Leslie Pool launches into the final year of a busy decade

Leslie Pool’s ninth year on City Council has been a productive and busy one. She recalls that she started out 2023 with the intention of helping her newly elected colleagues learn the ropes and accomplish their goals. For Ryan Alter, Zo Qadri and José Velásquez, affordable housing was an important goal. Each emphasized housing in their successful campaigns.

Pool wanted to help her new colleagues succeed in their endeavors, including writing rules that would allow for more housing. She also wanted to continue to work on environmental issues.

Pool was one of the Council members who voted against changes to the Land Development Code in the proposal called CodeNEXT. She was on the losing side of the vote, but ultimately the courts sided with opponents of CodeNEXT, saying the city did not do enough to inform property owners about the proposed changes.

This year, Pool has been on the other side, leading the charge for zoning changes that could mean a very different look and different options for people seeking housing. But people should not expect the city to look different right away, she says. It could take five or 10 years before smaller houses on smaller lots become more common.

In response to a question about why she shifted from opposing changes to the Land Development Code to allowing additional housing on lots where the city currently allows only one single home, Pool said, “I can’t any longer square the environmental crisis with Austin growing” and the need to allow more people to live in the city. The city’s current development rules make it difficult to answer that question.

“The financial aspects are also massive. But if I only look at the environmental aspects, I still am faced with a decision that says we have to allow more people to live on smaller bits of land.”

In addition to responding to a housing crisis, Pool and her colleagues were responding to a threat from the state Legislature that made inaction by the city seem particularly dangerous to Austin’s independence.

Some members of the public believe that the changes Council approved in the HOME initiative, which stands for Home Options for Middle-Income Empowerment, will require them to build more housing on that property or that the fact that they can do so will automatically raise their taxes. Not true, says Pool, who had hoped opponents would see the wisdom of the changes Council approved on Dec. 7.

Staff members still have to rewrite regulations that have required property owners to get special approval to subdivide their properties. The idea behind that change is to mitigate costs, both in time and money, Pool said. “Right now, developers can come in and offer to buy you out. It’s hard to say no” because of how much it costs to subdivide.

“Remember in Rainey Street,” she says. “Everybody sold out” to a single developer. But the new rules will “make it so that they don’t have to sell. … Is there a way for the city to step aside and make it easier financially and logistically?”

Before holding hearings and approving the HOME initiative, the city sent notice to all property owners notifying them of proposed changes.

Those who opposed other changes to the city’s rules governing development may decide to fight this one, too, but she points to the joint hearing with the Planning Commission as an important part of the city’s effort to allow input.

Pool anticipates using the same procedure in 2024 to move forward with part two of the HOME changes to the code.

Pool has served as chair of Council’s Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee, as well as the Austin Water Oversight Committee, and is vice chair of Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board of directors. In 2024, she will become mayor pro tem, per the agreement from early 2023 when Council Member Paige Ellis became mayor pro tem for a year.

In her role as the chair of the Austin Energy committee, Pool looks at economic as well as environmental aspects of providing fuel for the utility. But she notes that the most important issue for the majority of customers is reliability.

“I need to square our desire to keep the costs low with expanding the portfolio,” she said. Some environmentalists will be unhappy about adding any fuel to the mix that produces more carbon – even though it costs less and is more consistently reliable.

Pool said she was pleased that Austin is leading the way on increasing the number and type of EV charging stations. In addition, she’s excited about the possibilities of low-carbon concrete. Unlike regular concrete, the low-carbon variety sequesters carbon instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.

In another win for environmentalists, the Houston-based landowner who sought a permit to dam the South Llano River withdrew his request after Austin joined local landowners in opposing the permit. Pool sponsored the resolution that started Austin’s involvement in the matter.

Pool is looking forward to a very busy 2024, not just in terms of passing part two of the HOME initiative, but also wrapping up all the other work that started in 2023, 2022 and earlier. While she says she never thought she would serve for 10 years, here she is, getting ready to start the final year of a very busy decade.

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Posted In: City Hall, District 7