AURA commends City Council for allowing more backyard cottages in Austin
November 19, 2015
Austin, Texas
AURA, an urbanist grassroots non-profit that works toward an Austin for Everyone, commends City Council for taking action to allow more Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) – known colloquially as granny flats, garage apartments, or backyard cottages – to be built in Austin.
These changes were originally sponsored by former Austin Councilmembers Chris Riley and Mike Martinez, in June 2014. We thank Mr. Riley, Mr. Martinez along with Mayor Steve Adler and current Councilmembers Gregorio Casar, Sheri Gallo, Delia Garza, Sabino “Pio” Renteria, Ellen Troxclair and Don Zimmerman for their leadership on this issue.
AURA supports these changes, because our platform prioritizes abundant housing of all types, from smaller apartment buildings and garage apartments in established neighborhoods to downtown skyscrapers to single-family housing. We want an Austin where everybody is welcome and everybody’s interests matter: young and old, rich and poor, renter and homeowner, healthy and sick, citizen and immigrant, lifelong resident and new arrival.
The greatest asset our city has is its people, and our city is at its best when it facilitates connections between those people: cultural, economic, and social.
“This is an important step toward allowing more abundant housing in the city of Austin,” says Cory Brown, AURA member. “I’m hopeful that by allowing more housing options within reach of people with modest incomes, we can begin the process of making Austin neighborhoods more integrated and diverse.”
In addition to the substantial public comment in favor of the changes, more than 1,000 Austinites signed AURA’s petition urging Austin’s City Council to allow granny flats and other small houses everywhere in Austin.
“This is a victory for the future of our city. It’s a hard won victory over a handful of incumbent homeowners in establishment neighborhoods who are opposed to addressing our housing crisis,” adds Steven Yarak.
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.
The Austin Convention Center has recommended a long range master plan laying out their case for expansion west, taking the blocks bounded by 2nd on the South, 4th on the North, Trinity on the East, and San Jacinto on the West. AURA opposes this on a variety of grounds, ranging from the tax revenue for the city to the viability of convention center-driven economic development to impacts on the downtown streetscape. The economic development case against convention center expansion:
The convention center industry nationally has been shrinking since the ’90s. Meanwhile, city after city has been chasing this business, building ever more elaborate, newer, and larger convention center spaces. Competing for convention center business is not a smart use of resources – its going after a shrinking pool just as many peer cities have entered the competition.
Jobs created by conventions are by their nature transitory, part-time, and generally low-wage. This is a business of peaks – generally weekends when a large convention is booked. The caterers, Uber/Lyft/cab drivers, extra hotel staff, and contractors working booths see spikes in business, but it is not enough to sustain week-in, week-out full employment. While there is a place in the economy for these kinds of jobs, spending limited city resources to subsidize them seems unwise given better alternatives.
The city revenue case against convention center expansion:
Convention Center expansion is often sold as a free lunch. The cost of construction could be financed by the increased hotel taxes brought in by hotel goers. But this turns out to be an almost circular argument. Hotel taxes have extremely limited uses by state law – they can be used for tourist-related public improvements and for historic preservation. Currently much of our hotel tax revenue already goes to support the Convention Center. By investing in a bigger convention center, we may indeed be able to capture more hotel tax revenue, but their limited nature makes them much less useful to the city as a whole. Bringing in more hotel taxes does little for the general welfare of most Austinites. Meanwhile, the city should consider whether it is making the best uses of its hotel taxes – instead of subsidizing an otherwise mediocre convention center, could they be used to support the live music or arts scene? Could there be a role for hotel taxes in subsidizing the downtown “Drunk Tank” under consideration?
Meanwhile, the expansion would take a valuable piece of downtown property off the tax rolls. Property taxes, unlike hotel taxes, go to the general fund, and are much more useful to the city budget. There is no fiscal impact analysis taking this into account in the current Convention Center Master Plan. Hotel tax revenue are estimated, but these kinds of large impacts are not projected.
Finally, the urbanist and streetlife argument against convention center expansion.
Convention centers are seldom well activated on the street level. Austin has invested, with much success, in a Great Streets program, and we are beginning to reap the dividends of a vibrant downtown. Several aspects of the proposed design of the Convention Center Expansion run contrary to the tenets of the Great Streets concept, especially the elevated pedestrian walkways to connect the old and the new Convention Center areas. These kinds of walkways hurt the street life below, and take pedestrians out of contact with each other.
The preferred scenario in the Master Plan would also take a chunk of 2nd and 3rd Streets between Trinity and San Jacinto, degrading the downtown grid and taking streetscapes out of play.
