City Council Special Called Meeting Transcript –6/14/2017 Title: ATXN 24/7 Recording Channel: 6 - ATXN Recorded On: 6/14/2017 6:00:00 AM Original Air Date: 6/14/2017 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== [1:06:11 PM] welcome back to Austin. >> Thank you very much. I'm John figanesi. We've gone through and done an analysis somewhat like what was requested and I think it answers some questions and raises others. But let me go through and talk a little about what we did and what we found in terms of the impact of the proposed zoning map versus the current zoning on a 10-year time frame. When we do zoning effect modeling, basically what happens if people build according to the outrighteous. You pretty much take the zoning map and build according to use. You look at what's buildable, redevelopable and constraints and so forth. Basically you take supply, you take out things like flood plains or whatever. Take out unsuitable land or land that's already developed. And then you we understand up with buildable land which is kind of what you can build on. To do this we built a building library. We've been working here with envision tomorrow in Austin since 2009 so we have a pretty extensive library that's calibrated. We use about 30 buildings to develop kind of typical developments that would match the zoning code. In 2015 we built a model. Probably not well known we did that. It was quite an ordeal. You have about 400 unique combinations, 31 Zones, overlays, all kinds of things. So we went through and built that. We started with the existing zoning. We constructed zoning types that were specific to that zoning code. [1:08:11 PM] We looked at all the different overlays and modeled each one from the single-family compatibility overlay, capital view corridors, Barton springs overlays Zones, et cetera, et cetera. So we then took the built parcels, the vacant parcels and the constraints and built a capacity for the current zoning code. That was basically a buildout capacity where you develop every potential parcel just to see what your capacity is, what the size of the glass is. Last month we did the same thing with codenext using the current map. So we built a second set of development types that match codenext. We applied that to the same vacant land using the new zoning code map and estimated capacity. So [inaudible]. This was pretty fast, didn't hit the 140,000 exactly but attempt to add 140,000 housing units. We could go back and throttle it back. There's a little bit of difference in the totals. It doesn't represent a difference in capacity. So we took the codenext and built that out. And then we took the current code and did the same 10-year assessment of the -- of that so that you can now compare your current code, what if you continue with the current code and codenext. One of the questions was demolitions and I want to take a minute here to talk about types of demolitions. You had 4056 residential demolitions since 2012. 2800 were single-family homes. The rest I assume are duplex [1:10:11 PM] and up. There are some combination of multi-family. Of those 2800 single-family units, more than 2,000 were basically a one for one replacement. In other words, they weren't stimulated by increasing development potential. It was a market condition where for whatever reason the owner thought the existing building wasn't as valuable as just the lot and took the building out and replaced it with a lot. So you had about 2,000, about 70% of the single-family demolitions were one to one replacements. Because it doesn't involve capacity change or entitlement change, we have eliminated that. We're not modeling one to one replacements. That kind of a -- that's a market thing where houses are -- would be redone because of market conditions in the area and it doesn't matter which code is in place, that's going on the take effect. 810 were replaced with more units. So 810 units -- single-family homes were replaced with more units. And basically there's -- there's three reasons why you do demolitions. One the building has reached the end of its life cycle to a larger, newer building provides more zoning, and three, a higher intense use makes more sense economically and the redevelopment occurs. So what we're mostly modeling is number 3. We're not looking at 1, we don't know the inch a of the buildings, a 1% a year turnover to estimate aging building stock. 2 is kind of independent of zoning capacity as I mentioned. We took out of the redevelopment potential lots that are less than double the lot size. So in other words, in lmdr you [1:12:14 PM] have 5750 minimum lot size. Everything under 11,500 with an existing home is not potential for redevelopment in terms of you can't add units to it. You can replace it one to one, but that's off on the side. We took these out and we're really just looking at lots that are big enough to be slight -- split or add more units in single-family homes. When we look at that under the current code and codenext, we're estimating about 665 under current code and 640 single-family units in single-family Zones that would be redeveloped. They would be replaced by about 4,000 units so there's a six to one replacement and these are the larger lots. These are probably homes on lots that are maybe an acre in an area that's zoned, you know, 7,000 or 5,000 square feet. So you're getting about 600 of these larger lots in the redevelopment. We then looked at homes in nonsingle-family Zones. So these are single-family homes or residential units, I should say, that are in areas that are zoned for some higher use, some other use. And that's by far the majority of the redevelopment. So in this current run, we got about 16,200 units that were redeveloped, in codenext 16,700. About 16,000 units in each one would be redeveloped and replaced by about 150,000 units. In that area. So that gives you the idea of the replacement. So the 16,000 units, about 3% of the number of units that are here in 2027, which is about half a million, 500 and some odd thousand. [1:14:14 PM] So we did two scenarios, and at capacity. In this case you have less capacity under the current code in the core along the corridors because of the current zoning. So the model in the ten years placed more units in the periphery. Where there was room to go. When we did the codenext ten-year scenario, you can see there was more capacity in the core so that got filled up first. And if I can switch back and forth, you can see the difference between the two, not a big difference in numbers, but because of the additional capacity you get in certain locations under codenext a difference in where we modeled growth occurring. So it's closer in, more along corridors. Again, about the same number of housing units because we were doing a ten-year forecast. So we intended to also a buildout which is build everything and compare the two. That will be upcoming. We were also asked to look at the impact or the issues around resolution 2017-0126-0138 which looks at the loss or gain of market affordable housing and we focused on what would happen to the market affordable housing right now based on the redevelopment we modeled under either code. And basically this is where the affordable housing is today. This map is where the 60% mfi is. It's based on the research by our friend and colleague Elizabeth Mueller at the university of Texas here in Austin. And we used that data base to -- to estimate the impact of redevelopment. These are the block groups [1:16:17 PM] that are under risk where we're getting redevelopment in that block group and this is where those codes -- we're not saying 9700 units would be redeveloped, they are saying they are at risk because as redevelopment in those areas that would potentially affect them. So that's -- that's where it's at. This is under codenext about 11,000. So there's more units in that area because of course there's more in the core and along the corridors somewhere those exist. >> Pool: Real quick, what is in the box, the du stand for, density or demolished? >> Dwelling units. >> Pool: Okay. >> If you look at the redevelopment risk between the two codes, they are approximately the same. Codenext is a little higher in terms of risk because of the increased activity in the core and along corridors. Just so you know, this is about -- in all cases it's about 8% of the total number of units in each category for both the codenext and the existing code are under risk for redevelopment. So one of the things I want to end on is that the zoning code is a part of affordable housing strategy. It's important that it be aligned and we need -- and it's great you have this strategy so we can make sure it's aligned. Mainly codes are permissive. They don't actually deliver the units and that's going to be done by other things, codes, you want to make sure the codes are permitting the kind of housing units that you are planning on for the affordable housing strategy. The one example that is actually delivered by the code one would say would be the housing units that are provided by the affordable density housing bonus, and [1:18:18 PM] it's only about 1500 units so it's an important part of the strategy but it's not a huge part. Other parts are much bigger in terms of providing that. So that concludes our research and we would be glad to ask - - answer any questions and also give us anything you want to know for further research and analysis. We now have two full scenarios of codenext and existing code so comparisons can be made fairly easy going forward. >> Mayor Adler: First I want to thank you for doing it and coming down here and presenting it to us. We'll open it up for questions. I have a quick question. Is there a way to calibrate differently so that the housing density or housing yield bonus would give us more than 1450 units over the next ten-year period? >> I think there is. I'm sure that we could do that by adding -- sweetening the pot and making it a little more effective. And I think that I would have to defer to your housing folks to look at that policy and see if there's a way to improve that. >> Mayor Adler: I would like to at least know what those scenarios are just to be able to deliberate on them. >> Great. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem, do you have any questions or do you want me to start over here? >> Tovo: I do. First of all the ones I posted. Thank you for this. I think this needs a lot more discussion and I'm aware we're ending in ten minutes so there's no way I'll get to all of my questions but I have a couple quick ones. One, and community members are noticing this too. Some of the members from the first spread sheet and analysis are different from the ones in the current link. And let me mention a couple of the things. I haven't been able to find on the new one, for example, the number of units that are proposed -- the 22 initially, remember there was concern in [1:20:19 PM] the couldn't about 141,000 -- community about 141,000 or somewhere in that number of houses -- of houses lost, households lost. So then the explanation was no, it's really 22,000 that was surveying all of those in the area. It wasn't clear which area, but nevertheless I'm not finding the corresponding page in the current list of -- in the current data base. Not to be in the new analysis unless I'm missing it. And I think the number you are citing here is 16,285 housing units lost. >> Right. >> Tovo: Where in the first draft it was 22,000. >> Right. >> Tovo: So can you -- when we had this discussion at our work session, the point was made that there was just a mislabeling of the column, but it does appear the numbers have shifted. >> Yes. >> Tovo: And so I think that I certainly need an explanation of what has changed in terms of methodology and the community as well because they are really trying to understand why would that have happened with the relabeling of a column. >> I should say the modeling is ongoing and is somewhat -- something you are adjusting as you go forward. If you look at the page 11 or actually slide - - let me see, page 12, that's one of the changes we made is we took out of the redevelopment small lots that were less than double the square footage. So this is not -- there is no capacity available -- >> Mayor Adler: Which page are you on? >> Page 12, but slide number 23 and 24. We have houses that have no capacity to redevelop that were I think erroneously marked for potential [1:22:19 PM] redevelopment. In a would be a one to one replacement and again that has nothing to do with the zoning. It has to do with market conditions where a house would be replaced by another house. That would just be the market conditions in the neighborhood. We are looking at where zoning has an impact, it has an impact by increasing development potential. And so we only included housing units that had more than double the minimum square footage so you could add a unit under whatever zoning you had. >> Tovo: I'll think a little about that, but I would ask our staff to please -- I think that we need to make both analyses available and explain the changes and methodology because I'm probably not the only one who has been trying to line them up and understand which column headers changed when actually the methodology changed as well. >> Right. >> Tovo: And so on the original -- on the original rollout there was that page that talked about -- that talked about -- that had a project summary. Is there a project summary page that I'm missing in the one that's online? >> We don't have -- I don't have that right here, but we can provide that. >> Tovo: No, I just need to know where it is in the spread sheet. I'm not finding the corresponding layout of information that would show me say that 60,000 number. The original had that project summary where it said 141 and then it said -- and then it said the 22,000ish number. That corresponding summary information does not appear to be in the new spread sheet unless I'm missing it. And I would say I've gotten questions about the number of -- >> I don't think we published the scenario that this is based on, it was just finished yesterday. So there's two -- now you have two scenarios, codenext and the old code. And I think we'll be glad to [1:24:20 PM] post that online with an explanation of the change in methodology. >> Tovo: But on the one that's up, I'm not seeing a project summary page, but maybe the staff can help me -- we went through it pretty carefully and couldn't find it. >> I think that's an older -- that's an older version that I have to update. >> Tovo: