City Council’s push to address the area’s rising cost of living could soon include components of a plan put forward by a coalition of community groups to prevent low-income residents from being priced out of Austin. At last week’s meeting, Council unanimously passed a resolution directing the city manager to conduct an analysis and make […]
gentrification
Posted inAustin
People’s Plan to combat gentrification headed to Council
Ahead of its planned fall release of recommendations to combat gentrification in Austin, the city’s Anti-Displacement Task Force has endorsed a broad plan created by community organizers. At its meeting last week the task force voted 12-1 to recommend City Council consider and take action on the People’s Plan, which is intended to specifically keep […]
Posted inAustin
Human Rights Commission offers measured support to the People’s Plan
It’s no revelation that the Austin housing market is exploding and new developments are popping up almost as quickly as people are moving in. And out. To help address the displacement and gentrification Austin is experiencing, at its Feb. 26 meeting, the Human Rights Commission reviewed the six resolutions/draft ordinances that make up the People’s Plan. Although […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Grin and bear it
Putting himself out there… Randy Clarke spent his second full day as the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s CEO personally apologizing to riders. Clarke and top agency brass posted up at the downtown rail station just before rush hour on Thursday to greet commuters before they boarded Red Line trains. The service has recently hit some […]
Posted inAustin
Council considers gentrification and ‘right to return’ policy
On Tuesday, City Council members got their first glimpse at a study they voted to authorize that examines gentrification in Austin. The first phase of the study, conducted by three University of Texas professors, analyzed the demographic profile of nearly every census tract in the city. The analysis sought to highlight areas that have experienced […]
Posted inAustin
Austin is full of anti-gentrification ideas, but most wouldn’t have a direct impact
Since 2000, the city of Austin has had a lot of ideas about how to slow down gentrification. A task force recommended in 2002, for example, that the city educate residents about available property tax exemptions. In 2008, City Council members asked the city manager to find city-owned land suitable for affordable housing. And there […]
Posted inCity Council
Council to tackle two displacement resolutions today
While Mayor Steve Adler is touting a new task force on gentrification as a fresh opportunity to come up with ideas to address economic displacement, some of his City Council colleagues stress that it will only be a worthwhile effort if it is followed by meaningful action from city leaders. Council is poised to approve […]
Posted inAustin
Mayor Adler wants a task force on gentrification. We’ve had plenty of those.
For five weeks in 2001, Karen Paup spent her afternoons with other Austin residents talking about the city’s changing east side. The group included a pastor, a developer and a now-professor at New York University. “We shared anecdotes, we looked at data,” said Paup, who works for Texas Housers, a nonprofit focused on low-income housing. […]
Posted inHousing
UT study, proposed task force would tackle residential displacement
With the issue of residents being priced out of their longtime neighborhoods becoming a topic of discussion in most city initiatives, Mayor Steve Adler said the time has come to tackle the issue directly. That was what prompted Adler to announce earlier this month his hope to form a task force on displacement and gentrification […]
Posted inHousing
TCAD trying to make appraisals more equitable
Many taxpayers have charged that the current property tax system is unfair because it penalizes longtime homeowners with a higher tax bill when their neighborhoods start to gentrify. One of those homeowners is City Council Member Ora Houston. During Council’s Dec. 6 work session, Houston said she lives in a house that is 50 years […]
Posted inCity Hall
Human Rights Commission pushes Council to address gentrification
Although gentrification is a well-recognized problem in Austin, the Human Rights Commission believes it has reached crisis level and is pushing City Council to take concrete action. The commission passed a recommendation that Council recognize gentrification as a human rights issue at its meeting on June 27. After months of discussion, in which the commission […]
Posted inDevelopment
SXSW panel spotlights urban housing
Austin is no snowflake when it comes to issues of housing, affordability and density. Cities across the United States grapple with similar challenges even if they don’t have the robust economy that is driving growth here in Central Texas. Last Friday, two mayors from opposite sides of the country sat on a South by Southwest […]