In short, the Austin Convention Center Master Plan as currently envisioned should not be endorsed by city council. The business and economic development case has not been made for such a large capital investment, the opportunity costs in terms of property tax revenue are high, and it be a step back from for Austin’s steadily improving downtown experience. AURA calls on city council to vote this down.
Following a vote of our members, AURA is proud to announce our support of the Travis County Courthouse Bond Proposition. The new Courthouse will replace aging infrastructure; the Courthouse will be centrally-located and transit accessible.
AURA member and co-founder Julio Gonzalez Altamirano says “This is a great deal. For a few bucks a month, we solve our Courtroom space needs for a century. If you want to save money, this is the time to build the basics – loan rates are unlikely to stay low forever. Building now is the fiscally sensible choice.”
AURA board member Susan Somers adds ““Everyone agrees on the need. We can either build modern, compact, and near transit…or we can build a facility that contributes to sprawl. AURA chose the former.”
The Courthouse is necessary. The current facility is old, aging, and doesn’t provide the necessary physical resources to operate a modern courthouse. It lacks the space to separate opponents in lawsuits or civil matters – including victims of domestic violence from their abusers. It has been planned for years, and last-minute attacks haven’t shown any reason to delay the inevitable building of additional court capacity.
The Courthouse will be transit-accessible. Located just south of Republic Square on Guadalupe – one of the best transit corridors in Austin, the site will make it easy for Austinites to arrive on public transit.
Travis County’s Courthouse needs to be downtown. In Texas, County Courthouses are downtown, and Travis County should be no different. Being downtown allows visitors to be part of a vibrant downtown – with all the benefits of a compact and connected space. It allows nearby access for County workers, and eliminates a significantly underutilized parking lot. In addition, a dense private development on the parcel will benefit the project and the future of Austin.
Some opponents have suggested moving the courthouse out of downtown. Others express concern about using a parcel that is unencumbered by Capitol View Corridors. Capitol View Corridors limit the height in some parts of the city so that the State Capitol can be seen from a number of angles. There are ways to mitigate this problem. One approach is state legislative action. A second approach is for the Austin City Council to expand the number of blocks in downtown or near downtown entitled for central business district-style development.
AURA encourages Travis County to make the courthouse an integrated, and integral, addition to the fabric of Downtown Austin. This includes sticking with the commitment to have ground floor retail that keeps the block active and vibrant and committing the new private development being built with downtown in mind – not just the needs of the Courthouse. “The County is going tall with the building to get the best of both worlds on their parcel: much-needed new Courtroom space near transit on one half and dense private development on the other,” adds says AURA member and co-founder Julio Gonzalez Altamirano.
Travis County shouldn’t wait to move forward on the Courthouse, though. “To win games, you can’t just punt. At some point, you’ve got to get into the end zone,” says Julio Gonzalez Altamirano.
Susan Somers adds “We’ve heard much about the costs but we can’t forget about the value created by the project. Low borrowing costs make this a great time to build basic court infrastructure that even opponents acknowledge we need. And highrise in the central business district next to a transit hub is the best approach to meet the need.”
Travis County voters should vote to approve our new Courthouse on November 3rd.
AURA’s Guadalupe Corridor Working Group has been following the corridor study process and has released the following report. We call on Austin City Council and the Transportation Department to take bold steps. We specifically encourage extending the transit priority lanes from downtown to the Drag, removing the wall on the east side of Guadalupe, and removing the on-street parking from the west side.
On June 23, City Council moved forward with a $720 mobility bond including a proposed $55 million for sidewalks. Unfortunately, Council also passed an amendment by councilmember Gallo to take half of the sidewalk funds and to disperse the funds evenly across all council districts for Safe Routes to Schools (SRTS). As discussed previously by Brennan Griffin, the amendment has deleterious effects for pedestrian infrastructure throughout the city. Additional modifications were made at the August 11 Council meeting prior to Council voting 11-0 on 1st and 2nd readings. I will elaborate further on the effects of these funding decisions as well as to detail alternative funding scenarios.
SCENARIO A: FUNDING THE ADOPTED SIDEWALK PLAN WITH THE MAYOR’S PROPOSED $55 MILLION
The Sidewalk Master Plan, adopted by Council one week earlier on June 16, proposed to build out the identified high and very high priority absent sidewalks within 10 years, a proposed $250 million request. The plan includes a complicated prioritization matrix that incorporates important walkability considerations such as safety, housing density, proximity to transit, and proximity to destinations like schools, employment centers, and grocery stores, among other criteria. Council made some amendments to how absent sidewalks are prioritized, including increasing the scoring weight for schools and destinations for Austin’s elderly population.