Okay. So the one I was working off of, again, I think the numbers are not adding up to what you've just laid out, but it sounds -- it sounds as if some of that is because I'm working off of older information, but it looked -- so my question I had laid out the numbers under 3, the formula you were using as redevelopment rate of 15% of population loss of 2469, 977 households lost, 979 units lost, off set by 1651 new households, 1773 new units. -- Am I interpreting your data correctly at least in the scenario that was available? >> Yes, and that was probably -- that's an example of why we wanted to remove from the analysis is targeting for redevelopment lots that were so small that a house would be removed and a house would be replaced. It has nothing to do with zoning. And I think it was a mistake to say that units that -- houses that have minimum lot size are going to redevelop because of zoning. Housing on lots that can't be further divided. So we could -- in the new analysis we're only putting in the redevelopment pool larger lots that could -- that had some development potential because of zoning. [1:26:21 PM] Not the individual housing units that have no potential for resubdivision. >> Tovo: But I guess if we're trying to determine -- if we're trying to determine how the proposed code might impact demolitions, there are other changes beyond just increased entitlements on those lots. There are changes with regard to mcmansion and increased F.A.R. So there are some changes that are proposed in codenext that could still produce redevelopment of those the -- the addition of every lot whether it's lmdr, t3 or t4 being able to have additional units I think would produce those changes. Or are you saying they fall below the lots -- the lots you are removing are below 5750? >> The lots we are removing are below 11,000 in the zoning that I mentioned. And it's double the lot size that I think John's presentation will show the impact of the code on those small scale redevelopments. And you are either adding units or redeveloping there. So what we're talking about, though, is primarily where you have larger lots that can be resubdivided where your -- the zoning is going to help create a situation where a house might be removed. So I wanted to distinguish the one to one replacements that are 70% of current demolitions to replacements where it's because the lot is developable and the house is removed from the lot so you can develop it under the zoning code. >> Tovo: Okay, so your assumption is a lot that is not 11,000 square feet won't redevelop based on the code, but I'm not sure that everyone agrees with the assumption because the code is bidding in the ability to do in some cases three units on that 5750 and that is a -- so that is increased entitlement and with [1:28:22 PM] the changes in mcmansions and others we will see those tracts redevelop because there is -- there are increasing entitlements. But to understand -- so I think I guess I would just raise a question about that basic assumption. And so -- but it's helpful to me to know that whatever the new version is that's coming online, the numbers of units lost will go down from the previous iterations because you're changing -- you're changing what you are measuring. >> I would be glad to pull out those other units as a separate category and examine that. I think that's a valid question. The economics are much different between an acre lot with a house on it and 5,000 square lot where you can add a unit or two. In my experience that's typically -- you're not taking the house out, you are adding to the house, remodeling the house, you're not removing a unit. That's what I've seen in other cities that have done this. But I think it's worth setting those small lots aside and analyzing them differently from the larger lots that have real redevelopment potential because of zoning and entitlements. I would be glad to do that. >> Tovo: Thank you. I guess I'll yield. We didn't get to my other questions but I'll submit them through the Q and a. >> Mayor Adler: Greg and then Ann. >> Casar: Let me make sure I understand this rate. So under the current code, your best estimate, which I appreciate you putting your best that you could out there, is 9,700 or so 60% mfi unprotected, nonincome restricted redevelopment risk. And then with codenext you're projecting 10,900, so that's about 1,100 more. >> Right. >> Casar: And that's helpful because it answers response to the resolution on what that difference is. But do you all have the number [1:30:24 PM] yet on how many more income restricted -- I understand why that's not included here because it's not what we asked for, but how many more income restricted we get in scenario B versus with codenext versus the current code. How much of that 1450 gap do we anticipate would be made up in income restricted units which are better than nonincome restricted units. Peter or John? Not sure yet? That would be helpful because for me I would like to address as much of that gap as possible and even make it not a gap. One way as the mayor suggested how much of that we could make up in income restricted units. Second it would be interesting to me as I think Alex Joyce mentioned last time he was here with the additional fiscal benefits of codenext, how much of that we might capture in tifs to help make up some of that gap or make it we have more 60% mfi units because of this process as opposed to less. And then the third one which may be the most complicated is what changes we might want to make to the maps to reduce that redevelopment risk because -- and I think we asked for some of that in the next resolution on the fair housing analysis, but looking at, for example, under current code there is a lot of low-income apartments along 183 and Powell lane in my district, under current code showed in the pretty high redevelopment risk view. But flip it over and under codenext they are in the pretty safe color. So because of codenext along 183 and Powell they have reduced redevelopment risk because of rezoning we've done somewhere, but then you see maybe it hop over to montopolis area all of a sudden more redevelopment risk there. One question I might have is, well, some of the zoning that we changed reduced the redevelopment risk for hundreds of units on Powell lane in mic did. What is it that we could do to [1:32:25 PM] potentially reduce it on montopolis and make up capacity somewhere else so we could best hit our overall housing number, reduce the risk on the existing market rate units, and come out in the black -- as much in the black as we can to the current code through income restricted density bonuses and -- and tifs and other tools we can get from this. So I guess -- that is all to say that this is really helpful for knowing where we're at now and I'm just interested in how -- how it are active this can be and speak back to us we've got redevelopment risk showing up in montopolis that you didn't have before. If we change this knob over here, can we reduce that number and change this knob over here to free up that housing capacity to still hit our goals elsewhere. And, you know, how can we best calculate -- since we're only 1100 here, how do we close that even -- and potentially we may have closed it with income restricted units. At that point the question is how can we make this even better. >> Mayor Adler: In fact, I would layer on top sort of a combined question the mayor pro tem asked. I think by increasing the entitlements you may very well be giving an economic incentive in the marketplace to take advantage of entitlements that you've got, be that additional yield in terms of number of units or additional square footage. Some of those, depending on the property, may involve just keeping existing building, but increasing the yield on the site. So I join mayor pro tem in asking for analysis on that because I think that's the area -- most of the questions I hear about in the community is that universe. [1:34:26 PM] And then to -- to the issue that Greg was raising, when you're counting the number of new units, I would imagine that if we're -- we're creating the opportunity to put in greater yield, number of units in those lots between 5,000 and 11,000, that also wouldn't have shown up on your chart because it wouldn't have been considered, but there's probably quite a large universe of additional units that would be occurring in our city because of that that don't show up here. So it could easily be based on those numbers that rather than being 1,000 under we could be several thousand over just from looking at that universe. But it comes as a potential cost in our city and that I think if we had seen those numbers or that modeling, then I think we could really start adjusting the calibration, the situations in a way that fit. >> We would be thrilled to do that. These things exist, the maps are pretty small, but we've got very high resolution data. And the -- the units, the units, the income part of the data is kind of crude in the census block group. So we don't know exactly [inaudible] Are going to be having it. We can look at a census block group, redevelopment and calculate risk and try to minimize that. And I think what I'm hearing is, first of all, we have to have a link back to the original analysis to see where we came from that to make sure everything is accounted for in the same way. So even if we change another one to look -- we have a link back to that original analysis so you know where the units went. And secondly to look at the small lots that we took out and see if they need a special policy to try to preserve them as much as possible, and then I love the idea of actually using Mueller's data to target [1:36:28 PM] areas that are under threat and to see if we can minimize that or at least produce more income restricted units than you're losing. >> Casar: Because what's interesting is under Dr. Mueller's data currently, Powell lane apartments are -- that's basically Powell -- basically the entire census Travis Travis county, is under redevelopment mix. My understanding of the map there's virtually no change under codenext to the zoning in that tract. It's outside of 183, there are cos there, not much change but you are showing a reduction in redevelopment risk probably because you are starting to concentrate more development elsewhere. And so I think that et cetera helpful for us to figure out how it is that we can put the zoning capacity in places where we reduce the risk -- then there's still for example risk in montopolis that's picked up. How is it we can turn down the redevelopment risk as much as possible in those units, turning it up elsewhere and hopefully we come out better on the better. >> Mayor Adler: Ann. >> Kitchen: I of a little bit different question and it goes to the -- I had a little bit different question that goes to 27 and 28. Just a -- you don't even have to pull back to those, but I'm wanting to understand that what you were comparing in those two slides was the existing code with the -- with our proposed map that we have right now. >> Yes. >> Kitchen: Okay, so one of the questions I have and this is probably just a future analysis, we had some conversation yesterday about another look at the map. And I'll describe that as a look that looks at what would happen in the future if we [1:38:29 PM] have development along the corridors further south. So it's -- it's almost to my mind a little bit of a combination of these two in the sense that perhaps, if I'm understanding correctly, in your first one you are showing more development and, you know, more spread out. >> Right. >> Kitchen: So one of our conversations yesterday is what might happen in the future if we are actually marking -- or mapping areas along all of our corridors, not just in the central core, and understanding that, you know, the market may catch up at some point and that we may be triggering small area planning, for example, at some point along these corridors. So I'm just curious where it is also appropriate to consider -- and maybe it's not, maybe it's premature, but whether it's also appropriate to consider that kind of area -- that kind of scenario so that we essentially have existing codenext -- I mean existing code, the codenext that we have right now, and the codenext that kind of looks into the future with the potential along the other corridors. I don't know if that's appropriate for modeling or not. >> It is very appropriate. It's more into a scenario process, but basically we would modify the codenext one to emphasize the corridors. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> And I think, you know, I'll look into it, but I don't think that's a huge ask in terms of time. >> Kitchen: Okay. >> I'm thinking of doing this in about a two-week period, all this stuff, so I would like [inaudible] The first -- where there's capacity, directing it based on policy and market. [1:41:46 PM] And -- for some areas of our city it's not just developers coming in and building three more lots, it's families trying to stay and age in place. So it's people now having the ability to do what they weren't able to do before so they can stay where they are. They can maybe bring in aging parents or their child can now live with them. It's a changing -- the way people are living is changing dramatically because of housing prices. So I just want that perspective to be out there as well, that it's not just yes, some of this is profit driven, but some of it is families using the equity they built in their home to be able to do more with the land that they have. >> Mayor Adler: Allison. >> Alter: I apologize for being late. I wanted to echo the mayor's and mayor pro tem's concerns to have that analysis between the 5750 and the 11,000, you know, in neighborhoods that I represent there will be a lot of incentive to demolish existing houses and create giant houses and they will not be more units under this current scenario and I'm not sure that's going to help the affordability, and you don't have to subdivide to have those impacts on the demolition where right now you might not have incentive to demolish, but if you have a million dollars of entitlement those quickly happen and it can rapidly change the character of the neighborhood. I think what is an important conversation for us to have as to where we want to increase the density. I want to point out that as I understand Dr. Mueller's data, it does not measure that for every neighborhood in T city so we have to be careful that we can't make all of our decisions based on a tool that doesn't measure the demolition incentives in other parts of the city. But when we have that conversation, you know, we really do have to have a conversation about what kind [1:43:46 PM] of affordability is resulting when you increase intensity and density in particular parts of town. And there are no easy answers, but I think that has to be part and parcel of our conversation. One thing that I wanted to just maybe ask you to help me understand, the way that I'm looking at it, you know, new means more expensive. And so I'm not convinced that density equals affordability. And can you help me understand the logic of how we're getting there? Because every time you see these new apartments, the pricing is going up. And yes, you have to refresh your housing stock and there's room for new, but we do have to be very careful of the affordable market -- market affordable housing we're demolishing as we create incentives. We are already seeing that near Austin oaks after the pud. There are these changes that happen if you change the entitlements. >> Yes, and I would say I agree that keeping existing affordable units in place is the best, most cost effective housing strategy to the extent you can. >> Alter: And what is it in here that's doing that? >> What we found is under the current code and under the new code you are about the same. There's not a lot of difference because of the code. I would lookic to try to tweak it, about out the code itself is probably not going to preserve a lot of those units I think trying to be more targeted to preserve places that have a lot of those units may be a good idea. In a growing city like Austin, if you don't add new supply, even though it's more expensive, you get increasing competition that drives into the more affordable units and then they become unaffordable because of competition. Adding supply is an important, [1:45:46 PM] you know, aspect that I think you want to have. And I think that -- I think we can take a closer look to make sure we're not getting people, you know, basically doing something where you're really going to target areas with a lot of affordability to remove it. But you will have continued demolitions, it's kind of a natural process in the city that buildings age and they get taken down and you have to try to replace them. Some of those are going to be affordable units. Certainly the housing program that you have is really important because that's where you are going to get a new supply of affordable units that come in. >> Alter: Well, there are things we could do with our ads and changing the side so if we introduce 1300 square foot ads, that's the size of a lot of houses in central Austin. That is creating now you're going to be having ads that are 6 to $800,000 rather than having a smaller footprint which could create an opportunity for somebody to live in a smaller space in central Austin at a more affordable rate. There are other levers that we need to thinking about introduce density into the central core that don't involve incentivizing 4,000 square foot houses in order to get additional places in town. If we're not careful, that's what we're going to be creating incentives for. That's what I'm trying to understand in the underlying incentives. >> When we look at those small lots, we're going to look at the economics of what it's like to the person there and where -- at what tipping point is the house value so low that you take it out. I think that's important to understand and see where you've got neighborhoods where the housing values are high [1:47:47 PM] number people are going to be adding units, the lot is big, the house is small, it's old and you are going to be more at threat. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: I just wanted to say -- you know, I tried to confine mine to data driven questions, but since it came up about adding units, the suggestion -- I want to be clear I wasn't suggesting adding units to attract is a bad thing, but the reality is that many long-term homeowners in some of our existing neighborhoods will not be able to redevelop their property. And so those increased incentives will primarily -- I am concerned when I see zoning a categories in some of our existing neighborhoods that have a 25% redevelopment rate. That's a lot. As we contemplate the changes that are mapped, if t4 has a 25% redevelopment rate, that means one out of -- we're projecting one out of every fourth house will be redeveloped and it is a concern to me how the resulting changes will impact long-term homeowners because, you know, if you have a homeowner who doesn't have the capital to redevelop their property, but their neighbor sells to somebody who does and they have, you know, other relatives living on the lot, that's one thing. If they sell to a developer who comes in, redevelops it and turns around and sells it again, which let me say is happening all over district 9, it's happening when I see -- I probably live within a block of several houses that have been demolished and are redeveloping. It's not the long-term property owners that are realizing the profit, they are realizing good investment -- good return on initial investment, but those properties are now being redeveloped by other people who will sell them to their end users and the result is as it is throughout our city, you know, when those property sales happen, they do have an impact on other people's tax bills. And so -- or the valuations that have an impact on the tax [1:49:49 PM] bills. Anyway, I do think we need to be really careful about the changes that are being contemplated and how it could, in fact, impact the displacement of people in all of our neighborhoods, especially where the changes are the most drastic because there will be a financial incentive to redevelop and, yes, while that does afford opportunities for some residents to redevelop their own properties and off set their own tax bills and stay in, it will also have -- potentially have the impact of displacing people, which we've seen throughout. I mean I guess I would ask you to confirm that my -- that that is a concern we should be thinking about. >> That is, and I think it's one that we'll look again at kind of the prototypes in different neighborhoods of how those work out and how the economics work out. >> Tovo: I know t4 is 25% redevelopment rate, 3 is 15%. I think we need to -- look at the numbers. That's one of the reasons I've asked for the numbers of children lost. You've included children gained but not what the net is. As you replace existing housing stock with potentially smaller units, that could have an impact on household composition which has impact on schools which we have a long-term city commitment to try to address. Thank you for your continued willingness to work on this and help us understand. >> Mayor Adler: I think a lot of this is transition, but with respective you could note on the bell continue board or to us how we got to the 25% and 15% and where that applies, if that's across the board, give us context for that. >> It's the assumption by zone. >> Mayor Adler: And within that area of the 5,000 square [1:51:50 PM] foot lot, 11,000 square foot lot and sf-3, those lots could already be turned into a duplex lot or Adu so there's capacity that exists on a lot of those lots. Some of what's happening is already being reflected in the market. We're seeing a the the look of homes under the existing code that are being torn down. I would much rather see something being torn down and give me three units than something torn down and give me just a really big house. Maybe as we move the dials there's a way for us to incentive each or remodel or redo, that gives us three units as opposed to one big unit or incentivize in a way that maintains the existing home when possible and adds to it as opposed to demoing the home. I would rather have three units with the existing home -- for the reason you said earlier. And in that area how we can move those knobs to get what we want. That requires to a certain degree the study on economic, better understanding the difference and the next conversation so let's move to that one. Yes. >> Garza: This is the next subject. The -- as we dig into knees different T3s. Just 10,000-foot level because yesterday digging into the minutia of the different T's, there's some that don't have any in our district. And so this might be more for the codenext, I'm not sure it's for you. And I asked this question in the very beginning and -- but I'm still hearing concerns. There's a general concern that it gives you more better and for those of us have no -- can [1:53:56 PM] you give us a broad definition of the difference? I also add one of the explanations is you don't want to up zone too much because then the current property owner would be noncompliant and that could affect remodel or change, but why is that okay in the transects,. >> I can answer that before we jump into the presentation today. Again I think clarification, the transects Zones in some cases are any zone that we propose could be an up zoning or reduction in what can be done in a property. Mf-3 or mf-4 is medium density residential in the new code. And in the transects Zones we offer another zone, the t4 neighborhood Zones. The difference there is that in the t4 neighborhood Zones we have more controls on how wide that building can get, how deep the building can get. In terms of pure number of units you can get it's similar, it's comparable. I think where we have heard that the transects Zones give you more is if one compares s3 or lmdr to t3 neighborhoods. The t3 Zones, you can build a duplex on as small as a 5,000 square foot lot, a 50 by 100-foot lot. And some districts yes, we have not [inaudible]. If it is simply a discussion about number of units or what you can build, one -- in today's code today one could [1:55:56 PM] ask to go from sf-3, the 5750 single-family or -- one could ask to be sf-4 or sf-6, one of the other Zones you currently have today which allows you to get more units as well and it's still single-family. Again, they are different Zones. They are different intents. Understand though with the allowance of -- in t3 of potentially more units, and we'll talk about that when I present some of the numbers, that I think it will be -- some of the issues will come clear as we talk about some of the numbers. Understand with the transect Zones you are getting more on where that building is placed compared to sf-3 today. So there are tradeoffs in terms of what you are getting. And I think that in general is speaking to the transect Zones are just -- they are more dialed in on form controls and we know that is a big topic of discussion, both some of the items that came out from aia, dialed a little too tight and constraining. In some places we've heard like compatibility may change that so that we're actually getting back closer to what the protections were in your compatibility in the past. I just want to emphasize again transect Zones in and of themselves are not necessarily an up zoning and that, you know, it really is a matter of what zone is where. >> Mayor Adler: Why don't you walk us through and we can see the differences. >> Alter: There are some other differences. There are .4 F.A.R. On the -- there's no F.A.R. In the transect Zones and that all does create differences in the kinds of entitlements and what's, you know, created by that. And I don't know that you can have three units currently on a sf-3. You can have two, but -- I'm [1:57:57 PM] not sure if you can have three. The. >>. >> Garza: I think he was saying you can change it. >> Mayor Adler: Let's talk about the differences and see what the differences are. >> Casar: I was looking for the break to ask a point of clarification. For the last two work sessions where we talked about scheduling, I asked about whether or not we would discuss the redevelopment analysis, the resolution and the fair housing one. Do we not -- do we schedule time to do that -- staff thought we would be doing that today, but are we doing that today? The 2015 -- >> Mayor Adler: My guess is we're probably not going to have time to do that today because we're going with already what is on the schedule. We can take a look at the balance of the schedule and continue if there are some things more important than other things, we can swap things out and also meet in August. If there are people that are here in July and wanted to meet in July, we could do that too in order to have the issues surface. >> Casar: I would just voice frustration that two different times I wanted both resolutions discussed at the same time and it seems like we weren't able to do that. I put a reminder on the message board and still I thought that we would be discussing them together and seems like the presentation was just on one. So I would just potentially potentially for future codenext calendaring, if something that we request just isn't going to be on, I would just like to hear from staff or from someone that we won't be able do it that particular day would be helpful. >> Mayor Adler: I think with the request for discussion tomorrow you could ask that question the same way the mayor pro tem asked the question that went to the issue -- >> Casar: I understand. I'm saying that the two work sessions that we discussed what we would be discussing at these sessions, I brought [1:59:58 PM] up bringing this resolution up at the same time as the others. There seemed to be consensus that staff agreed with that and then the presentation was not on both. >> Tovo: I mean, to be fair, it was primarily on envision tomorrow. I think they included a little bit of a response to that resolution. >> Mayor Adler: The conversation today about envision tomorrow was about any resolution. That came about the question that mayor pro tem asked about anti-vision tomorrow piece. >> >> Casar: It seems to answer the questions from the resolution which I was supportive and supportive of within envision tomorrow how many demolitions were we expected to see? >> Mayor Adler: With respect to the envision tomorrow, while we gave direction to John of additional things, do you want to say what you want him to focus on -- >> Casar: No, I think it's helpful for us at some point to have that report come back to us, which we -- I think the first resolution we passed as a council directing the staff to work with the consultants on codenext. And I think that it is important in con architect architect of -- of redevelopment of mfi units before and after codenext so we could figure out how to