Austin City Council Candidate Questionnaire 2022

We submitted five questions to candidates in the Mayoral race and candidates in the Austin City Council races for Districts 3, 5, and 9. Only candidates who responded before the deadline are shown here. Mayor: Celia Israel, Kirk WatsonDistrict 3:…

Austin City Council Elections 2020

AURA hosted several Candidate Forums August-September 2020 with many of the candidates running for election for Austin’s City Council in November 2020. We recorded each candidate forum and are posting those videos here, along with questionnaire responses that we received…

Project Connect Media Release (2020-07-20)

MEDIA ALERTFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 20, 2020AURA members identify priorities for November transportationmeasure AURA members overwhelmingly approved a set of policy preferences aimed at shaping Austin City Council’s crafting of a new transportation ballot measure for this November’s election. The…

Oppose the Burnet Road proposal

The 2016 Mobility Bond provided the City of Austin with funding “to address implementation of Corridor Mobility Reports, which identify short-, medium-, and long-term transportation improvements.” The Corridor Mobility Report for Burnet Road proposes for the long term the addition…

The High Price of a Small Lot

People say houses have gotten expensive in Austin. That’s wrong. The houses haven’t gotten expensive — the land has. And it’s mostly due to our laws. Building a house is not expensive. While the cost of building a house went…

AURA Statement on the Land Development Code Ruling

The recent decision by the Travis County District Court ruling that policy changes such as the land development code rewrite are subject to zoning petition protests by homeowners is disappointing. Unless overturned, the ruling effectively requires a super-majority of City…

Project Connect Media Release (2020-03-09)

Press StatementFor Immediate Release3/9/2020 AURA is enthusiastic about Project Connect’s recommended Locally Preferred Alternative (LPA). The proposed light rail lines will run through dense neighborhoods — where lots of people live — and run to downtown, the Capitol, and UT…

I Moved from Houston and My Rent Doubled

Last May, I moved from Houston to Austin for work. I lived in Houston’s Heights neighborhood, one that shares a lot of similarities with many of the neighborhoods in central Austin under intense discussion with the land development code rewrite.…

Proposed Compromise for a Better Land Development Code

Much of conflict over Austin Land Development Code rewrite occurs over the “Transition Zones”.  During the city council meeting on February 12th, Mayor Adler and Council Member Tovo discussed the possibility of reducing the size of these Transition Zones to…