can afford to live in Austin, and CodeNEXT is the first real opportunity in years to accomplish that.
“We are in the midst of a housing shortage, and our leaders are not doing enough to fix it. This is not a time for Austin to ‘chill out.’ It’s a time for all Austinites who truly care about addressing our affordability and mobility challenges to demand the positive changes we need,” said Stephanie Trinh on behalf of AURA.
AURA is a grassroots urbanist organization focused on building an Austin for everyone by improving land use and transportation through policy analysis, public involvement, and political engagement.
Press Contact:
Josiah Stevenson, AURA CodeNEXT Working Group, josiahstevenson@gmail.com, 832-466-2785
In August 2016, AURA released its CodeNEXT Expectations. Although these expectations lay out broad policy priorities for CodeNEXT, a well-written code with a feeble on-the-ground implementation could still spell disaster. Austinites need a zoning map that’s designed to solve for Central Texas’ critical challenges. A broad rezoning of the urban core is critical to ensuring affordability, fair housing, efficient transit, sustainable growth, and an Austin for Everyone. Here are our expectations for the CodeNEXT maps that will be released on April 18:
AFFIRMATIVELY FURTHER FAIR HOUSING AND CREATE AN INCLUSIVE CITY
AURA calls for equitable zoning throughout the city. Austin has a long history rife with racist and exclusionary zoning, the vestiges of which we still see as a racially and socioeconomically segregated city. Austin’s first Latino Council Member, John Trevino, noted in 1983, “Low density development eliminates most minorities… Are we building an elitist community? Yes, we want to enjoy the environment. But none of my folks will be able to move in.” Thirty-four years later, this sentiment still rings true. Our lower-income neighborhoods have smaller homes, smaller lots, and denser developments; but as Austin has grown, our overly restrictive code has pushed our housing pressures disproportionately into East Austin and pushed our low-income residents out. Unfortunately, there are little to no opportunities for those residents to move into other central areas, as wealthier neighborhoods continue to resist higher density infill and lower-cost housing options. CodeNEXT is the opportunity to allow housing throughout the urban core at all income levels and ensure that all urban core areas adjust for population growth. More housing in high opportunity areas will allow more people at varying income levels to live centrally, near amenities and transit, and help alleviate the inequitable housing pressures on our low-income areas.
ALLOW MISSING MIDDLE THROUGHOUT THE URBAN CORE
Our land use code gives few options between single family homes and large apartment complexes. Medium-density buildings, such as multiplexes, row homes, cottage courts, and small apartment complexes, are great small-scale infill options that are more affordable than detached, single-family homes. Austin’s central neighborhoods are desirable areas to live — they have easy access to Austin’s (slowly) improving transit, central city amenities, and the best that Austin’s culture has to offer — yet living there is not accessible to most working families today. Missing middle housing allows families to live closer together and create walkable neighborhoods that are safer and more conducive to transit. Missing middle housing should be allowed throughout the urban core, and not just near corridors, so that more people can access the heart of our neighborhoods. Allowing attractive housing options in only a few limited areas will not improve Austin’s affordability, but will ensure only high end development.
ENSURE ABUNDANT HOUSING CAPACITY
The CodeNEXT maps must ensure Austin has enough housing for however many people want to live here. When 100 people move to Austin every day, and we don’t build enough housing units to accommodate them, low-income residents will be displaced as the wealthy will always be able to outbid the poor. This economic displacement lies at the heart of Austin’s gentrification challenge. An inclusive zoning map would substantially grow our zoned capacity and allow Austin to adapt to its needs rather than set arbitrary caps on our neighborhoods’ populations.
DISINCENTIVIZE SPRAWL
CodeNEXT should emphasize compact, connected urban infill rather than suburban sprawl to meet our housing demand. Despite its reputation as a city that cares about the environment, in actuality, a substantial portion of Austin’s growth is greenfield growth on the edges of the city. This development pattern is problematic for the environment, city resources, traffic, and household affordability. Development on undeveloped land increases runoff and destroys natural green spaces, wildlife habitat, and farmland. Growth of single family development also strains the City’s resources and infrastructure. Single-family neighborhoods consume substantially more water and sprawled areas are harder for city services such as police, fire, and public transportation to reach. Additionally, suburban residents often drive long distances to work in the urban core, straining our roads, adding to our traffic, and hastening the progress of climate change through vehicle emissions. Families living in these edge developments spend staggering amounts of money and time on transportation to access to Austin’s job centers, straining their budgets and reducing their quality of life. While some households may still choose a suburban lifestyle, the land development code should provide options for those who want a more walkable, sustainable urban lifestyle.
MAXIMIZE FORM-BASED ZONING
AURA would like to see Austin zoned substantially, if not entirely, under form-based code; we argued in favor of doing so when City Council selected the “code approach” back in 2014. A good form-based code, one that is aligned with our other expectations, helps create “complete communities” (as referenced by the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan) where residents can access their daily needs without using a car. At its best, a form-based code creates more diverse areas where you may find jobs, restaurants, schools, and grocery stores near where people live. Non-transect zones are supposedly intended for areas that are car-dependent, but we implore the city to allow Austinites throughout the city to live, work, and play in their neighborhoods and reduce their dependency on single occupancy vehicles. Having two parallel codes limits transparency and community engagement, increases costs of development, and further complicates the zoning and rezoning process. Non-transect zones should be used sparingly.
AURA is an all-volunteer grassroots urbanist organization focused on building an Austin for everyone by improving land use and transportation through policy analysis, public involvement, and political engagement.