best balance that. The first part, though, that was redevelopment of single-family housing units, that resolution kind of directed towards that saying what is the fair housing impact of that. Is it positive or negative, giving us statements on fair housing and affordable housing impact in that first section. And so while we got it in the second session, this resolution -- >> Mayor Adler: So with respect to that, to the degree that consultant is taking a look at this next level of analysis -- >> Casar: They could read the resolution passed in 2015. >> Mayor Adler: Both would be given to Greg. >> Councilmember, I know we are working on that, willed and hcd, the consultant in working to get you that information, the council that information, it's just not ready at this moment yet. >> Mayor Adler: And we can [2:01:59 PM] incorporate that into it. >> Tovo: And I really support your idea of extending our work sessions into August. I don't know about July because so many people, including probably our staff, have scheduled time off. But it's really clear that we're doing -- as I explained to some community members who wanted me to add a lot more things, we're sort of doing triage at this point. I appreciate that we came up with the schedule that we did because as I see it it's the first things we need to know. There's clearly a lot more to talk about, in regard to the one topic we just talked about I posted a whole array of questions we won't again get to. This is just as I see it the beginning of a lot more work sessions. >> Mayor Adler: Why don't you and I do that before we leave here in June, this week, next week, let's propose something back to the council for August, taking into account all the budget stuff happening in August. Okay? >> Just to follow up on this conversation about coming back with envision tomorrow. And just before this meeting we had a chance to discuss, we would have the ability, both Peter and I will be back on the 26th, the Monday before you all break, and don is available as well. That would be an opportunity to circle back as well on some of the updates on envision tomorrow. And depending on the updates, we would be able to start to discuss -- I think it would probably need another meeting later, so discuss both the resolutions, both the resolutions and the fair housing. But that would be an opportunity to dive into et a little bit more and to start to discuss those two items. Then in August we would be able to likely come back and talk more in-depth about more of those resolutions. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Let's take a look at the calendar. On the 26th I would anticipate me being in San Antonio arguing the senate bill 4 case unless that gets moved. And there may be other councilmembers that might be traveling to San Antonio too. Why don't you -- let's go [2:03:59 PM] ahead and hit this other report. >> For those of you following on the paper copies, if you hold the document in portrait, one, two, three, four, so it starts on the top left, goes right, goes down. If you have the floor slides per page -- the order is a little bit odd. Today we're going to talk a little bit about sf-3, lmdr, t3 and t4. The first slides I'll show are recapping what we talked about last week. Understanding today's sf-3 where you do not have mcmansion. Just the way that that works, that the envelope, you take your setbacks, you go up to the 35-foot height limit that you're allowed and you can build as much building in this as you want as long as you hit the impervious cover and height limits. And it was said that it was too big. You did a great job of working through some design considerations and produced the mcmansion ordinance that you have today, the residential design and capacityability standards. And it provided this tent that further provided more form guidance in terms of what could happen in the house. And like what we talked about last week, the house on the left, similar to the houses in the community, or could be a house with a slightly taller wall along one edge, depending on the setback. And that's just a function of the way mcmansion was created. In addition, because of the way the tent is set up, the house could be set either at the 25-foot setback of sf-3 or it could be placed all the way in the back of the lot, but the height remained the same. As we looked at last week and we showed some of those images that, does have some privacy [2:06:01 PM] issues in effects in the backyard, potentially for neighbors. So again, these are those standards that are covered in residential design compatibility. They are really great form controls that you all have adopted. We're simply saying maybe there are some ways that we can integrate these two the Zones and offer some tweaks about the way that we deal with height and where you can build that second story. So again, what we're offering up in the lmdr and the urban core is again this revised version of that mcmansion tent. Really just saying that we want to be recognized what is the height on the eave, the edge facing its neighbors on the smaller lots, and how far back on the lot is the second story -- does the second story make sense. One of the things I think that we've heard from the community is general acceptance of the idea, maybe that it's one story for the primary building in the back of the yard, but some concern that they would like to still be able to potentially build a two-story Adu, something that you're allowed to do. So I think that's something that we've heard and we take under consideration that maybe that accessory dwelling unit where it's smaller and easier to orient those windows and has less of an impact in terms of privacy, maybe that can be two stories or maybe two and a half stories, but the primary building is one. So again we showed these diagrams last week of a house on the left of what we showed for sf-3 under mcmansion where it's at the front of the property line two stories. But then again as that building gets pushed further back on the lot, you can still build your .4 F.A.R., but maybe when you're further back on the lot that building can only be one story. Diving in to the lmdr core a little bit more. So last week we really just talked about a house, the primary house. And we showed only a few examples. So today we're going to [2:08:02 PM] talk about kind of the divert of options that can really -- diversity of options that can really happen. For today's discussions we primarily talking about 50 to 130 lots. I'll let you know when we switch lot sizes, but as a reference point that we can hold a few things consistent across the discussion, we also recognize that future conversations that we might be able to have with you all, we might want to talk about smaller lots, shallower lots, but today we'll stick with 50 by 140. On this page we're showing on the left a diagram of two existing houses in light yellow much like we did last week, but for this week's presentation we made the new building a brighter Orange, a little bit more saturated just to emphasize what is the building that we're talking about. The table is summarizing what zone we're in and then the middle column is what is is that Orange building representing. And then the far right column is saying in reference to sf-3, what was the maximum you possibly potentially could do in '73. In this example we're showing a one story recatched house in lmdr, urban core, 7,000 square foot lot. This building that we're showing maxes out at 2536 square feet for the building if the building is one story. And the thing that is keeping it to that size is that with that footprint that we're showing you are maxing out your building coverage. So your building coverage is 40%. And this goes back to one of the conversations we had last week that when one is looking at a zoning district, one has to take into many, many, many different factors. For any individual parcel, the F.A.R., the building cover, the impervious cover, the parking, any one of those might actually be the one that limits you on how much you can build. And it varies depending on the situation. [2:10:03 PM] And we'll go through a couple of situations so you can see how that works out. So in this case you're not necessarily maxing out your F.A.R. If you stay at one story. And it's that building cover that's keeping you limited. In this case with the driveway getting to a parking space that is kind of in the front of the house, attached to front of the house, you're not even maxing out your impervious cover just between the building and the driveway. But what happens when we take this same lot and same style of house, one story and you're on an alley? So this is still a 50 by 140 not lot along an alley. And for the assumptions of this example we're assuming that this is at least a 20-foot wide right-of-way alley. We recognize it. We've heard consistently that some parts of the community have 12-foot alleys. So this is again in the assumptions that the alley is wide enough to be used for access with cars. Again, here you're limiting to how much building you get. It's really that building cover that is limiting how big that house gets. And here you can see the impervious cover drops because you don't need as much driveway. But in lmdr you can also build a two-story house, so if one was to maximize the amount of second story that one could build, in this example of a 50 by 140 that is -- the parking is accessed from the front of the lot, here the F.A.R. Is the limiter because building cover is only at 20% and impervious cover is at 32%. So your floor to area rareio is really limiting what you build. If you compare this to sf-3 you're not necessarily maxing out every possible item. Whether it's building cover or impervious cover. And then again, just looking at this again with what happens when there's an alley. [2:12:03 PM] In this case you're at two stories, say number of skeet square feet, and it's really your floor to area ratio that's really limiting how much you can build. The floor. As we discussed before, what happens if that building gets pushed back on the lot? Because again we're showing a combination of two story and one story building again in this situation the limiting factor is the floor area ratio. So here's just a summary of each of those ones that we showed and what we're in lmdr one can see is that for two story buildings F.A.R. Is a limiter in terms of -- or I should say maybe a better way to put it is building cover isn't even to limit when you're thinking about a two story structure. But when you're trying to do a one story structure the building structure will limit you more than your floor area ratio. So now we wanted to talk about the t3 neighborhood deep setback zone in particular. So this again is a 50 we 140 lot. So it's a 7,000 square foot lot. And here we're showing again a front-loaded building, so we're accessing the building from the front of the lot. In this situation we're just showing a single-family house. And for this building with the refined building envelope that we're using in t3, the square footage of this building would be at 3112 square feet or an F.A.R. Of .44. >> Alter: I wondered before you moved into t3, with lmdr is there a reason that you didn't model the ads? >> So one of the items on lmdr is that the floor area ratio limit of .4, which consists in sf-3 under mcmansion and has been carried [2:14:03 PM] forward in lmdr in the urban core, that .4 includes the accessory dwelling unit. So one could look at this and we can come back with some examples where an accessory dwelling unit is placed. It will simply reduce the square footage that could be allocated to the primary -- the main building of the house. So we can come back with that. We're happy to mock up some more examples. >> Alter: Okay. That would be helpful. >> Tovo: Mayor, I think as we're trying to explain to the people in the city what the change in the code are, a significant change for people who have lmdr mapping outside the central city because there's already the ability to do the accessory dwelling unit within most of the neighborhoods in the central city, but for neighborhoods outside the central city on an sf-2 lot they currently don't have the ability to do an accessory dwelling unit. They will under lmdr, lot constraints will determine whether they can, but under an lmdr scenario they can do two units, whereas now in sf-2 they can only do one. That's my understanding, right? >> Sf-2 today allows -- sf-2 allows a caretakers or senior second unit. >> The current sf-2 today you could have actually an accessory apartment, for someone in the unit. Today you could have a second unit within sf-2. Another way that -- depending on the lot size, you could have basically an accessory -- it's called an accessory dwelling, although it's a little confusing under the current code, but it would be for someone who maintains a property in [2:16:04 PM] some manner. Could be for someone, a caretaker, whether they care for security or for lawn maintenance, building maintenance or someone who does housekeeping in a building. Usually that's for a larger lot, though, much larger than when you might be talking about 7,000. But those are -- >> Tovo: But knows are not the same as accessory dwelling units. >> A garage apartment. >> Tovo: Yeah. And I just think if we're extending garage apartments into areas that currently don't have them, I think it's a good thing -- for example, councilmember Garza was talking about not being in a transect zone, but there are changes that the people in her areas may welcome because they will have the ability -- I don't think you have sf-2, but in areas that have sf-2 currently, that are not able to do accessory dwelling units, they will be able to after codenext if their lot is large enough. So I guess I would just ask that we continue to point out the changes from current code to the new code because I think they're significant. People are really trying to understand what can they do now, what can they do after codenext? Do they support that change, do they not? So without getting into, you know, your lot Macon strain you in certain ways, I think we need to be able to tell people what are the changes in entitlements on your track? >> Let me say in the ldr, which is close to similar to being in sf-2, that accessory dwelling unit, there's an error in the code, I'll note, that I think right now it says it's just flat permitted and it was intended I know after talking with the consultants, to be a minor use permit and mup for that designation of low