A look back: Austin’s year in review
Friday, December 29, 2023 by
Austin Monitor With 2023 drawing to a close, it’s time to look back on the local headlines that dominated the news before looking forward to the year ahead. Happy News Year!
New city management
This year saw a strange kind of sea change at City Hall led by newly reelected Mayor Kirk Watson. On the one hand, Watson immediately set to cleaning house: Things started to move at what passes for lightning speed in local government – including meetings. It was all a marked departure from the previous 10-1 system that had only operated under former Mayor Steve Adler with essentially the same faces and dynamics on the dais.
On the other hand, things weren’t exactly new, in that Watson returned to a seat he held two decades prior and brought some familiar faces back with him. The most impactful return, and departure, took place at the head of city management. Just about a month into the tenure of the newly populated City Council, City Manager Spencer Cronk was fired and replaced on an interim basis with former City Manager Jesús Garza, who has not hesitated to shake things up while at the helm.
Cops
2023 seems to have been a transitional year in terms of policing after hitting a public and Council-relations nadir over the past few years. Whether or not that is true, it was absolutely a year of change and news for Austin Police Department.
The spring kicked off with a call to the Department of Public Safety for help, widespread criticism of the move, then (kind of unheeded) pleas to go ahead and stop patrolling Austin. The year also saw the sudden retirement of Austin Police Chief Joseph Chacon and ongoing fallout from the 2020 police protests, including a mistrial in the Christopher Taylor murder trial and dismissed charges against APD officers. And, though implementation is lagging to a degree apparently worth suing over, voters approved the Equity Action-led Austin Police Oversight Act that is intended to reform how APD is held accountable.
Land use reform
After years of circuitous attempts to update the city’s Land Development Code, this year actually saw progress. City Council, with its new makeup, quickly approved changes intended to ease the city’s housing crisis, with a push from Council members to implement changes on a hastened timeline. Austin now has eliminated parking requirements and just this month quickly approved a series of changes that will allow more homes to be built on single-family lots, eliminate occupancy limits and make tiny homes easier to build.
That’s not to say that this year was entirely fruitful when it comes to land use reform – just this month, yet another lawsuit was settled against the city, overturning new code that had expanded opportunities for residential development.
I-35 expansion
Though the effort wasn’t launched or physically started this year, 2023 was when reality set in about the looming expansion of Interstate 35 through downtown. The year brought final decisions from TxDOT, protests and an emerging picture of what the overhaul would actually look like and who it would impact. In an attempt to mitigate that impact, the city also solidified plans to span the enlarged highway and bridge the east/west divide with a series of “cap and stitch” projects.
Zilker Park
Despite the number of big issues City Hall tackled this year, a good bit of ink was also spilled over Zilker Park. Most notably, a plan that would have changed the guiding vision and future of the park was stopped dead before it even reached Council, after protracted public outcry. A less-effective racket was made over plans to remove Flo, a century-old pecan tree that was found to be suffering from brittle cinder fungus, making the tree a danger to Barton Springs bathers. And a less fervent (but still myopic) focus was also trained on renovations to Barton Springs’ bathhouse and bridge replacement.
Texas Legislature
As seems to be true any year the Legislature is in session, Austin dealt with the fallout from new state laws this year. The “Death Star” bill – so named because it could preempt local regulations – was found unconstitutional by a Travis County court at the end of August. The state appealed the ruling and the bill went into effect just a few days later. While opponents of the law and legal experts are worried it will expose local governments to a flood of lawsuits, the bill has not yet had the feared impact.
However, the city has already faced a reduction in the parkland benefits it is able to collect, and the Legislature has also passed a number of smaller laws that dictate development and annexation rules.
Airport issues
It wasn’t a terribly good year for Austin’s airport. A number of near-misses on the runway managed to attract national attention, and the city had to pay $88 million over the whole South Terminal thing. On the other hand, a much-needed massive expansion of the airport finally got rolling, promising brighter (and expensive) days ahead.
Sixth Street revamp
After a series of approvals earlier this year, Austin’s “Dirty Sixth” is on the precipice of getting an overhaul, taking it from its current state to a promised “premier shopping destination.” A major change, to say the least.
Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.
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