TipSheet: Austin City Council 4.24.25

The Austin City Council will convene today for their regular Thursday meeting. We’ll be watching and, after reading over the full agenda, here are a few things that we’ll be watching closely.

The Council will consider its second artificial intelligence resolution in recent memory with an agenda item from the office of Mayor Pro Tem Vanessa Fuentes. The resolution focuses on the environmental cost of AI locally as well as dialing into specifics about how it should be used by the city in regards to its employees.

Though real estate purchases aren’t usually the most exciting topics (news-wise), the proposed $26 million purchase of office space has gathered some headlines over the past few days.

Though federal funds are getting cut left and right (as we know you know), it looks like the $32 million from the United States Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration that will help with an overhaul of the Barton Springs Road Bridge is good to go (since the money was awarded in October.)

Council will also consider amending the Land Development Code to reflect a resolution that passed in July. The first amendment concerns an increase of the city’s “preservation bonus” to make it more appealing. This amendment will allow for larger homes to be built if an existing home is preserved on a property. 

And there’s a whole mess of items that deal with another practical aspect of the I35 expansion – water and wastewater line relocation. According to the backup, the project will require relocation of “approximately 24,100 linear feet of water lines and 10,700 linear feet of wastewater lines and appurtenances out of the expanded TxDOT right-of-way along I-35 from Holly Street to State Highway 71/Ben White Boulevard.”

In terms of zoning, we’re keeping an eye on a Planned Unit Development on East Riverside and South Congress Ave., the first-ever zonings in Hickmuntown, a vacant lot on Bruning Ave., a massive multifamily project in Montopolis and an all-but-certain goodbye to the Holy Cross Hospital complex.

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