TipSheet: Austin City Council, 5.30.24

City Council will meet today for the last time before its summer break. Because the next meeting isn’t until July 18, one might expect the agenda to be overstuffed, but it’s really not that bad. As usual, we’ve done our optimistic best to guess at what might be most interesting.

As we reported earlier this week, Council will consider putting a series of potential charter amendments on November’s ballot today. Today’s vote will not actually put anything on the ballot though – it will just give staff the room to move ahead with refining the proposals. The vote to put things on the ballot is scheduled for July 18. 

Council will also consider increasing the property tax exemption for senior and disabled homeowners from $124,000 to $154,000 as a way to increase affordability.

Today’s biggest item, in terms of public input and discussion, was likely to be proposed changes to development standards for the South Central Waterfront, but that is going to be postponed until July 18. In the meantime, you can read up on what happened at the Planning Commission and Council’s work session.

Following the loss of a lawsuit and a very long meeting filled with speakers, Council will consider adopting new public speaking rules today. All the rules are here, but the most salient one is probably: “Prior to or at the start of each meeting, the presiding officer shall announce the amount of time allotted to speakers per item, but at no time will the speaking time be reduced to less than two minutes per agenda item.”

The city is also moving forward with a mobile court program for the Downtown Austin Community Court after a pilot program. Here’s our previous coverage and background on that.

Following the passage of the second phase of the HOME amendments, Council Member José Velásquez is now forwarding a resolution that is aimed at preventing displacement and ensuring the changes are accessible to lower-income households. You can read that resolution here. In a post on the City Council Message Board, Velásquez explains the resolution takes a three-pronged approach: increasing access to capital for homeowners, reducing development costs and expanding education about available resources.

Council Member Vanessa Fuentes has a resolution that is seeking ways to promote and subsidize flood insurance for low-income Austinites. The resolution itself has some good background on the issue. Fuentes also has a resolution that will change the city’s requirement that construction projects that are more than $1 million participate in the Better Builder Program, which ensures worker protections, offering an option to participate in a “substantially equivalent program related to worker protection” instead. Here’s that resolution.

Council Member Paige Ellis has a resolution that asks to remove the wastewater pipe in Barton Creek that has been cited as a cause of decreased water quality and increased E. coli levels.

After news that the city’s various climate change plans will probably cost quite a bit, it’s time to get organized. Today, Council will hold a public hearing on how the environmental investment plan will take shape and be funded.

Council will also take the unusual step of naming part of the Shoal Creek Greenbelt Trail after former City Council Member Chris Riley. (We wrote about that today.)

In an effort to serve unhoused Austinites a little more smoothly, Council will also take up a resolution to improve rapid rehousing for those transitioning into housing by improving rental assistance and providing more flexibility for the city’s Homeless Strategy Office for the next two years.

As the plan to expand Interstate 35 marches steadily forward, plans to mitigate its impact do the same. Today, Council will consider a resolution from Council Member Zo Qadri that focuses on the area near the Hancock and Cherrywood neighborhoods. Specifically, the resolution formalizes support for an application for a grant “to provide design services and technical assistance regarding, but not limited to, the area surrounding the Hancock-Cherrywood I-35 cap, Red Line, and other adjacent areas with major redevelopment potential, taking into consideration nearby planning and development efforts.”

Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison is putting forth a resolution that asks the city to simplify things for food establishments and businesses that employ no more than 100 people. The resolution asks that the city simplify the development process, expand resources and remove the requirement to install a grease trap.

Requests to establish a fund for the Red River Cultural District haven’t been ignored, and the ordinance to do so is before City Council today. Here it is.

Finally, there’s a whole lot of money being spent on today’s agenda. And, though coverage of various contracts isn’t typically our thing, there are a few expenditures that seemed a little interesting. For example, the $78.5 million for an “Infinity Park Warehouse facility” will be a “co-location of multiple public safety departments, including Austin Police Department Forensic Evidence, Emergency Medical Services Department, Homeland Security and Emergency Management and Austin Fire Department” in Del Valle. Council will also consider extending a contract with the folks who have developed Mueller, Catellus Austin LLC. After 20 years, the master development agreement is set to expire in December, but delays due to the pandemic, recession and market conditions have “resulted in almost seven years of delayed and slowed delivery” though the project has come through with more than $2.5 billion in taxable development and 1,650 affordable units so far. This week’s agenda also shows how inflation and increased building costs are impacting, well, most things. As proof, a long-planned revamp of the Montopolis pool has more than doubled in cost, and Council will vote on an increase to the construction contract from the original $11.4 million to $24 million today. Though tiny in comparison, the $82,500 in incentives for Taylor Sheridan’s “1923” is fun for “oh look what’s filming in Austin now” reasons.

Money flows both ways, though, and Council will also vote to accept about $11.3 million in grant funds for the city’s MetroBike program. The money will go toward a $20.6 million expansion of the network from 80 stations to 240 stations and electrification of the whole shebang.

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