Austin is a city of neighborhoods. Every neighborhood is delightfully different and those differences contribute to Austin's charm and diversity of living options. When I was a planner at the city in the early 2000s, the city practiced neighborhood planning, which engaged neighborhoods in:

 

• Honoring the past by identifying what to protect and appreciate, 

• Addressing the present by identifying needs and opportunities, and

• Planning for the future by community selection of zoning, special uses, and design standards and implementing programs beneficial to the community. 

 

Neighborhood planning builds community and understanding and leads to more informed decision-making and predictability of the future.  We need to bring that back. Of course, I will advocate for an even better planning program than before, especially to consider infrastructure, climate change and resilience, and support for neighborhood public schools.

 

In recent years, the city moved away from neighborhood planning to city-wide code changes (e.g. CodeNEXT, HOME, density bonus). Unfortunately, those city-wide code changes are a “blunt” force tool not appropriate for Austin neighborhoods, with lack of meaningful resident input and loss of tree cover, character, and affordability raised frequently as concerns. That is not the Austin way; this is a city of people that care and want a say.  I want to stop city-wide code changes. Each neighborhood has unique needs, opportunities, and concerns; it is OK and preferable to take the time to plan and develop tools and programs that emerge from those planning efforts.

Critics of neighborhood planning claim it results in exclusionary decisions and will hinder our ability to address population growth and affordability. I disagree. Top down city-wide regulations are the exclusionary policies because those most impacted by the decisions are left out. Neighborhood planning with current residents and business owners guided by the big picture of Austin’s present and future needs brings back the inclusivity that has been missing. Working from the ground up with neighborhoods results in tailored solutions for the variety of issues facing neighborhoods (e.g., generational changes, housing stock conditions, drainage, utilities, tree cover, transportation, and services).  

 

Better planning leads to better outcomes. I’ll give an example. Let’s take a neighborhood where existing residents are feeling pressure to leave because of higher property taxes or inability to maintain their homes. During the neighborhood planning process, residents could identify home repair and maintenance programs and “off the shelf” accessory dwelling units as the priority to maintain and add affordable housing, prevent displacement, and maintain mature tree cover.  The neighborhood could also identify an underutilized parking lot as the place for mixed-use for more residents to move in. Rather than the citywide HOME ordinance resulting in the purchase and demolition of the older homes and displacement of residents, the neighborhood is stabilized to provide for current and future residents. 

 

I look forward to neighborhoods engaging in real planning.

 

For housing, I’m a long-time Austin resident who feared I would be priced out of my hometown. I was lucky to be able to buy an affordable home in Mueller in 2014 when I was a single mom with two kids. Having lived in many different Austin neighborhoods, I also appreciate the charm of each neighborhood so housing policy must be both respectful of existing neighborhoods and help with affordability. 

 

The housing issue is availability of housing at a lower price range in the areas of the city with high land values. That’s a very different problem to address that just adding housing supply anywhere for any price is not going to address. Indeed, HOME aggravates the affordable housing and displacement problems by replacing older, naturally lower cost market rate housing with more expensive newer homes. Here are some ideas for maintaining existing and creating new affordable housing in Austin: 

1. Extend the Mueller affordable housing program as a voluntary program available to all Austin homeowners interested in staying where they are for awhile and reducing their property taxes (I elaborate more on this program in the side bar to the left);

2. Prioritize home repair and maintenance funding and programs to reduce/eliminate displacement and loss of housing due to inability to pay or upkeep;

3. Prioritize working with existing homeowners that have owned their homes for years for adding affordable “off the shelf” or tiny home accessory dwelling units (homes added to land purchased years ago will cost less than units added to land recently purchased);

4. Collaborate with Travis County (enforcer of evictions) to significantly prevent evictions;

5. Identify properties in the city’s bloated real estate portfolio to use for affordable housing or to sell (or end lease) and to use proceeds to construct affordable housing;

6. Identify abandoned/vacant homes and proactively work with property owners on legal options to repair and add housing (e.g., rehabilitation, forfeiture, etc);

7. Tighten short term rental (STRs) restrictions to limit the % of STRs on street blocks and in neighborhoods, especially in school attendance zones at risk for closure/realignment;

8. Other housing ideas, especially those that emerge from neighborhood planning efforts. For instance, the Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association advocates for a % of property tax revenue from downtown residential properties contributing to an affordable housing fund. 

Austin neighborhoods need their schools back. I chose to raise my kids in central Austin because I wanted them to experience being able to walk and bike to school, parks, stores, and summer camps and to have access to transit. That experience was part of the magic of living in Austin. The heartbreaking closure of neighborhood schools warrants stronger collaboration with Austin ISD to identify temporary uses of the schools and what needs to happen for the schools to reopen. I strongly advocate for the City of Austin, Travis County and the Austin ISD Joint Subcommittee to meet more frequently and to engage in robust discussion and oversight of budgets and decision-making to prevent further school closures. State policy is partially to blame; decisions at the local level also contributed to the closures.