Though the sidewalk plan as amended by Council isn’t available yet, I have performed GIS analysis based on the final prioritized weights and the new high and high priority sidewalks. The final Sidewalk Plan includes 2,642 miles of absent sidewalks, 661 of which score as high priority or very high (henceforth called high priority). At an average construction cost of $630,000 per mile of sidewalk, this represents a $1.66 billion need. To fund just the 661 miles of high priority sidewalks throughout the city will require $416.4 million.
Table 1 Total Absent Sidewalks and Amount of High and Very High Priority Sidewalks
Figure 1 City of Austin High Priority Absent Sidewalks
Of course, the plan’s stated fiscal needs doesn’t include all of the high priority absent sidewalks. It only recommends funding those high priority absent segments within ¼ mile of schools, transit, and parks. Table 2 shows there are 647 miles of absent sidewalks within these specific features, requiring $407.4 million. (Notice this is an increase from the $250 million of the initially proposed sidewalk plan. The amendments Council made to the plan increased the number of miles of absent sidewalk scoring above the high and very high point threshold.)
Table 2 Scenario A: Funding Implications for the Sidewalk Master Plan with the Mayor’s Proposal of $55 Million
The Sidewalk Master Plan put forth a path to build approximately 25% of our absent sidewalk system in a 10 year period. The Mayor’s proposal of $55 million wouldn’t provide nearly enough money to fund infrastructure crucial to fulfilling our vision as a walkable city and which complies with federal disability laws. $55 million was an phenomenally insufficient amount of money. With this level of funding, it would take 60 years to build the high priority sidewalks identified within the sidewalk plan. (All time estimates assume an 8-year bond cycle.) And, projecting the same funding into the future, it would take over 240 years to complete our entire sidewalk network. It is unconscionable to expect pedestrians to wait more than 3 lifetimes for our sidewalk network to be completed.
At least the Mayor’s proposal would have directed all of the money to the adopted sidewalk plan. With the ‘Gallo Amendment’, we wouldn’t even be completing our high priority sidewalk network within a single lifetime. The ‘Gallo Amendment’ would take vitally important sidewalk dollars and allocate them in a way that would fund lower priority sidewalks, as well as potentially funding Safe Routes to Schools infrastructure other than sidewalks. It is reasonable that we fund pedestrian infrastructure other than sidewalks, but it is unacceptable that this money come away from limited sidewalk funds.
SCENARIO B: THE ‘GALLO AMENDMENT’
There are significant problems with the ‘Gallo Amendment’. Currently, $27.5 million has been taken away from funding the Sidewalk Master Plan for equal district shares of Safe Routes to Schools funding. This is a highly undesirable funding option. It is my hope and desire that this can still be rectified.
During the June 23 council session wherein the mobility bond was initially advanced, Councilmember Gallo offered an amendment splitting the $55 million proposed for sidewalks. Half the money, $27.5 million, would be split evenly between districts for the Safe Routes to Schools program. The funding could be used for sidewalks or other infrastructure and would not be required to be spent according to the Sidewalk Master Plan. The remaining funds (at the time $27.5 million) would fund the Sidewalk Master Plan as adopted. Table 3 shows the fiscal impact of this funding decision. Though most council districts only gain or lose between $1-3 million according to this proposal, the collective impact is $20 million dollars away from the sidewalk plan. District 1 would receive $4.24 million less money, the greatest single district swing. It also results in almost 7 miles fewer absent sidewalks to be built in the district with the greatest share of high priority absent sidewalks. Unfortunately, despite Walk Austin communicating this fiscal loss, Council Member Houston has not proposed to reverse the ‘Gallo Amendment’. Figure 2 provides a conceptual depiction of $7 million worth of absent sidewalks which won’t be constructed resulting from the ‘Gallo Amendment’. Districts 3, 4, 7 and 9 also possess large proportions of high priority sidewalks and lose money according to the ‘Gallo Amendment’. The biggest problem with the ‘Gallo Amendment’ is it redistributes vitally important funds from districts most in need to districts with less need.
Table 3 Fiscal Impacts of the ‘Gallo Amendment’ with the Mayor’s Proposal of $55 Million
Figure 2 Depicting lost Opportunity for Constructing High Priority Sidewalks in District 1
The amendment perpetuates historical inequalities in infrastructure funding. This is true because communities of color are burdened disproportionately from our unsafe streets. With the amendment, District 8 could, in this one bond cycle, build all of its high priority absent sidewalks nearby schools, transit, and parks. District 1, on the other hand, with significantly more high priority sidewalks, would require 85 years. The utility of distributing funds according to the sidewalk plan is every district would complete its network at the same pace. To the councilmembers who voted for the amendment, I agree there are pedestrian needs worthy of being funded in your districts. I do not believe the solution is to deprive other districts of funds that would have been allocated according to objective criteria.