While our members are still dissecting the initial CodeNEXT draft, we applaud City of Austin staff and consultants for a thorough community-engagement schedule. A robust city dialogue is imperative to realize the sustainable, compact, and connected city the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan envisions. “Change isn’t easy,” Imagine Austin reminds us, “however, the potential rewards will outweigh the discomforts.” To reaffirm the priorities vetted by Imagine Austin’s 30,000 hours of community engagement, an open dialogue around the benefits of Imagine Austin’s bold vision is critical.
Since its release, our membership and many community advocates have come together to vet the initial CodeNEXT draft against Imagine Austin and AURA’s CodeNEXT expectations. Yet, despite the hard work of City staff, AURA is unsure if anyone is listening.
On February 19th, the Austin American-Statesman quoted your estimate of how much of the city’s zoning will stay the same under the new code—“97%”—despite mapping not yet being released.
We’re eager to work with City staff, your office, and all of City Council to align the CodeNEXT process with established community priorities for compact and connected growth, but if we’re going to succeed in getting the code Austin needs, Austinites must have confidence that your office, and all of Austin’s leaders, are listening. Is the CodeNEXT outcome a foregone conclusion inside your office—an outcome that will change nothing and help no one? Or do we want a city that prioritizes household affordability and remedying Austin’s staggering walkability, connectivity and traffic problems?
There are many exciting plans and projects underway in Austin. The Neighborhood Housing and Community Development Department has developed a comprehensive Housing Plan that calls for more subsidized and market-rate housing solutions, including more missing middle housing. CapMetro just passed its Connections 2025 service plan which will drastically improve bus frequency and efficiency. The Austin Transportation Department is developing the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan, which will carry the goals of Imagine Austin into our transportation policy to ensure we prioritize a multi-modal city. And Project Connect is working with stakeholders and the community to envision high-capacity transit solutions. These efforts have engaged thousands of Austinites and the success of these endeavors depends on the success of CodeNEXT. We will not achieve our ambitious goals in housing and transit if we do not have a land use code that allows us to welcome more people into our neighborhoods and create transit-supportive density.
CodeNEXT is once-in-a-generation opportunity to solve Austin’s deep challenges and create exciting opportunities for the future. Austin is the most economically segregated city in the country, but a successful CodeNEXT could bring a sustainable, affordable and integrated future for Austin—an Austin for Everyone. Austin’s current land use code has left the city dramatically unaffordable. Economic segregation lacerates our city, leaving a deep wound dividing haves and have-nots. Austin needs a concerted effort to remedy the segregative land use policy underpinning our city, and we’re worried this may be impossible if you refuse to embrace reform. You were willing to Go Big in the “Year of Mobility”—Austin needs you to Go Bigger in the “Year of Affordability.”
Mayor Adler, do you think community input on CodeNEXT is a waste of time, since 97% of the city will be exactly the same?
On Tuesday AURA became aware of a leaked draft of CodeNEXT which was posted to Twitter over the holiday weekend. The document, weighing in at 327 pages, is massive, and yet also astonishingly incomplete (i.e. no sections on site plans, subdivision, drainage, etc). This is perhaps explained by the fact that it is largely dated June 2016. As such, we are hesitant to dig into the details. Limiting ourselves to a broad view, the draft is disappointing. We cannot stress enough that Austin is in the midst of an (un)affordable housing crisis; in conjunction with this crisis, the City’s own Planning and Development Review Department came under intense criticism in March of 2015. The City and its residents are in urgent need of significant policy change to reverse this trend. Unfortunately, it would appear that in this draft the staff and consultants have largely come up short in meeting the modest goals they set out for themselves in the Code Diagnosis back in May 2014.
The complexity of this draft is overwhelming. Not only would it not simplify our byzantine land use regulations, it would, in many cases, make them more convoluted. The transect zones regulate in extremely fine detail all manner of design in a way that is new to Austin. Given the difficulty the Development Services Department (DSD) has with our modest current design standards (e.g. Subchapters E & F), we can’t help but wonder what scale of additional resources will be required for DSD to review applications under the form-based code in a timely manner. The Code Diagnosis also specifically called out Austin’s layers upon layers of zoning as a problem, yet this draft contains dozens of pages on overlay zones, lifted almost verbatim from the existing code. The same goes for small area plans, a problem identified by AURA in our CodeNEXT expectations. The existing small area plans are essentially duplicated in this draft, instead of simply remapping them to the appropriate new transect zones.
Additionally, despite the problem of an auto-centric code being highlighted in the Code Diagnosis, this draft appears only marginally less auto-centric than our existing code. While the document lacks a full section on transportation, each transect zone defines parking minimums, and there is a parking section which appears largely identical to the existing code. That a draft produced as recently as June 2016 would even consider continuing our (ludicrous) current practice of requiring parking for bars is surely an error that will be corrected in the final code.
AURA is well aware that this document is an incomplete draft. We remain hopeful that there will be significant improvement when the final draft is released on January 30. However, we fear that in the nine months since this draft was issued, staff and their consultants have made the complexity problem worse, not better. For example, this draft contains 18 transect zones, but the staff and consultant presentation to the CAG on December 7th contains 21 transect zones. When it comes to land use regulation, less is more. Austin had no zoning ordinance for almost a century, and the first ordinance, in 1931, was just 20 pages long. That light hand produced great places like South Congress, Hyde Park and The Drag, and beloved institutions like Nau’s Enfield Drug. All are places that have been essentially illegal to build in their current form for decades now thanks the complexity of our land development codes since the 50s. On January 30 we hope to find that this draft has been dramatically pared back, both in scale and complexity. Less code will make Austin a happier, healthier, and more affordable city.
AURA is an all-volunteer grassroots urbanist organization focused on building an Austin for everyone by improving land use and transportation through policy analysis, public involvement, and political engagement.
Press contacts:
Steven Yarak, steven@yarak.org
Tommy Ates, tommyates@hotmail.com
