Kimberly Reeves

Some affordable housing advocates are far from happy with Council’s dictated affordability levels in the proposed Downtown Density Bonus.   City Council had urged staff to move more quickly on the density bonus, which was part of the Downtown Plan passed in 2011. Last week, division manager Jim Robertson updated a Planning Commission committee on […]

A Planning Commission committee firmly rejected the idea of leasing excess parkland parking spaces to surrounding businesses, an idea they labeled “the Casa de Luz” problem at a meeting on Tuesday night.   Casa de Luz’s issues began back in 2011, when code compliance officers cited the facility for “borrowing” parking spaces at Butler Park […]

The hearing on payday lending in the House Investments and Financial Services Committee on Monday was so uneventful as to practically guarantee the Senate version of the bill would be the one worth following.   The House has a number of bills on aspects of payday lending. The Senate has an omnibus bill that has […]

Rep. Paul Workman, R-Austin, is fronting a mounting frustration among southwest Austin landowners, many of whom have taken years to get their development projects off the ground, only to face opposition from a city that some consider to be cozy with environmental interests and the Save Our Springs Ordinance.   Every session requires a few […]

The Texas Senate, on a day when the House was embroiled in budget talk, passed two bills that could have a significant impact on Austin.   The duo of bills, Senate Bill 894 and Senate Bill 507, are the top chamber’s reaction to private-public partnerships to redevelop the Capitol Complex and sell off underutilized state […]

The question of just how much the proposed Project Connect would cost was asked – but not answered – at Monday night’s CAMPO board meeting.   Mayor Lee Leffingwell, chair of CAMPO’s Transit Working Group, laid out the regional transit vision at the meeting, one that merged the existing Capital Metro Red Line and rapid […]

The East Riverside Corridor Regulating Plan made it through Council on first reading last week after almost six long years of debate over competing priorities. Changes were already under way in the corridor back in 2007, and with the rumor of light rail afoot, it made sense to start the master planning process, said city […]

The Community Development Corporation’s Housing Committee will be the first group to take another look at Austin’s SMART housing program more than a decade after it was created.   Austin’s SMART housing initiative once was a key tool in the city’s affordable housing toolbox, but for-profit multi-family developers have not used the program in at […]

Last week, Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole brokered a final compromise on conditions around the re-zoning for a proposed Little Woodrow’s on Burnet Road, but the agreed-to concessions were not enough to bring Council Members Laura Morrison and Kathie Tovo on board.   This re-zoning of 5425 Burnet Road, from CS to CS-1(commercial with alcohol), […]

The city unveiled its first conceptual renderings of the 90-acre Festival Beach area on Monday night, taking care to emphasize the importance of public input.   Of the neighborhoods across the city, those on the East Side around Festival Beach and the decommissioned Holly power plant are some of the hardest to please with longest […]

New legislation, filed Thursday by Sens. Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville) and Kirk Watson (D-Austin) would move oversight of water and sewer utilities from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to the Public Utility Commission.     “Over the past decade, more and more small, privately-owned public water and wastewater utility systems have been acquired by national […]

The city broke ground on two-dozen units of affordable housing on East 12th Street in East Austin on Wednesday, a testament to ongoing efforts of the Anderson Community Development Corp. to find its way back to being a viable, substantial force in the East Austin community.   The tale of Anderson CDC is one of […]