One stated rationale for the amendment to redirect bond funds is the perception that the sidewalk plan prioritizes some districts over others. Well, yes, it does. This is precisely because the pedestrian needs of our community aren’t equal. Just as the bicycle plan prioritizes where facilities are most needed, and just as we are planning to fund corridor and highway projects for drivers where automobile infrastructure is most desired, a pedestrian system must focus its resources where it makes sense. To distribute funds evenly between districts misses the point entirely. Of course it’s true that there is insufficient pedestrian infrastructure and too little money proposed. But that is easily remedied.
A second problem with the ‘Gallo Amendment’ is it undermines the planning process. The Sidewalk Master Plan was completed with extensive public input, and staff and consultant expertise. It is problematic that City Council should pursue funding options that run counter to adopted plans. Such decisions undermine the planning process and dismisses the significant time and effort of the citizens that participated in the process. One has to wonder, too, if Council had issue with the plan, why adopt it? Another expressed concern with the sidewalk plan was that it insufficiently engaged the community. The Capital Metro quarter-cent sales tax dollars which were dispersed between council districts is cited as an example of how the community can engage directly in deciding how to spend public resources. I would point out that this is not incompatible with the sidewalk plan. Within the many millions of dollars of high priority absent sidewalks, staff can engage the community to further refine those priorities. To effectively dismiss the sidewalk plan – a plan which is a national model – in favor of ad hoc funding decisions is counterproductive.
A third problem with the ‘Gallo Amendment’ is that it directs too large of a share of limited sidewalk dollars to Safe Routes to Schools. Safe Routes to Schools is a program which was first federally funded in 2005. Mobility and safety are its primary tenets, aiming to encourage active commuting habits for children. The program aims to address increasing obesity rates and decreasing rates of walking and bicycling to school by providing infrastructure around schools. It is a laudable goal. However, we must critically evaluate the implications for this approach. Elementary school age children in Austin make up less than 10% of our total population. When one factors that less than 15% of school age children walk to school, we are intentionally dedicating nearly $30 million for approximately one percent of our population. The one or two trips per day elementary school students take to school represents a very small part of our city’s pedestrian mobility needs.
Some may argue that funding Safe Routes to Schools benefits individuals other than school-age children. This may be true in many instances. It is precisely why the sidewalk plan already factors schools into its formula for prioritizing construction of absent sidewalks. If schools exist in areas where other people would use the sidewalk system, and use it in great amounts, these absent sidewalks would score high. If an adult is walking to work in an area around a school, or grocery shopping near a school, these are good systems to fund as they are used by more people. But using schools as the sole factor for funding decisions makes little sense. In some instances, building sidewalks nearby schools would serve few others than the children walking to and from school. This has to do with the necessary features to produce walkable environments. In suburban contexts with low-density single family housing, how many students can we expect to live within walking distance to schools? How many people can we expect to be walking to work (without employment centers), or to go shopping (without retail), or to catch a bus (without transit)?
It is a tenuous argument to suggest that building sidewalks will increase walking rates among school-age children. Academic research has established that distance and real or perceived safety issues are the greatest factors influencing participation in Safe Routes to Schools programs. Given Austin’s low housing density and high fatality rates (as well as major arterial streets within close proximity of schools), it is doubtful that the mere presence of a sidewalk will incentivize children to walk to school (or, more precisely, to encourage parents to allow their children to walk to school).
Safety is the other argument for funding Safe Routes to Schools. Austin recently completed our Vision Zero Action Plan which identifies citywide safety issues and needs. Safe Routes to Schools would fund exclusively pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure improvements, and within the area immediately around elementary schools. Pedestrian and bicycle deaths within one-quarter mile of all schools make up less than 11% of all traffic deaths in Austin (even less for pedestrian and bicycle deaths around elementary schools which are the focus of Safe Routes to Schools Programs). This is likely due in part to the fact that elementary schools are often within residential neighborhoods with lower posted speed limits and that receive greater traffic enforcement efforts.
In order to maximize the safety benefits for funds dedicated to Safe Routes to Schools, the Safe Routes to Schools program should provide safe routes for at least ½ mile around schools. Expanding the focus increases the share of pedestrian and bicycle deaths. Still, the expanded geography would account for less than one-quarter of all traffic fatalities in Austin. Figures 3 and 4 compare the pedestrian and bicycle deaths within ½ mile of schools with all traffic deaths.
