Austin has new housing blueprint

On Thursday, City Council approved what is now known as the Strategic Housing Blueprint, giving the city its first housing plan. The plan calls for 135,000 more housing units by 2025. Significantly, it calls for creating 60,000 affordable units in the next decade for households earning $60,000 or less annually. Council voted unanimously in favor of the first half of the plan, which addresses its scope. The second half of the plan, which identifies specific tools to address the city’s housing woes, passed in a vote of 9-1, with Council Member Ellen Troxclair voting in opposition. “I am not ready to admit defeat to gentrification,” said Mayor Steve Adler. “I am not ready to admit that Austin has a future which is inescapably one where we lose the middle class.”