City will promote relocation of homes as alternative to demolition

The city has identified a number of ways to increase the relocation and deconstruction of homes as an alternative to demolition that could take place amid the push for more housing on smaller parcels of land.

A memo issued last month from José Roig, director of the Development Services Department, and Richard McHale, director of Austin Resource Recovery, detailed the findings and recommendations those departments have agreed upon in response to a November resolution from City Council that called for more streamlining and promoting alternatives to demolition.

Some of the first steps include developing training programs for the general public and contractors on relocation permitting, prioritizing the processing of relocation applications for expedited review, and establishing a fee waiver or voucher system to offset the costs of relocation permit reviews.

Council will need to identify the funding source for the fee waiver, though an anticipated cost was not included in the memo.

Development Services plans to create a new application for demolitions and relocations, with the goal of preserving review accuracy and the recent improvements in processing times.

Awareness of relocations and deconstruction as an option for developers will be promoted on DSD’s website by this fall, with information resources for demolitions including material about alternative solutions as well. The city’s Development Tracker online tool will also be updated to include the age of any structure proposed for demolition.

The memo did push back on one portion of the Council resolution, which would lower the threshold for mandatory recycling of demolition or deconstruction debris to less than the current trigger of 5,000 square feet for both commercial and residential projects.

It notes that those smaller projects account for a statistically small portion of the waste stream involving construction, and that a lower threshold could result in added costs for residential projects that would result in higher rents or sales prices.

It reads, in part: A negative impact would likely put an additional cost on new construction of single-family homes. Additionally, projects under 5,000 square feet represent a very large number of permits but a very small percentage of the waste stream coming from construction and demolition. Lowering the threshold would greatly increase the administrative workload of enforcement without resulting in a significant increase in waste diversion.

Prior to the attention paid to relocations during the HOME and HOME2 slates of building code changes, property owners and developers have frequently criticized the city’s policies as being too restrictive and cost prohibitive to make relocations an option to preserve existing homes. Discussion of the matter has been somewhat commonplace during deliberations at the Historic Landmark Commission.

In November, during tied to discussions of how the city can improve its building policies to encourage density and affordability, Mayor Pro Tem Leslie Pool and Council Member Ryan Alter said the move to promote relocations as “a win-win” needed to accommodate the allowance of smaller parcels for single-family homes.

“This item will raise awareness and minimize barriers to relocating a house by informing people about the option, especially when they’re considering demolition, streamlining the process to make it cheaper and faster in facilitating a market for those who wish to buy or sell these homes with concerns that increased density will result in the demolition of older, smaller homes,” Alter said. “House relocation provides an opportunity to preserve existing housing. Homes can be relocated within a lot or to a separate lot to provide affordable home ownership options. … I was shocked to learn that 25 percent of the waste in our landfills is a result of demolitions, and so we need to do everything we can to not only address our affordability crisis, but our climate crisis.”

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