TipSheet: Austin City Council, 10.19.23

Today, City Council will convene for a regular Thursday meeting, and we’ve gone through the agenda in an attempt to compile what might be the most interesting bits from the meeting. If this triggers your trust issues, you can read through the whole agenda here.

The biggest item on today’s agenda is, no doubt, the big-money contracts on the table that would allow the Convention Center demolition and rebuild to move forward. It’s not that this proposition, which has been long in the works, is controversial per se. It’s just that it’s a lot of money, and the prospect of lost revenue during the anticipated four years of renovation only adds to that fact.

A majority of noontime public speakers today will be asking City Council to stop Interstate 35’s expansion. It remains to be seen how that might happen, but local officials continue to try to mitigate the impact of the project. In another grasp at reason, Council will consider a Mobility Committee resolution that attempts to derail the expansion based on environmental concerns. The committee report asks Council to find “the projected increase in greenhouse gas emissions from the proposed TxDOT I-35 Capital Express Central project to be unacceptable and out-of-step when the Central Texas region is pulling together to reduce those emissions and protect our future” and delay construction and funding until regional climate and transportation plans are complete and until the project is in compliance with said plans. (Here’s the resolution.)

Council will also take up changes to city rules that regulate their interactions with lobbyists.

We wrote about the ethics commission’s take on the matter, but if you want to read something a little more juicy about how the current rules are playing out at City Hall, you might want to check out The Austin Bulldog’s recent story.

In a sign that the search for Austin’s next city manager is about to begin in earnest, Council will also look to approve a contract with Mosaic Public Partners, with plans to have a new city manager in place in the next four to six months (or so).

As has been the case for most agendas this year, there are also a couple of changes to the Land Development Code afoot today. The first amends definitions and regulations around day care, child care and adult care services in an attempt to make them more affordable and abundant. The second would create a six-month pilot program that modifies zoning and neighborhood plan amendment deadlines. Essentially, the pilot will extend some development deadlines in order to avoid costs and hassles of resubmitting expired applications and to make the whole process more predictable for everyone.

In bike path news (which we love), Council will also vote to accept $1 million in funding for a portion of the MoKan Corridor Trail that will connect Tillery Street to Springdale Road (here’s a little map). In South Terminal news, Council will vote on approval for continued operations of a labor services contract.

And, in zoning, Council may take up a proposed mini-storage project that was shot down by the Planning Commission due to its proximity to light rail and a historic zoning bid that was also rejected by the Historic Landmark Commission. Council will also hold a hearing on a site plan extension appeal for Green Pastures.

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