density residential. >> Tovo: But it was two units and I'm only seeing one. >> In lmdr on a lot of 5,000 you could have up to actually three units. You could have a duplex, two units in the front and an Adu in the back. [2:18:05 PM] You would still have to comply with all the setback requirements and building coverage requirements. >> Tovo: So again I have to ask why it says one unit if you can have three? >> I want to circle back a little bit, finish, and then I'll get right back to that point. So sf-2, the most closely matched zone is ldr. So start off there. So sf-2 ldr as Greg pointed out, there was an error in the code that an accessory dwelling unit should have said [inaudible]. As part of the effort we've done in codenext is to try to clean up and clarify language, bring these close together. In your current code, sf-2, as Greg pointed out, has two different ways of essentially getting an accessory dwelling unit. They're called other things. I think when we looked at it there are like seven different ways in your code to get two units in a parcel and they're all called different things. What we found was that we felt the intent of both of the examples that Greg gave were essentially an accessory dwelling unit. So the intent for ldr was that let's make that a minor use permit and the findings that staff administratively had to find are the same findings that you have today in sf-2, right? Is it being used for a caretaker or for someone elderly? Is it being used on a -- I don't remember the square foot size, but I think in sf-2 it was like over 10,000 or 15,000 square foot lot, you could have that caretaker's unit. Those are all accessory dwelling units under different names. If we can simply call it an accessory dwelling unit, say you need a minor use permit, and use the same findings you have under sf-2 today, then it's a little bit more consistent, but everyone understands that while they're all different names, it's really the same thing. It's an accessory dwelling unit. So that was our effort. We completely own up to the fact that we missed [2:20:06 PM] making it a minor use permit, right? And that the intent there was to have those same findings apply today. I think we've seen some articles. There's been a lot of discussion that there's a lot of concern that in ldr that suddenly accessory dwelling units are allowed everywhere and that is not the case. The accessory dwelling unit are there the same way there are there today in sf-2. That's a point of clarification. Mayor pro tem, you are completely right. For lmdr in the set of diagrams we've shown you today and the numbers, we are only showing one unit, when the reality is there is different ways of getting to two units in lmdr. So I would offer up just in terms of timing we wanted to make sure we had some lmdr examples, we had some t3 and t4. We could come back with more lmdr examples that show the different ways that you get to two units, whether it's a duplex or it's single-family houses with an accessory dwelling unit. And in terms of how big the house is and the accessory unit. We can do that and come back with some additional numbers. >> Kitchen: Can I ask a question? I would just say that's helpful because there's so much confusion out there between an Adu, an accessory apartment, all of those kinds of things. And I think it's important to understand what we're talking about because some people are concerned about the number of units, some people are more concerned about the size. So I think it's important not to confuse the two because additional units can be very helpful in a neighborhood, very helpful to individuals. And a lot of people want them. Other people are concerned about the size. You know, that's where their real concern is. So we're kind of conflating ads and units in size. So I think it would be helpful to have another [2:22:07 PM] conversation later and you can label them adus or whatever, but talk about the ways in which people can get to more than one unit under codenext versus under what they can do right now. And I think that that might be helpful for people. >> Sure. >> Mayor Adler: So do I understand that summary that effectively it's the same opportunity to do auxiliary unit in lmdr as it is accessory unit in sf-2 because of the findings that have to be made for a permit? >> The ability to build a second unit in ldr, which is the replacement for sf-2, is effectively the same, correct. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Because the limitation to the kind of unit, accessory unit you can build, still exists because that's the criteria that has to be determined nobody to be able to get the permit to be able to do that. >> Correct. >> Mayor Adler: Okay. Ms. Pool? >> Pool: Thanks, hi. I have a question on the lot sizes tend to be 7,000 across the board in the modeling and there are a couple of them at 14. I got a question here that councilmember Houston's staffer brought to me to ask. And it goes to sf-3 in some neighborhood plans has cottaged lots that are half the size of the 7,000 square foot. So 3500 square foot lots. They have a 60% building coverage area and 65% impervious cover. I notice that that aspect isn't modeled here. Could you maybe talk about why it wasn't or perhaps provide that modeling? >> Sure. Councilmember pool, again, just in terms of the sheer number of [2:24:07 PM] variations we could pick, we wanted to start with this set. We are more than happy again to talk about maybe 50 by shallower lot. We could also look at this example of, you know, what you have today under some of the plans that allow these cottage lots or cottage houses on the smaller lots. >> Pool: That would be great. I think there may be more of them on the east side of I-35 than anywhere else, so that information would be really helpful. >> Perfect. >> Pool: Thanks. >> So circling back to the t3 neighborhood, again we're looking at 7,000 square foot lots and in this case we're just showing one unit with a detached garage. What happens when one looks at the same lot that happens without the alley. In this case because you don't have to have a side driveway to access the parking and you don't have this driveway from the front of the lot, you can maximize more the building envelope that's allowed in this zone. So in this case the amount of square footage you can build increases from 3100 to 3,378. And so again, the floor area ratio we can see here is the amount of difference. But again, one of the questions, you know, we recognize that there's a floor area ratio currently of .4. We recognize that at the time of the adoption of the mcmansion ordinance, some maps were created that indicate that there are many parcels in the city where you are existing around sf-3 have a floor area ratio over .4. And again, what we were working towards is if we don't look at the square footage yet or we don't look at the F.A.R. Yet, if we just look at the scale of that building and the way it relates to its neighbors in terms of how wide it is, how tall it is and how deep into the lot it gets, are we comfortable with that if we start with that as a starting point? And using those as control factors. [2:26:08 PM] So that's one of the things we talked about last week and we'd love to continue the conversation. And then let's talk about, okay. Councilmember alter, maybe we can take those dials and we can tweak those a little bit. Maybe we do want to be closer to .4 F.A.R., but we would like to again focus on the discussion of these different controls that we're doing, where the house can be placed and how it's placed on a lot. One of the things that came up last week was a request. So we saw what a single-family house looked like. What happens when you add an Adu to a lot? And so in this case we're taking again a front loaded lot and we're showing an Adu. And based on the way the code is written now and the transect zone, what kind of scale house you could get and what the accessory dwelling unit would look like. One of the big limiting factors in terms of what you could actually build here was actually the impervious cover because again we're maintaining sf-3's 40% max building cover and 45% max impervious cover. And all the variations that can happen when one looks at alley loaded or front loaded single-family house with an Adu or without an Adu. We also looked at duplexes because this we had the discussion last week we didn't have any duplexes rendered. So again, here is just an example of what how big a complex can get get when it's front loaded and when it's alley loaded. So different elements. As you're working through all of the elements of either lmdr or the transect Zones will affect how much you can build, whether you need the driveway that goes along the side of the building, whether you have access to an alley. So we also looked at a duplex with an Adu where you're front loaded. Again, when we did this analysis what we found very quickly was on a [2:28:08 PM] front loaded lot, 50 by 140, the duplex and the Adu and the driveways that are needed really the impervious cover limits you in terms of how much you can do. If you look at the building square footage of approximately 2400 square feet, that means on average the units are 800 square foot each. That changes when one doesn't have to account for a driveway and you can see here on this example the impervious cover is only at 39%. So you're able to build a little bit more building. And in this case we're getting almost 4,000 square feet across three units that could be built. And I know one of the discussion points that we've heard a lot is family friendly size housing, how can we allow that? In different situations here you can see that it might vary from in the previous diagram 800 square feet per unit, a one or one plus bedroom typical unit, where here when we're talking about over 1200 square feet per unit you're talking about a two bedroom, more of a family scaled unit. We have a pattern very typical in east Austin, found in other neighborhoods as well, again, these are in this zone they're one story buildings, limiting size of how big that footprint can be. One can see here that they're averaging about 650 square feet each. So they're small units. They're not maxing out their building cover or the floor area ratio but they're coming toes close to maxing out the impervious cover. Another example where it's alley loaded, [2:30:09 PM] again, the amount of square feet that you get is the same because really the building envelopes that we defined were the limiting factor. Just again different examples. The last one -- again, sorry, just to come back to the cottage corner. The difference here between the worry examples that we showed is these have to be on a corner, but we're still showing them as 50 by 140 lots. For the cottage court one of the things we wanted to highlight and make sure people understood is that in the code there's a different minimum lot width requirement for cottage courts versus a lot of the other building sites. So cottage court needs a minimum lot width of 100 feet. So we're showing 100 feet wide by 100 feet deep. What we found is we laid out the buildings and the parking that you are maxing out at four units on the lot. We -- yes. >> Alter: I was wondering how many square feet is each of the cottages in this example? >> I'm doing the math in my head really fast. >> Alter: It's four times the -- >> It's 850. 850 each. 850 square feet each. >> Alter: So it's dividing the 2656 by four. >> Correct. In every case the building square footage that we listed was the total square footage on the lot. So one would simply in each of these examples divide the number -- that number by the number of units. So they're averaging around 850 I want to say. >> So why would I ever chose to build that if I can build 4,557 square foot thing on the same space? >> So again a couple -- a couple of items. There are existing cottage courts that exist today that are essentially this size lot. So this is making those completely legal because today they would be -- >> Alter: I'm not saying it shouldn't be legal. I'm trying to go in the direction of what we're incentivizing. I mean, it's fine to [2:32:09 PM] have an example of an option and make something that exists legal, but I'm trying to understand when you would ever do that over something else when you could have almost twice as much square footage. >> This goes to John's discussion earlier about part of the effort of codenext is to allow options, to provide these options. For any given developer or any given property owner, their choice as to what they want to do may vary. So if I'm a private developer and I only build single-family houses and I want to hit a certain market, they may only focus on single-family houses. But what we know already in Austin is that there are non-profit affordable housing developers who built cottage courts so there are examples in east Austin. This now gives them in the zoning code a legal way of doing that. They don't have to ask for pud, they don't have to ask for variances. You can just go out and you can build it. The person who builds this, they may have a different outlook. They have -- they own 100 by 140 lot and they just want to be able to build two other houses on their lot if they've owned the lot for a long time. Take advantage of that equity that's built over with the increase in values of property values in Austin. As I explained, it could be an affordable housing developer who wants to build 850 square foot cottages for seniors to live in all on one floor. So we are providing options. Is every developer going to take up every option of building type that we provide. No. And I raised that for a really good reason. And I'm going to diverge a little bit in our conversation because one other item we hear often is we want townhouses in every zone. What I will tell you, just in this calculation that you're seeing, why [2:34:09 PM] would I choose to use this versus a single-family house? Townhouses are also one of those building types that often will trump almost any other type of building that's built just by their nature of their fee simple. So they're really easy to sell, the financing, the yield that you get compared to some of the missing middle types that we have. So when we're looking at both providing options for people to build, but also if one introduces some building types, that may be the only building type you get. So unbalancing some of that. >> Alter: I think your comments are really interesting and they add a slightly different way of thinking about needs