Figure 3 Austin Pedestrian and Bicycle Deaths 2010-2014 within ½ Mile of Schools
Figure 4 All Traffic Deaths in Austin 2010-2014 within ½ Mile of Schools
Additionally, very few traffic deaths surrounding schools are actually children. This is significant because many Safe Routes to Schools solutions are constrained by school hours and the school calendar. If Safe Routes to Schools funding is to benefit everyone who is around schools, the solutions must work for everyone. For instance, lower speed limits or flashing yellow lights which improve safety are only in effect during school hours. Crossing guards, too, are only in place for the hours immediately before and after school. In order to maximize the safety benefits for Safe Routes to Schools funds, any non-sidewalk infrastructure must be a permanent solution and be operational 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Of course, two of the above examples are not capital improvements. This is a final critique against allocating funds to Safe Routes to Schools: Austin’s Safe Routes to Schools program has no identified capital needs, nor an established criteria for identifying such needs. Safe Routes to Schools is a nascent program that his historically focused on programming (crossing guards) and it is for this reason that $27.5 million is too much money for a program inherently limited in its geographic and demographic focus, and possessing inherently limited mobility and safety benefits. It is illustrative to note the difference in funding being allocated to the Vision Zero program which serves the entire geography of the city and all ages, uses safety need as its primary criteria for allocating resources, and has identified capital needs. Unfortunately, Vision Zero was only allocated $15 million in bond dollars.
SCENARIO C: ‘GALLO AMENDMENT’ IMPROVEMENT, OPTION 1 ASSUMING $55 MILLION
As detailed previously, the problem with the ‘Gallo Amendment’ is that it shifts bond dollars from the sidewalk plan and between council districts ostensibly to serve mobility and safety considerations of Safe Routes to Schools. Unfortunately, dividing the money evenly between council districts fails to achieve these intended aims. Scenario C was devised when $55 million was the expected funds for sidewalks.
If the amendment cannot be reduced in the amount for Safe Routes to Schools, then the funds should at least be allocated according to safety need.
Though Scenario C retains the $27.5 million for Safe Routes to Schools, the funds are directed in a way that at least acknowledges the greater safety needs of certain council districts. Table 4 demonstrates the difference of funding scenarios between the ‘Gallo Amendment’ in current form to the same funds distributed according to the proportion of pedestrian and bicyclists in each district that die within one-half mile of schools. Due to the fact that there are greater pedestrian and bicycle deaths in East Austin, a council district approach to Safe Routes to Schools funding ironically prevents allocation of funds that could protect children.
Table 4 Contrasting $27.5 million between Safe Routes to Schools by Equal Shares versus by Safety Need
It is preferable to direct all allocated bond dollars for sidewalk/pedestrian needs to the sidewalk plan, as adopted. Additional safety considerations and non-sidewalk needs should be addressed in other ways. For instance, traffic safety needs should be addressed through the Vision Zero program. It is more appropriate to address safety needs at the scale of the city, not at the scale of council districts.
Scenario D still provides bond dollars for the Safe Routes to Schools program. But, the funding level is reduced from $27.5 million to $15 million. This is due to the ability to provide for mobility and safety needs more effectively otherwise, and the fact that Safe Routes to Schools is a nascent program unprepared to spend nearly $30 million in bond resources.
Further, the funds are not divided equally between districts, but according to the proportion of pedestrian and bicycle deaths within ½ mile to schools. Table 5 demonstrates an increase in funds for Central and East Austin districts.
Table 5
SCENARIO E: ADDITIONAL FUNDS ADDED BY COUNCIL AUGUST 11
As a result of the ‘Gallo Amendment’, Walk Austin sought to demonstrate the financial impacts to Council offices leading up to August 11. Unfortunately, the optimal solutions were not pursued by Council. Instead of directing Safe Routes to Schools funds in a way that prioritizes safety (Scenario C) or which reduced the dollar amount as well as prioritizing safety (Scenario D), the ‘Gallo Amendment’ has remained intact.
Responding to concerns expressed by Council member Houston regarding lost sidewalk dollars, Council opted to increase the funds going toward the Sidewalk Master Plan by $10 million. $6 million came from small road projects, and $4 million came out of the $30 million slated to go to urban trails. It is unfortunate that $4 million in urban trail funds were lost. These are facilities which benefit pedestrians, too, and cannot be seen as a pure increase in pedestrian funds within the bond proposal.
At present, the sidewalk component of the bond proposal stands at $65 million. $27.5 million would be directed to the Safe Routes to Schools program divided equally between council districts, and $37.5 million would fund the Sidewalk Master Plan as adopted. Table 6 shows the anticipated district funds according to this scenario. As expected, simply increasing the sidewalk funds helps to hide the fiscal impact of the ‘Gallo Amendment’. Of course, the districts with more high priority sidewalks would fare even better if Safe Routes to Schools funds were decreased and prioritized by need.
