Marc Duchen readies to take his place on the dais for District 10

After besting his only opponent in the Nov. 5 election, Marc Duchen is getting ready to take the City Council District 10 seat. He will succeed Council Member Alison Alter, who is retiring after two terms.

Duchen represents a change in personality but has been in agreement with many of his predecessor’s ideas, particularly as they relate to development. He made clear during his campaign that he was opposed to many of the changes Council made in adopting HOME and HOME 2 ordinances. Those changes were intended to make it easier to build more housing in most of the city through changes to the Land Development Code.

As a leader of the Community Not Commodity group, Duchen became familiar with the changes HOME and HOME 2 proposed for the land code and spoke out against various aspects of those changes.

Duchen hopes to convince his colleagues to reinstate regulations that have prevented developers from adding as many structures within the wildland-urban interface (WUI) areas of the district as other areas. Those rules expired on Nov. 16, and Alter expressed hope that her colleagues would reinstate those rules after she leaves Council. Duchen said, “I think it’s absolutely worth trying to extend those.”

“The second-most prevalent way fires spread is from structure to structure,” Duchen said, citing additional structures allowed by the changed rules as posing “a tremendous risk for those (WUI) neighborhoods, and we have quite a few of those in the district.”

Duchen is also interested in finding out how many trees the city has lost as a result of changed setback regulations.

“It’s really about putting more guardrails on things. … The setbacks were significant. I already know of cases when six to 10 trees are coming out because of redevelopment,” he said.

He noted that the mayor had asked for reporting on the impact of the regulations at regular intervals. Duchen in particular wants to hear about the impact of the new regulations on wildfire danger, tree loss and extra burdens on water/wastewater infrastructure to help Council consider amendments to the Land Development Code. He noted that he wanted information on how the changes had increased taxes but he does not expect to get that from the city. In addition to his concerns about loss of trees and green space, Duchen is concerned that changes to the city code will slow down emergency vehicles as they try to navigate through streets jammed with cars owned by people who don’t have garages. He noted that concern during his campaign.

During the campaign, Duchen talked about auditing city programs and making sure that the city had good data on its expenditures. The Austin Monitor asked him how that might apply to various departments and programs, such as parks. He remarked that “27 percent of the city is still parks deficient,” not within a specific area but throughout the whole city.

The city is currently depending on outside groups, such as the Trail Conservancy, to handle various maintenance functions and fund a variety of enhancements along the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail.

Without criticizing that particular group, Duchen said he would like to see real scrutiny of how much value the groups are providing to the city. His questions do not relate solely to parks. Duchen noted the large amount of funding going into nonprofit groups that help the city’s homeless people and expressed a desire to see audits of those organizations that are taking in so much money.

He concluded that he would like audits that connect the money spent by the city and other governmental entities to the positive outcomes the city and the federal government were seeking when the money was set aside.

Duchen said he has a particular concern for the city because “You’ve got more and more entrenched, powerful and well-funded third-party groups,” which are “associated with homelessness, parks, tourism, with a lot of the things the city would (otherwise) be responsible for.” He said it’s unclear how much value those groups are creating for the city and for themselves.

“I think we have a model that needs more scrutiny so that they don’t become the independent, insulated architects of policy and funding,” he said.

Although he is looking forward to taking the District 10 chair in January, Duchen has not forgotten about the bruising campaign he had with opponent Ashika Ganguly. He filed a complaint with the city’s Ethics Review Commission against her for failing to file a personal financial statement when required to do so. The commission voted to move forward with a hearing on that complaint as well as a similar complaint filed by Council Member Mackenzie Kelly against Krista Laine, who will be taking the District 6 seat in January.

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.

Posted In: City Council, District 10