Equity overlay study prompts request for Council to further delay HOME2 implementation

The Community Development Commission wants City Council to further delay implementation of the second round of HOME initiative changes to the land use code, out of concern that more time is needed to properly design an equity overlay to address displacement concerns.

At last week’s meeting, the commission unanimously approved a recommendation to delay HOME Initiative Phase II by an additional six months, to allow for a comprehensive evaluation of the overlay’s feasibility, including hosting housing forums with service providers and organizations in areas most at risk of displacement. The commission also recommended providing city staff with additional resources to city staff to ensure the overlay will bring the needed zoning changes and other mechanisms to preserve affordable housing in vulnerable communities, primarily located in the city’s Eastern Crescent.

Prior to the vote, city staff provided the commission with a presentation on the forthcoming studies related to the equity overlay, which are being coordinated by an interdepartmental work group involving the Equity Office, Planning Department and Housing Department. Atlanta-based APD-Urban Planning Management has been selected to carry out the primary study that will conduct policy and program analysis, look at risk of displacement and offer final recommendations for how to best structure and implement the overlay.

In addition to that study, staff from the housing and planning departments are collaborating with researchers at the University of Texas and the University of Oklahoma to study the impacts of past and current land development policies. This research will compare Austin’s experiences to those of similar cities and help develop frameworks for future policy evaluations.

APD-Urban’s work will be completed in four phases through next summer, with commission members repeatedly stressing they want the consultants to make in-person updates to the Community Development Commission to discuss how they will collect community engagement.

“We kind of see it as, you know, the same players that are doing the same kind of studies that we’ve seen that lead us to very similar results,” Commissioner Jose Elias said. “So I guess my question is, when does the community come in in this process?”

Principal planner Alan Pani said city staffers have generated lists of several community organizations that are seen as connected to the affordability and displacement crises, including Community Powered ATX, which worked with commission members to craft the recommendation.

“(APD-Urban) are definitely looking at proposals from community organizations. I mentioned Community Powered ATX because they were quite vocal at the HOME-focused Council meetings and they had a very succinct proposal of how they thought HOME could be amended,” he said. “They will be reviewing community engagement and feedback and incorporating that into their recommendations or programs that might come out of it.”

Pani and other staff explained that part of the delay in beginning the study on the overlay came from the city’s long timeline for selecting and hiring outside vendors.

With Council’s initial six-month delay for the second round of HOME initiatives lapsing this month, Elias and other commissioners worried that moving forward with an equity overlay without a comprehensive study could cause crucial pieces and best practices to be missed.

Commissioner Bertha Delgado said community engagement needs to be a significant portion of the work conducted by the Atlanta group.

“These are community members that are out there in the community attending Council, doing the work and they are here today,” she said of Community Powered ATX. “Our expectations as a commission, me as a commissioner for East Austin, serving in an area that has been totally gentrified and people have been displaced, we want you all to not just do surveys and work with outside consultants. We want you all to work with our constituents that are local, that are here doing the work.”

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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