SCENARIO F: ADDITIONAL FUNDS WITH MODIFIED SAFE ROUTES TO SCHOOLS
Scenario F demonstrates the possible sidewalk and Safe Routes to Schools funds per district that could be achieved by modifying the Safe Routes to Schools allocations. Like Scenario D, the $27.5 Safe Routes to Schools achieved through the ‘Gallo Amendment’ is reduced to $15 million. The funds are then distributed across the city according to share of pedestrian and bicycle deaths within ½ mile of schools.
Table 7 Scenario F: Additional Funds with Modified Safe Routes to Schools Allocation
SCENARIO G: WALK AUSTIN’S PREFERRED SCENARIO
The last scenario maintains elements from several of the previous funding scenarios and asks for additional bond dollars for sidewalk and pedestrian infrastructure. It maintains the $15 million in Safe Routes to Schools funds to be distributed according to need because, though a young program with some inherent limitations, Safe Routes to Schools has the potential to instill important health and transportation practices within our youth. Safe Routes to Schools can also complement other traffic safety initiatives.
Scenario G provides $85 million for the sidewalk plan (up from $37.5 million) and creates a $20 million category for safe pedestrian crossings such as Pedestrian Hybrid Beacons (PHBs). (PHBs cost an average of $75,000 and represent a significantly underfunded capital need.)
This brings the total sidewalk and pedestrian allocations to $120 million. Table 7 demonstrates each district’s share according to this scenario.
Table 8 Scenario G: Walk Austin’s Preferred Scenario
COMPARISON OF FUNDING SCENARIOS
Lastly, in order to provide an overview of the possible funding options, Table 8 provides a comparison of the various funding options. Scenario E is the current and most likely Council product. However, I hope Council will see the superiority of Scenario F with the same $65 million in sidewalk dollars. And, with small concessions from road projects, Council could achieve Scenario G, Walk Austin’s ‘Go Big or Go Home’ proposal.
Table 9 Comparison of Sidewalk Bond Funding Scenarios
At AURA, we’re focused on building an Austin for Everyone through abundant housing and better public transportation. Part of our platform calls for better utilizing our public parks by locating more housing near them – and make better child-friendly urban spaces. With that in mind, we have some concerns about agenda item 58 on this week’s Council agenda.
The item calls for increasing the cost of parkland dedication fees for new housing, based on a “parks per person” metric. This metric seems to turns good park policy on its head. The best parks in the world are ones that people go to, are well-maintained, and are accessible. The Trust for Public Land’s 2015 City Park report rates cities on a number of metrics, including the number of parks per person (the metric used in the parkland dedication fee proposal) and accessibility to parks. Austin has an excellent ratio of parks per person – 30.6 acres per 1,000 people. However, only 48% of our population can get to a park in a ten minute walk. Fees like the parkland dedication fee can be a useful tool, but we need to think about what we’re trying to get out of it.
In fact, the parkland dedication fee has several restrictions on its use. PARD must spend the money in the area that the fee was collected from, the fee can’t be used for ongoing operations and maintenance of parks, and can’t be used to implement the city’s Park Master Plan. For citations to prove these points, see the budget RFI’s from prior Councilmembers Martinez, Morrison, and Spelmanon this very topic. The Parkland dedication fee can only be used for new parkland acquisition and new infrastructure at parks. When we are already having a difficult time keeping pools open in the summer and funding our existing parks, and are making budget tradeoffs to keep them funded, building up a warchest that must be spent on new parkland without a mechanism to fund ongoing operations and maintenance will create a future unfunded mandate for Council – and more hard choices about whether we can maintain our pools. In a prior budget discussion, Mayor Pro Tem Cole said “I think the primary problem we have with our parks now is maintenance. We’re just not able to keep them up.”
There is another choice: by allowing more multifamily housing near underutilized parks (and schools), we can increase the tax base of the city to help fund the ongoing operations of existing parks while making sure that our parks become great ones – where families take their kids because it’s a short walk from home. More multifamily housing has a higher tax base benefit and could be a tool to help deal with our housing crisis in Austin.
Unfortunately, the proposed park land dedication fee actually creates an opposite incentive. Although the fee is lower for higher density, it doesn’t account for the fact that higher density means more people per acre, so the cost for a higher density project is much higher than single family homes. This creates a disincentive for the kinds of development that we need to keep our existing parks funded – the exact opposite of what we need.
The park land dedication fee, park policy, and the way to fund our parks and make them more useful for more people is something that takes careful effort and thought. We encourage the city council to take it’s time and consider the full range of related issues before passing a policy that could have some unintended consequences.
At the beginning of July, Capital Metro released two sets of data: one showing huge growth in revenue, and the other showing that ridership is declining in spite of that increased revenue.
