Council to make zoning variances more accessible to low-income homeowners

City Council passed a resolution Thursday to make it easier for low-income Austinites to seek zoning variances from the Board of Adjustment. 

The proposed program would help low-income and other qualifying residents put together an application and pay application fees.

Jessica Cohen, chair of the Board of Adjustment, said low-income homeowners rarely seek variances.

“I noticed that the only cases we were hearing were LA (Lake Austin) zoning, dock cases and commercial. And I asked, you know what, where are our residential cases? Why don’t we ever see anything from the east side?”

The program would help fix that by allowing more people to access relief from the BoA for zoning infringements. Cohen gave examples of residents who build a backyard shed too close to the property line or improperly turn a garage into a bedroom. While these people could get a variance from the BoA to keep these structures in place, the cost, complexity and uncertainty of the process means most don’t even try. 

“It’s not flashy, it’s not going to change everyone’s life, but for the few people that this is going to help, it’s really going to help,” Cohen said. 

According to the city’s fee schedule, a zoning variance costs nearly $800 for residential applicants. “That’s not a real reachable amount of money for a lot of people in Austin,” Cohen said, adding that errors in the application could lead to additional fees.

In a memo from last July, staff said that the city could set aside $10,000 from the General Fund to support up to nine variance requests per year. The funds could help pay for application fees, either in whole or in part. The program would also include pro bono services to guide applicants through the process. 

Cohen said that the program may be the first of its kind in the country, and she hoped other cities would follow Austin’s example. 

Council Member Mackenzie Kelly had hoped to add amendments to the program at Thursday’s meeting, but no one else supported them. The amendments included assessing the impact of the program on the city’s budget, adding recipients of certain public safety assistance programs to the list of qualified applicants and delaying the launch of the program by four months.

Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison, the proposal’s main sponsor, did not accept Kelly’s amendments. She explained her reasoning in a City Council Message Board post, saying she could not find enough information about Kelly’s identified programs and that a financial analysis should not delay the program.

Council passed the resolution unanimously. City staffers are now tasked with finalizing the program before Council makes a final decision to authorize the program on April 10.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license. This story has been changed since publication to correct a typo.

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