that we have for non-profit communities so that we can zone things. I just think we need to be also careful that by zoning it it doesn't mean that we are going to get it and that we are going to get those units. So I appreciate the perspective to say we may have a non- profit that wants to -- has bought a piece of land and their existence is to provide affordable housing and they need certain flexibility and this reduces the cost because they don't have to come get all this special zoning and stuff like that. That is a way of looking at it. That's not the way I was -- a way I wasn't thinking about it. I appreciate that. Reference. >> Yeah. And I think, councilmember, that's a really important point to bring up. In everything that we're doing here with the code, right, we are providing tools, but nothing in the code -- sorry. The vast majority of the things in the code are not saying that you will get exactly that. So I think the only place I would have a caveat about is for those who take advantage of the affordable housing incentives program, which will be released this Friday. That will be requiring something that you know you will be getting something. But in all other cases, [2:36:14 PM] we're not saying you for sure will get a cottage court on your block if you're zoned t3 neighborhood deep setback. >> Garza: I want to comment real quick. I want to say that not everybody wants to live in a 4,000 square foot home. I that goes to your point that there are all kinds of people with all different needs and it's important to see that there is a diversity of folks who will choose to build a mcmansion and they can do that, and then there are folks who will choose to build four cottages now because they can and they couldn't take advantage of that equity in their home and provide housing for a family member or rent it out and be able to pay their property taxes and the flip side just because we have this tool doesn't mean we'll use approximate, and the slip side of if somebody can build an Adu doesn't mean they'll use it. Because we're allowing ads in all these neighborhoods now, it doesn't mean that homeowners are going to choose to use that tool. >> Kitchen: Could I make an observation also? This is a little bit different analogy, but we're talking about options. And when you said options, it struck an analogy for me. I think that it -- options are important for people, provided that we are controlling, protecting our neighborhoods, protecting compatibility of all of those things we have said that are important, obviously we would not plop that down in an area that's not appropriate. So given those caveats, we are talking about offering people options. And I'm sorry I have my traffic hat on, my transportation hat on. The transportation system is all about options for people. I hear people all the time saying why would anybody ride a bicycle? Why would anybody walk when they can get in their car? And this analogy is not the same. And I'm certainly not implying that anybody is saying that. I'm just saying that options are good as long as we're protecting and [2:38:15 PM] controlling for protecting our neighborhoods, protecting our compatibility and those kinds of things. And I think that everybody is saying that. I just feel like it's important for us to understand that that's what we're trying to do is options where it's appropriate. >> You know, one of the things that we really keep in mind when it comes to regulation and zoning is that in terms of the code it allows things, it prohibittings things. You can do things to create incentive, but by broadening what's allowed. For us that's part of what we understand to be some of the aspirations of imagine Austin, to diversify and give folks in Austin a wider range of choices. So when we dial it down to a particular specific use and a specific minimum of how big a lot has to be, we're really narrowing the range of those choices. So again, these are tools where they apply, where they appear on a map or how they're calibrated, is still part of the conversation. But this is an approach that really is giving some other options. Again, it could be an existing homeowner who wants to add some units. It could be four friends who each individually can't afford to buy a piece of dirt, but together they might be able to buy that land and each build their own home. So it is about options. >> Kitchen: I also think of it in terms of intergenerational housing in our future, in terms of options for seniors. Seniors having options like cottage courts with friends that they just want to have an older -- have a smaller unit when they don't need a large [2:40:15 PM] place anymore, maybe they can't afford a larger place. So I think this is -- in the right place, again. Please anybody don't misinterpret what I'm saying. In the right place I think they can provide more options for different folks in the community. >> Mayor Adler: Alison? >> Alter: I value the options, but I do think that we have to remember that we are also creating incentives about which option people are going to choose more options. So that's why I'm concerned about what the maximum entitlement is in certain situations. And in certain circumstances that is what they are going to do. And there are people who live in those areas who were protected right now by a mcmansion who will no longer be protected under these scenarios. So we do have to understand even if we value the options what that maximum one is and whether we want that maximum one to be an outcome that is likely to happen via the market. We can still value the options, but if we want those options maybe we don't want to set that maximum so high so that we encourage some of those other options that we may value more. And I don't want to say that everyone wants to live in a 4,000 square foot house, but given the supply and demand in central Austin right now, that is what will be built. >> Kitchen: I'm trying to understand the relationship then between like a cottage court and the mcmansion. So are we saying that we're losing the protections of mcmansion which go to the size of these huge things that can be built in a neighborhood? Or are we saying that by offering a cottage court option we're losing our mcmansion? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding where mcmansion applies and when it applies and that sort of thing. I may not be educated enough about that. Are -- is that the comparison we should be making? [2:42:16 PM] Do you understand what I'm asking? Maybe I didn't understand what you said. >> Alter: I believe that we are losing protections that we have under mcmansion and that we are creating incentives to create mcmansions. And that we are going to end up with those instead of some of these other options which we might all agree that we like cottage courts and we like these other duplexes, but because the market is not something we control, when you create a scenario where you get a-million-dollar more entitlement and you can build one big house and there is a market for buying that house, then you will very often get that unless there's some incentive that makes it so that you're going to do the smaller units within that same footprint. >> Kitchen: Okay. So which aspect of mcmansion are you concerned that we're losing? >> Alter: We're losing the F.A.R., we're losing the size. The only thing that we're maybe gaining is not having exemptions for attics, as I understand it. And I'm still struggling -- I'm still struggling to try to understand it. I'm trying to ask the questions, I'm not trying to prejudge where we are. I'm trying to understand what it is that we're incentivizing by what is this maximum entitlement and how are we moving away from things that we had as compromises that were affecting the way the growth would happen. In the neighborhoods that I'm familiar with and even on my street, if you create what they have here, we have alleys, you will get 4600 square foot houses, and houses that are 1300 square foot or even 2,000 square feet suddenly become all that much more attractive to demolish. And they're perfectly good houses, but if you create enough development you will have the incentives. I don't fully understand where we're at, but if we're going to create a code, we have to understand what we're going to incentivize for the market. We may all think differently than the way the market thinks and there will be actors in the market who value a [2:44:17 PM] particular type of product and see that as their mission. But a good chunk of the market is not going to view it that way. And you're going to end up in some parts of town at the very least. I don't want to speak for all parts of town. You're going to end up with mcmansions, and that is not going to solve the affordability problem or provide any additional housing for more people. It's just going to take somebody who lives there and kick them out and put somebody who is Kitcher in their place. >> Kitchen: Okay. So let me ask a question for the consultants to answer. And I'm not certain if this is the same question you have, but it's a question that it raises for me. So help me understand the relationship between our current mcmansion requirements and what we're changing to in order to allow for cottage courts. Should we be looking at these together or not? Are we saying that we have to loses our mcmansion controls in order to allow these kinds of options? >> You will increase the yield -- >> Mayor Adler: Can you increase the yield in units without increasing the size and massing of a single house? >> Kitchen: Thank you. That's better said. >> I think it would be good to show -- apologies. So for those following along week on slide 15 right now -- we're on slide 15 right now. So I'm showing the 2 story house that could be built under lmdr urban core built at the front of the lot. It would be good to compare this with the slide, slide 23, which unfortunately I can't flip back and forth between them. I'm sorry, not slide 23. Slide 22. And so I'll jump to slide 22 really quickly. Because the primary difference between [2:46:17 PM] what's being shown on slide 15 and slide 22 is one is the Adu, so the square footage of that Adu unit. But then this building, the primary building is going a little bit deeper on the lot than the lmdr version. So part of the increase in square footage is the fact that we have an Adu on this one. And again, I think one of the things that we noted on this map, we haven't had the chance to run the analysis under today's conditions, but the map that was created in 2005, right around when you all were working on mcmansion, there was an analysis that was done to say what is the existing F.A.R. On lots across the city on residential lots. And the basic snapshot that I can see from the picture painted on this map, and we do want to create a new version of it, is most of your lots today are already at an F.A.R. .3 or higher. And many of them were actually a .4 or higher already. So in your current sf-3 where you allow an Adu, a lot of the discussion centers around 1100 square feet or 0.15 F.A.R. As, wow, that can be really big. One thing it's not taking into account is the conditions you have where you're allowing accessory dwelling unit. Most of your lots are already at a .3 or a .35 or higher F.A.R., which means while technically on paper they can build an Adu. The only way they could build an Adu today is by demolishing some part of their existing building. And I think why I raise that is if you really want accessory dwelling units as a gentle way of introducing some more capacity within your [2:48:19 PM] neighborhoods, the way that you have it written today is not really going to get you that because of your existing F.A.R.S and whatnot. An option to consider is kind of what we're showing here, and maybe these dials need to be brought down because I know what you're getting at councilmember alter, that maybe this is too much entitlement. But the question is if we want to truly think about someone who has a single-family house and gently introduce an Adu, should the Adu be on top of the .4 F.A.R.? We could put all kinds of caveats, that they're preserving the original house, they're not tearing down the original house. In other words, incentivize actual adus getting built because right now the system we have today is not -- it allows it, but it is in no way encouraging it or incentivizing it being built. >> In other ways. >> Mayor Adler: So I think the answer to the question is yes, you can increase the number of units without increasing the massing of the main house. >> Yes, that's absolutely true. Those controls -- so this question of the size, right, is somewhere between, as we talked about earlier, right, size is that an issue of how many units or how many additional units one can do compared to today? Or is it purely the -- >> Mayor Adler: The question I asked differentiating between yield, which is number of units, and massing, which would be the appearance of volume. >> That's right. So to get back to the discussion earlier, if we take this example on page 30 of the cottage court where we left off with the four units in the cottage court, that in the t3 neighborhood, right, it has to be t3 [2:50:19 PM] neighborhood deep setback, it has to be -- in this case it's a large lot, it's 100 feet of frontage and 140- foot depth. If you had a t3 in that lot size today with a .4 F.A.R., you can built a 5600 square foot house. I mean, that's a pretty big house. So I don't know how people define mcmansion here, but under sf-3 you can -- with that lot I can build a 5600 square foot house. If I max it out at F.A.R. .4. Under this provision in a deep setback t3 neighborhood on a 100-foot frontage lot, 140 feet deep, the code is proposing that you could build four cottage -- so you're increasing the number of units from one to four, but they're smaller houses. And in the diagram that you see here, what you see happening, if you could sort of imagine yourself walking down the street, is that there's the two existing houses and then there are two small houses that maintain the sort of cadence of house scale, even though there are four units on that lot from the street is -- >> Mayor Adler: My question is under the t3, under this, if the person didn't want to build four units, they got this transect zone and they wanted to build a single house, as big a mass as they could, what could they do relative to the sf-3? >> I can get you an exact number, but again, this differs -- to fundamentally talk about the tool and how it works differently than