The first data set was the CapMetro budget for fiscal year 2015, released with big fanfare and a presentation. CapMetro says their finances are excellent: Austin’s booming economy has generated increasing amounts of sales tax revenue for the transit agency. The agency expects to have operating revenues of $279 million, a 39% increase over 2010. Of that $279 million, the operating budget will increase to roughly $245 million from $220 million this year; $7 million will go to a specific reserve fund, and CapMetro will keep an extra $30 million on hand. The capital budget is also flush, with nearly $80 million in capital improvements planned for 2016. Capital Metro proposes to spend this money at about 2:1 ratio in favor of rail to bus. Bus improvements principally include replacing old buses; the rail improvements include additional rail cars, double track in some places, and expanding the downtown train stop. Finally, CapMetro has already refilled its coffers and expects to have $143 million in reserve.
Public information requests reveal a loss in CapMetro bus ridership
The second set of numbers is ridership numbers for Spring 2015, reflected in the chart above. This data was not trumpeted by a press release, but was instead revealed by a citizen public information request. (Indeed, they didn’t even make it into Statesman’s article on the budget presentation.) The new ridership numbers show a significant decline across the entire system from Spring 2014. 11 of 16 local routes lost 10% or more of their ridership; every crosstown route declined in ridership, including 4 by more than 10%. The MetroRapid routes, which increased in hours and prominence, gained some of that lost ridership back, but overall the bus system carried 117,000 riders per weekday in Spring 2014, and 106,000 riders per weekday in Spring 2015.
Capital Metro’s ridership numbers and their budget are intimately connected. The budget decides both the cost and the level of service, which determine who can ride the bus. On the first count, CapMetro raised fares again, from $2.00 to $2.50 for a day pass, which is probably the immediate cause of the decline in ridership. The fare hike is motivated by arbitrary goals rather than financial sense: a state audit recommended that the agency increase fare box recovery ratio—the percentage of operating revenue raised from passenger fares—to .18 from about .10. However, the hike is not necessary from a financial standpoint. The raise in fares is projected to generate only $1,000,000 more in fiscal year 2015 than in fiscal year 2014. One million dollars is a lot, but it’s less than one half of one percent of CapMetro’s total operating budget and just the money left over in 2016’s budget could replace the fare increase for 30 years.
Capital Metro is expanding bus service, mostly by introducing new, better frequencies on the 7, 20, 300, 325, and 331. Together with MetroRapid, there will be 1.1 million bus hours of service in fiscal year 2016. This is a record high, but only 8% more than the number of hours provided in 2010 at the depth of the recession. Revenue since then has expanded by 39% in the same time.
In the past 5 years, while the train system has tripled its hours, and revenue has increased nearly 50%, bus hours and ridership have remained flat.
Moreover, while there is a crisis in bus ridership, the budget is prioritizing improvements to the Red Line rather than upgrading the bus system. MetroRail provides less than 2% of Capital Metro’s daily ridership, but is getting almost twice as much for capital improvements as the bus system, which provides 80% of the ridership. New track is good, but not when buses are hurting. The fiscal year 2015 budget only allocated $125,000 to bus shelters. Other bus capital improvements that could be funded and that other cities have used, such as a transit smart card, and other off-board fare collections, have not been discussed.
It’s understandable why the transit agency wants to maintain a strong reserve: sales tax revenue has been very volatile over the last ten years. But that shouldn’t stop CapMetro from focusing on its core mission: being the best transit agency it can for as many Austinites and other central Texans as possible.
Therefore: CapMetro should prioritize ridership and mobility over fare box recovery. Reorienting priorities in this way can help collect more fares as more people ride, and focus CapMetro on the most productive ways to use its revenue to increase mobility within its budget constraints. The simplest way to do that is to focus improvement spending where the demand for service is. Lately, that’s not the Red Line, it’s our bus network.
Growing List of Organizations Join AURA’s Call to Legalize Backyard Cottages Across Austin
AURA will host a press conference Tuesday, June 9th at 12 PM at City Hall
June 9, 2015
Austin, Texas
AURA, a grassroots non-profit that works toward an Austin for Everyone, is proud to announce the support of a broad coalition of organizations in the call for Austin City Council to allow Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)—known colloquially as granny flats, garage apartments, or backyard cottages—to be built by any homeowner in Austin.
In addition to the community groups listed, more than 800 Austinites have signed AURA’s petition urging Austin’s City Council to allow granny flats and other small houses everywhere in Austin.
AURA board member Eric Goff says, “We knew that ADUs were popular, but we’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of support we’ve received from such a broad and diverse group of advocacy organizations and citizens. The bottom line is that all Austinites want to ensure middle and lower income residents will continue to have a place inside the community as Austin grows. AURA’s recommendations on Backyard Cottages are the first step towards making this happen.”
