Category: Land Use

As of June 20th, 2019, the Austin Board of Realtors (ABoR) reports that the median price for single-family homes in Austin has hit an all time high of $400,000.

We often hear from City Council  that we need to save the “affordable” old housing stock in the urban core from demolition and redevelopment. Typically, they are referring to single family homes. Given this perspective, it’s worth asking how many affordable single homes are there in Central Austin?

For the purposes of this analysis, we will define the urban core as the area bound by MoPac to the West, 290 to the south, and 183 to the north and east. The year defining “old” housing is homes which were built in or prior to 1970. Affordability is based on the 2018 Austin median income for a family of four of $86k per year. Data is compiled using the Austin Board of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.

For starters, below is a broad overview showing the median and average prices for homes in the urban core built before 1970 as of May 1, 2019.

120 homes in urban core	Minimum	Maximum	Average	Median
Current home prices	$229,900	$8,500,000	$825,318	$546,500

Using the rule of thumb that no more than 30% of gross monthly income should be used on housing, a family of four earning the median family income can afford to buy a $360K house (according to the mortgage affordability calculator) or rent one at $2150/month.

Let’s take a look at homeownership first.

As of May 1st, 2019, there were a total of 35 single-family homes built before 1970 available for sale for $360K or less and only two of those were west of I-35. The map below shows the distribution of available single-family homes at this price point. Notably, none of these homes have been updated for today’s energy efficiency and the status of the wiring, plumbing, and foundation is unknown. See Fig. 1

Fig. 1

If we consider that a family of four would likely need at least three bedrooms, the number of available homes drops to 22, all of which are concentrated on the fringes of the urban core mostly east of I-35.

Fig. 2

Of these houses, only 13 are outside the identified FEMA flood zone…

Fig. 3

and only 15 have Central A/C.

Fig. 4

The situation for single-family house rentals is very similar. Given a family of four earning the median income, the maximum suggested monthly rent should be no more than $2150/month. As of May 1st, 2019, there are 36 single family homes with at least two bedrooms available for rent in Austin’s urban core.

Fig. 5

However, there are only 14 three-bedroom houses available at the rent level affordable for the median family income.

Fig. 6

Finally, the multi-family affordable housing is becoming less and less available to families of 4 at the median income level. As of May 1st, 2019 45 apartments with at least two bedrooms are available across the urban core of Austin.

Fig. 7

And only four of these have a minimum of 3 bedrooms.

Fig. 8

Given that the Austin metro area is adding 105 people a day, preserving older single-family homes will not meet our housing needs in a way that is accessible or affordable for even the median income Austin family. A far more sustainable strategy for enhancing affordability in the urban core would be to add new homes with more units, like fourplexes, townhomes, and other missing middle housing types.

Activity Centers as described in Imagine Austin are akin to the Multiple Nuclei Model for a city layout created by Chauncy Harris and Edward Ullman in the 1945 article The Nature of Cities.  Harris and Ullman argued that cities do not grow a single nucleus but several separate nuclei. Each nucleus acts as a growth point.  Because of increased car ownership, people can live in less-dense single-family style neighborhoods near the nuclei containing their job and thus avoid unreasonably long commute time.

Many cities have intentionally or unintentionally developed according to the nuclei model, Houston, in particular, comes to mind. However, while these cities do indeed have multiple growth points and relatively low-density housing, these features have not resulted in the expected reasonable commute times for several reasons.

Most important, typical households today consist of two earners, often in different fields, ie both spouses have different jobs in different locations but live in the same house. Because the two partners will have different jobs in different fields they will likely have to commute to different business centers from the same house. This couple will have to choose which job will be closer to home and likely require the other to have a much longer commute, with all the impacts to quality of life and the environment that follow.

It’s not surprising that Harris and Ullman missed this now obvious fact while writing in 1945 when the idealized and typical household was a single-earner family, ie the husband had a job and the wife stayed home. But that fact should give us pause if we intend to rely on separate job centers to solve our housing shortage and transportation issues. These separate job centers will be unlikely to provide both earners the opportunity to work and live one area and enjoy the access to jobs and amenities like daycare within the short commutes that are necessary for cultivating a successful career and raising a family today. Unfortunately, today that is still most likely to disproportionately impact working mothers.

The activity centers described in Imagine Austin are an important part of our growth plan, but cannot serve as the only or even the essential part of housing and transportation solutions we create in our new land development code. If we really do want to open up opportunities for everyone to grow both a career and a family, we have to ditch the multiple nuclei theory of cities and instead encourage and allow dense concentric development, especially missing middle housing and transitive supportive density close to downtown as the most efficient and environmentally sustainable way for a city to grow.

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