Council orders overhaul of SMART housing program

City Council voted this week to proceed with an overhaul of the SMART housing program.

The SMART (Safe, Mixed-Income, Accessible, Reasonably Priced, Transit-Oriented) housing program grants certain fee waivers to housing developments that agree to include affordable housing. The list of waived fees includes permit, capital recovery and construction inspection fees.

Austin adopted SMART in 2000, but the tool to promote affordable housing in the urban core quickly proved to be ineffective. The city has continuously struggled to get for-profit developers to take advantage of the program. Many of the projects that have participated depend on city funding.

Item 129, sponsored by Council Member Jose Velásquez, directs the city manager to find fixes for SMART and initiates the corresponding amendments to the Land Development Code.

“This resolution is the result of several months of conversations with affordable housing developers regarding our city’s oldest affordable housing program,” Velásquez said on Thursday. “The SMART Housing program was intended to provide expedited review and fee waivers for affordable housing developments, and unfortunately, it’s fallen short.”

Currently, the program’s waived fees are listed explicitly in the Land Development Code. Velásquez explained that means any changes to that list must go through the city’s code amendment process.

“This item looks to simplify the (Land Development Code) by instead including the waived fees as part of the annual fee ordinance,” Velásquez said.

Under the changes, Council would approve the fees as part of the annual budget process. If feasible, the code will also be changed to include a list of the fees that are not eligible to be waived under the program. That would alleviate the need for updated fees to go through the amendment process.

“If the city manager finds that this approach is not feasible, the city manager shall present the rationale for this determination to City Council,” the resolution states.

The resolution also directs the city manager to determine the total dollar amount that would be waived for a SMART development that uses the expedited review process. The manager will provide those findings to the Housing and Planning Committee at its September meeting.

“The intent is to provide further predictability for affordable housing developers, so they can more accurately estimate the city fees they will pay with any given affordable project,” Velásquez said.

Council Member Mackenzie Kelly successfully proposed an amendment that directs the city manager to collaborate with neighboring jurisdictions and regional entities to develop a “coordinated approach to affordable housing” in the Central Texas region.

Council members Ryan Alter, Natasha Harper-Madison and Chito Vela co-sponsored the resolution.

Photo by L Maule, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Austin Monitor’s work is made possible by donations from the community. Though our reporting covers donors from time to time, we are careful to keep business and editorial efforts separate while maintaining transparency. A complete list of donors is available here, and our code of ethics is explained here.