AURA and allied organizations will deliver the petition along with a report detailing policy amendments and their benefits to City Council during a press conference scheduled at 12 PM on Tuesday, June 9th at City Hall.
Press Contact: Steven Yarak AURA Board Member, 512-423-1024, steven@yarak.org
AURA Calls on Austin City Council to Fight Housing Crisis by Legalizing Backyard Cottages Everywhere New report released today demonstrates that new rules can create thousands of of new affordable homes
June 8, 2015 Austin, Texas
AURA, a grassroots non-profit that works toward an Austin for Everyone, calls on City Council to adopt a comprehensive ordinance that gives all homeowners across the city the option to build a backyard cottage (also known as an Accessory Dwelling Unit, or ADUs). Simplified rules proposed by AURA will lower the cost of new small homes, allow more of them in every neighborhood, and help Austinites struggling with housing costs to get more revenue from their homes or to rent an affordable home.
AURA’s new report, “ADU City: How Granny Flats and Garage Apartments Can Save Austin” (embedded below) demonstrates that newly constructed backyard cottages offer natural market-rate affordability for households making 80% of the median family income in the Austin area, that Austin can expect at least 500 new accessory dwelling units constructed each year if AURA’s suggested ordinance is adopted, that backyard cottages are an important tool to fight gentrification, stabilize neighborhoods, and build affordable housing, and that ADUs can even directly fight sprawl-based traffic congestion. As AURA Board Member Brennan Griffin says, “Austin voters demanded more affordability in November, and our report lays out a substantial first step towards delivering it.”
Tomorrow, June 9th, AURA will host a rally and press conference at noon at City Hall. Later, at 2pm, the City Council Planning and Neighborhoods Committee will consider code amendments on accessory dwellings for the first time. AURA Member Mary Pustejovsky says “Committee Chairman Gregorio Casar wants more affordable housing for Austin, and I think AURA’s proposal is an excellent first step in making that happen.” More than 750 Austinites have signed AURA’s petition asking City Council to address this issue head-on. AURA calls on all Austinites to join us and demand this action on affordability now.
Michael Gatto, Co-Director of the Austin Community Design and Development Center (ACDDC), which manages the Alley Flat Initiative, a program to develop green affordable accessory dwellings, says, “ACDDC is pleased to support AURA’s proposal for a more comprehensive accessory dwelling ordinance, and is particularly excited to join in the call for a new financing program to extend the natural affordability of ADUs to benefit more low-income Austinites, both homeowners and renters alike.”
AURA’s report contains the personal stories of Austinites who stand to benefit from City Council actions or already benefit from existing ADUs, like David Longoria, a local musician who lives in an affordable garage apartment, Jesse Alvarado and his wife, who, after raising six children, built and moved into a backyard cottage on their East Cesar Chavez property and invited their daughter to raise her child in their front house. AURA Member Tommy Ates, who lives in an ADU in Hyde Park, says “I believe we need more homes that are affordable to the average household inside our central neighborhoods, not just along major traffic corridors.” His small central home makes it possible for him to live in town. “Rather than retreating from the neighborhood, we are in the heart of it,” Ates continues. “And I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
AURA Board Member Amy Hartman notes that “Both homeowners and renters can benefit from this common-sense approach to neighborhood density. Granny flats can help provide more tax revenue for the city while reducing the tax burden for individuals. With simpler granny flat rules, more low-income families could afford to stay in Austin.”
AURA, a grassroots group that believes in an Austin for Everyone, calls on the city council to rethink the McMansion ordinance. As the memo from the Development and Services Department and the Planning and Zoning Department on May 1 clearly shows, the complexity of McMansion has added significantly to backlogs, and is in part responsible for the $1.6 million budget hike being proposed for the next calendar year in that department.
The McMansion Ordinance was theoretically designed to keep large houses from being built in central Austin and preserve neighborhood character. Problems abound with its approach, however. It privileges large lots over small lots by restricting the amount of square footage of house versus yard. It makes it very difficult to build duplexes. The geometric “envelope” that it prescribes forces many builders into odd workarounds and blocky construction. It is unfriendly to families, because it makes it difficult or impossible to build larger 3 or 4 bedroom homes on the smaller lots that make up many Central Austin neighborhoods. The McMansion Ordinance was a flawed attempt to legislate aesthetics, and its main impact has been to reduce the amount of housing being built in central Austin.
AURA calls on the City Council to reconsider the McMansion Ordinance, up to and including repealing it altogether. In a housing shortage and affordability crisis, excess complexity and reductions in the amount of housing, especially for families, is unconscionable.