mcmansion, tent or the new lmdr tent, as Peter said under sf-3 on this [2:52:23 PM] lot, 100 by 140, you could build up to 5600 square feet of house, house plus Adu, duplex, right? In the new -- in the way that the transects work, because they have an envelope, the house can only get so wide and so deep, as it increases from a 50-foot lot to 60-foot lot you can build more. But by the time you get to 100 feet -- I'm getting there, mayor. I will ask drew to confirm this in a second. But you would still max out at my gut feeling is you would still max out at this number here, 4587 square feet. Because what is limiting you at this point is how big of a footprint of a house can you build and how big of a footprint of an accessory dwelling unit can you build. And what that means is as the lot gets bigger the house -- I think we talked about last time where I was walking around zilker and one could see there's a two story house on a wonderful -- must be 100 by 140-foot, very similar to the lot we're talking about now, that's very similar to other houses in the neighborhood, but in the same scale. It's got the same footprint and two stories. It isn't an 80-foot wide house that's 60 feet deep. It's skill a 28-foot wide by 32-foot deep. >> Mayor Adler: So this would be helpful to answer the real specific question. I see here you could build four units and it would be 4656. The question is if somebody didn't want to build four units, they wanted to build the biggest house they could, it's 4600, which is smaller than you could do under sf-3. If you could give us a paragraph that explains how you got to that 4600 number. You don't have to do it right now. >> Alter: We need to see that also, mayor, for t3. And I asked, which is much more common, I think, than the ds and does allow for a lot more. As I understand it. And again, I'm still struggling to understand it. But it does allow you when you have the [2:54:23 PM] intermediate setback to do more. >> Mayor Adler: The one other thing that Alison raised that I would like to see as well, as the lot gets smaller -- under this scenario I can build a single-family house with greater mass, greater scaling. But as the lot gets smaller these lines reverse, so I get the smaller lot. So I would like to know where that happens and I would like to know what control we can put on the smaller lot so that I'm not increasing the size of the house that could be built. So I'm not incentivizing the tearing down of the structure that might be there. >> We could do that. And I did get a chance to check with drew and the example on slide 22, so the approximate 4600 square feet, that has maxed out the entitlements. So -- but you would get the same size house and accessory dwelling unit on this lot as you would on the 50 by 140. >> Kitchen: Can I ask a related question just to follow up? >> Mayor Adler: I'll come right back to you. >> Renteria: I just want to say that in my experience that I had a -- a 940 square foot house on my lot. My lot is 90 feet by 60. And the only thing I was allowed to build there was a home that was -- because of the impervious cover, I could only build a 640 square foot house. That was the max that I could build on my Adu. That was the max size. I couldn't get any bigger than that. So if your lot is smaller you won't be able to build more than two units anyway. If you have a larger lot, like we have one [2:56:24 PM] down where it's commercial, he built the same thing with three units on his, which was a regular lot, but it was zoned differently. And the only problem that we experienced with this thing is that -- is the parking. People are not so concerned, because these are smaller units, and they didn't sell for as much, but the parking was the one that really was the problem when we've started experimenting with more than two units? We had three units, people already parking on the street and you had more people that could only build one garage for each unit. And if you have a two-car -- per family, then you can't -- you don't have ability to park that vehicle. And in our area they are secondary units. >> Mayor Adler: Ann and then Greg. >> Kitchen: Also a corollary question. Another questionway to look at this, in order to maintain the protections of the mcmansion, and I'm talking about the whole range of compromises that have to do with how big the house can be. To keep those kind of limitations, but still perhaps allow some -- allow some differences to allow for a cottage court. I'm trying to get back to what councilmember alter was talking about and get back to a comment that someone made about how would you incent -- maybe incent's not the right word. But incent or allow this kind of thing where you have a number of smaller homes while still having the protection on the mcmansion to address the kinds of concerns of councilmember alter? So that we're not [2:58:24 PM] putting a cottage court and a mcmansion on the same level. So we're not putting them on the same level about what someone's choice might be. Does that make sense? Just as something to consider. >> Yeah. And I think that -- I think last week we were able to talk about this a little bit. Was that we're open to talking about these things, adjusting these dials. I think the one tool that we would like to get kind of make sure that everyone is understanding and we could have a discussion about is that as the lots get bigger in the transect Zones and the t3 Zones in particular, let's stick with t3 for a second. Because of the way we've defined that envelope, as that lot gets bigger, the house stops growing at some point. The building just stops getting bigger. And that's a key difference between mcmansion either under today's sf-3 or in lmdr. So is that a tool -- that is from the sense of being able to in this example build a 5600 single-family square foot house, because we can talk about the other spectrum of dialing down as the mayor said on smaller lots and controlling how big a house that can be, but we're also offering up an alternative for when the lots get bigger. Is I did want to talk about this because it changes -- >> Alter: I just want to reiterate the mayor's point that the challenging thing that people are trying to grapple with is what happens when you switch, so there's a point at which you are incentivizing largest houses and there's a point that matches what a lot of those lot sizes are. So while we might like that you have a bigger lot and you are incentivizing it to get smaller, there's a point in [3:00:25 PM] which you are incentivizing it to get -- if you add in ads end up being almost a million dollars more of entitlement which has huge consequences for people's ability to stay in homes. So I think we have to get -- another lever we need to talk about is that size is that Adu. That is bigger than a lot of houses in this neighborhood. And so maybe we want that, but maybe we get more ain orderrability by having a smaller size Adu and that is another lever we can work with and you might get more auds if they were smaller size. Otherwise you are going to get a whole lot of $600,000 auds. >> As we talked about, I can't remember yesterday or the day before, in terms of the leverage, the point that you are making of how the T Zones would allow more square footage in certain lot conditions compared to the .4 limit of your current .4 F.A.R., I mean one possibility if that is a concern, if you really want to limit the size of the square footage, one option is to put the .4 F.A.R. Limit in the t3, right? So then the form controls, right, again, in the way that form based codes are used in a lot of other places, the form controls, there's great confidence in the form controls that people are concerned about the size of buildings and how do they relate and how do they loom over backyards and those sort of things. But I mean if the concern is that great, again, the tool that is available is to put the .4 F.A.R. Limit applicable to the t4 and then you are [3:02:26 PM] very comparable. And -- but again, what I was trying to get to earlier is the protections of the mcmansion have a lot to do with form. I mean they are your -- your early forray into residential districts. As that shows, this one even with six units, the intention of the form control to scale buildings to house size scale, you get that whether you do a single unit build, a duplex, four, cottage court or six-unit cottage court, but all of those controls of the mcmansion are preserved and maintained and carry forward. And if the -- if there's -- if the additional potential F.A.R. That the T Zones are allowing under the current proposal are understood to be only incentive and that's all they would do and that's a concern, then you could add the .4 and deal with it. To get to the other question on incentivizing, like truly the word of incentive, how would you incentivize, as John mentioned under your current Adu provisions you're limited to a .15 that the Adu can comprise of the F.A.R., but that .15 still has to be within the .4 limit. Of the total site. In other cities where the idea of the Adu is -- the intention is to incentivize the ability to do auds, they might use a way of saying whatever the existing F.A.R. Limit is because we encourage and promote adding gentle density through auds rather than encouraging demolitions, we [3:04:28 PM] incentivize -- if it's it's an aud, that the .5 could be on top of the .4. That's a -- that's the typical notion of deliberately using incentive tools in zoning to allow or to achieve a particular out come. And right now under your current code it doesn't exist because if I do an aud or not it's still a .4 limit. >> Mayor Adler: Let's do Greg and I think we're going to lose some people but since it's prepared I want to continue to do that for people to be watching. Greg. >> Casar: And my comment will be shorter because councilmember kitchen and alter touched on it. What I'm hearing is that in the same way that John just mentioned with townhouses if we allow them in too many places, what you know is you could wind up with lots of townhouses instead of other missing middle options. I think what we're basically hearing concerns about and I would have that concern with some of these given rules instead of getting cottage courts as an option we might just be getting lots of folks maxing out the largest single-family. So if we could get the best analysis on that as we could get is what things we could change if we wanted to create the opportunity for more people using cottage court and more people using duplex with Adu or what things we would have to do so that could be more akin to your townhouse situation unless akin to your mcmansion. Knowing what those things would be would be helpful for the discussion because I could imagine those would be helpful. The second thing, if we were to do that in the same way that the redevelopment analysis showed that some capacity being in the core actually reduced the demolition risk for some low-income units in places like my district, could having [3:06:28 PM] more folks in places like cottage courts add some more of the units and also inform that redevelopment analysis. Because that would again be helpful for us to try to bring down that number so that it is as close to the -- as close to below the status quo on redevelopment as possible. Those tools would be helpful for us in both of our questions, the first presentation and the second. >> We could look into that. That's something in many ways envision tomorrow gives us abilities -- part of the assumptions are redevelopment rate. The other thing that goes into the assumption when something redevelops how likely is it to be a single-family house, a duplex, how likely is it to be a cottage court. As we play with these numbers and adjust them and calibrate them, the percentage that might go to single-family might change to more duplexes or more cottage courts so we can look at that and see what that means for number of units and the pressure it may be able to relief on other parts of the city. I won't go through right now, you have them in your slide show, but we provided a summary of all the small houses examples that we showed, duplexes, cottage court. Quickly on t4 neighborhood, we chose t4 neighborhood deep setback back the standards are similar to t3 deep setback. One of the primary differences we allow a multi-plex and four units. Here the lot [inaudible] The minimum requirement is a 60-foot wide lot. We are holding that 140-foot depth as a fixed number for this example that we're providing. So one can see here that one it is front loaded and one has to account for the driveway and parking spaces. Your impervious cover is what's limiting what you can build here. And so you're getting a .37 F.A.R. [3:08:29 PM] But one can see that in scale that house is pretty similar in scale. It is a little bit bigger than the neighboring property that we show just on the upper end of the diagram. On an alley-loaded lot, this is a multi plex on a 60-foot wide lot, you can get four units. Here the F.A.R. Is a little bit higher. In terms of scale and relating to neighbors, how deep it goes on the lot, it's much more compatible to its neighbors. A couple things here is, again, when one looks at the number of units, this is about 1200 -- 1250 square feet per unit which is more that family friendly style of unit and two bedrooms. And it's also important to remember that the primary intent of t4 neighborhood was for mapping on where you currently have mf-3 and 4. Today where the neighborhood plan said we would more scaled multi-unit building. That being said there are also places where we have mapped t4 neighborhood where it was formerly sf-3. And that again is a discussion about where is it located in the city. It's in an area where there's a lot of market driven. It generally speaking it's also mapped in places where we're not getting density along the corridors because it tends to be either a t3 or t4 main street corridor. But we did want to show these just in terms of understanding that F.A.R. And the difference between a front loading lot and a lot that's accessed from an alley. I bring this up in particular here as why it's important to remember that our form controls are different than what you have today in your existing zoning and just mcmansion tense and whatnot because if we didn't have the building in the way that we defined it in t4, one could almost always max out their [3:10:34 PM] floor area ratio because really at this point it's that envelope that we defined that's limiting the size of the building. >> Alter: Will you be able to provide this with I.S., like the comparison whether you present it or not, but the numbers, is that -- >> I think -- yes. My hesitation is more on the timing because there are a couple requests that have come in and I'd like to understand -- understand -- I need to think how long it will take us to produce all these. >> Alter: I didn't mean it would have to be tomorrow, I think it would be -- unless it's changing dramatically. My impression was there was a lot -- that there was even more square foot age options under the I.S. And so it's more relevant in that regard. >> We'll look into it. I think we could definitely do it. I'd like to try -- as much as we can I'd like to have as many models completed before [inaudible] This information before the 26th. >> Alter: Yeah, it doesn't -- >> Mostly because we know that people are going on summer vacation so make sure we can get as much information out before that happens. >> Alter: Thank you, appreciate that. >> Mayor Adler: At that point you are going to start to change the code. Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Two comments and a quick question. So I appreciate your last comment because we have had presentations where there's a discussion about having -- about the mapping having followed the neighborhood plans and mapping -- you know, t4 following where once there was mf-2 and 3 and I represent [3:12:34 PM] an area you have several older single-family neighborhoods that have been mapped with t4 which many of the residents, and I agree with them, believe is inappropriate. I've heard the rationale being noted as the market. And I just have to say publicly I know the planning commission had this discussion, it came up again there. The council directive as expressed in imagine Austin was to draft a code that follows the neighborhood plans. There has never been a council directive asking for the mapping to follow the market. And so I hope that as -- as there are revisions that some of those are adjusted. I do believe it's out of -- out of character with previous council directives to have that. I do also want to say I think that there was a comment earlier about ways to I heard this correctly, but maybe I was just hearing a suggestion, I wanted to -- I wanted to hear, but I think I heard you suggest something like a requirement that would -- that would be to preserve the front house if you are adding an accessory dwelling unit, and I just want to say I think that's a great -- a great tool to consider and actually I may have mentioned the other provided that in my comments on the draft code that I would really like to see a tool of that sort especially in the t3 zoning where you have mapped single-family to t3 and most of those areas have the ability to have accessory dwelling units and if there is a requirement to preserve that front house, I think additional density is -- is much -- creates much less of the concerns, you know, those changes are much less concerning to people because you're not including a built-in incentive to demolish the primary structure. And it is the demolition of the primary structure that I am really concerned about for all of the reasons we've talked about including the potential displacement of lots of current residents. Even if you are replacing them [3:14:35 PM] with new and different and more people, you are still displacing the people who are here and I don't believe that's the end -- that's supportive of our community's values. So thank you and I hope you will be proposing something along those lines. I think that's really interesting. As I thought about cottage court, I'm not sure if there is a similar mechanism or if the goal there is to require that some of those cottage courts then become affordable and that is a community benefit and the tradeoff for the potential loss of an existing structure. So I would just continue to support your looking for tools and potentially some others that will help us hang on to our existing stock because it is I think important for all kinds of reasons. And then my last -- this is the question. Which is on a slightly different subject but I posted it yesterday. As I understand design sites, if your lot is large enough, you can do double the entitlements list understand t3 and 4 without subdividing. Can you verify there's not a lot of information in the code draft and I haven't brought down my code draft, but that's my summary understanding of what design site is and I would like if not today to make sure that we have a discussion about that because that is a pretty significant change that I'd like to be able to understand. >> Mayor Adler: Which change? >> Tovo: It's called design site and it allows if your lot is larger, you don't have to subdivide, you can just do double the entitle? A.as currently specified. If you have a large enough lot and it's t4, I suppose you could have 16 units. >> I can address that right now if that's okay. It's similar to what John talked about earlier. At a certain size lot, if it's double the minimum lot size, you have the option today of subdividing and building two buildings. What we're offering the design sites is that you don't have to subdivide. You don't have to go through [3:16:35 PM] the technical process of subdividing. You have to show though if one were to subdivide, that you meet all the other requirements of the code. So you would meet all the setbacks so that imaginary lot line that would happen, this design site line you would have to set back and depending on the zone, requirements are met. That you are still staying under the F.A.R. -- Sorry, the impervious cover or building cover for each of those sites. It is simply -- it is just saying you don't actually have to subdivide. So in many ways it is what you described, however, the key difference here is it's not saying that you can build two houses -- just say we're in ldr where you only allow single-family house and auds. It's not saying you could build two houses and have them attached or only five feet apart. They would still have to meet the setback requirements in that zone. It's a nuanced difference there because you are essentially doing what the minimum lots -- what your minimum zoning says already, you just don't [inaudible] >> Tovo: But you build them out as if it were two different lots. >> Correct. >> Tovo: Thank you. That's helpful. One last question. When you were doing the mapping, did you or the staff who were working on it at the city level, were you guided at all by the watershed profiles and the existing impervious cover in different areas, different neighborhoods as well as the percentages of rental in each area? >> I think we were -- again, we are still maintaining the overarching urban, suburban protective watersheds within the city. So we knew that that was still staying in effect. With were we looking at [3:18:37 PM] particulars of any particular wad, that was not necessarily something we were looking at when we were placing down these Zones. >> And I think certainly those areas buying out housing in the flood plain, flood-prone areas, take that into consideration in mapping, particularly probably in the future and also by council direction. But I don't believe we went back in and looked specifically at each of the regulations to inform that zoning mapping because they would override our zoning requirements as a developer maybe would come forward with some project. >> Tovo: I was talking about district by district watershed profiles that looked at the personal of impervious cover and -- percentage of impervious cover so it shows differing percentages of impervious cover. There are also commentary -- I asked this question because at least one of the neighborhood plans I know was going through they were cautioned against the way that -- you know, that they needed to be careful in identifying areas for increased density because they already had a high degree of impervious cover in that neighborhood and it increased impervious cover will impact flooding, runoff as we've seen in some of our in fill areas. And just, you know, I've gotten the breakdown for district 9 and some of the neighborhoods you are proposing for t4 are pretty high in impervious cover. And I would just add to that in addition to the impervious cover mapping that's been done for each district there's also rental versus owner data and so, you know, we're talking a lot about central core and that's where the market needs to build and that's where we need the missing middle housing. You are also looking at areas that have already 70% rental. These are areas with missing middle housing, they are areas with rental housing and so it does become I think a very real question about why are we not looking at areas where that ratio is less or where [3:20:37 PM] you have much less impervious cover and so you're not necessarily exacerbating -- you could add increased density without exacerbating existing watershed issues. >> I'm aware our watershed department is looking at the mapping and the amount of impervious cover that's created by codenext and the preliminary amount went down based on what I have been told so far. But I know that that is being looked at, but not perhaps in advance. It was more done as a reaction to the mapping process. And that I think it has to do with some of the T districts actually reduced some of the impervious cover from what the higher numbers were that you might find like in cs or gr. >> Tovo: What does that mean exactly, the preliminary numbers went down from mapping changes or -- >> They looked at the possible amount of impervious cover that could be built in the code previously to what could be built under the proposed map undercoated next. -- Codenext. If you were to develop out the sites to your potential under the existing code and the way the zoning exists today versus what it might exist under the proposed mapping, the overall impervious cover drops slightly. >> Tovo: I'll have to get more details on that. >> To recognize watershed has done great things in the code. So they are saying as 100% impervious cover site redevelops in the future it will have to deal with water quality and flood mitigation. So over time as these projects redevelop they will be addressing these flooding issues. It whether have some of the significant benefits to the community. We're saying these sites need to start dealing with flood mitigation. [3:22:48 PM] The impervious numbers are remaining the same. 40, 45% impervious cover. There was confidence in our understanding that as you were moving forward we were not increasing the amount of impervious that could be built. And the last thing that I would love to just maybe end on is that in the slides that we presented many of the examples we show have more units than you have today, but in many cases the example that's being shown is not maxing out the impervious cover that's allowed on a lot. So the equation of density always equals more impervious cover/more flooding is not always the case and is not -- definitely at least in the T3s is not the case. >> Mayor Adler: Greg. >> Casar: I briefly want to address the market issues as well because I think that -- that it's clear that so much of what's happening in the real estate market is driven largely by individual profit motive and so that's something that we have to put on check on as far as the environment or affordability and everything else we work on. So I think people are very aware that the fact this is a market driven thing, and so I guess I'm -- would be interested in future conversations to understand the objection that the mayor pro tem raised of us considering those market forces and understanding them as we decide how to put -- build our land use code because I think that's like a big part of the conversation we had today was understanding that the market wants to put up really big single-family houses, we have rules to try to limit those and to try to get different kinds of building types. And as we understand that the [inaudible] May produce reduced amount of impervious cover and better watershed [3:24:49 PM] protections if we set up our land use code a particular way. We have to be aware of the market even if we don't like -- especially if we don't like where it's going, our zoning regulations should respond to that. And so I agree that it would go counter to our work if we just said we're going to zone things to just reflect exactly what the market wants, but that's not what we're doing. We're very clearly by having a still pretty thick land development code regulating and trying to redirect the market. Codenext letting the market do what it wanted, but I'm just -- I read the news stories on folks having concerns that you guys are doing your work with consideration of what the market wants and I very much want you guys to help advise us on when we pass -- when we do regulation X and Y how you think the market will respond to X and Y because I want to know what it is I'm going to get so I appreciate you guys taking a close look at that. >> Mayor Adler: And I agree with that too because I've heard the same objection or the same question coming to me. And clearly there's no one here trying to do a code for the purpose of giving profit to anybody. In fact, and then what we have is a situation is the market is hurting us today from what we want because it's causing people to have to move out of neighborhoods and it's resulting in the situation where people can't afford to stay where they are and we have houses that are being torn down and big homes being put in their place. The degree to which we can work to increase supply in the city so that we have something with respect to price efforts and then agree to which we can provide incentives in neighborhoods so that we work in ways the market is not going to work alone so that we [3:26:52 PM] get small units that are going to be more affordable than a large unit. In a world right now it's the large unit that is being pushed actually has us looking at where the market pressures are the most intense and focusing on those things because that's what's happening in some respects is what we don't want to have happen. So it's trying to figure out how to do that in a way that incentivizes the benefit that we are trying to see. But I think that Allison raises some good points is that a lot of that is in turning the knobs. We could make that our goal, but inned Arizona variety wently find ourselves incentivizing building even bigger houses and I'm not sure no one wants to do that either. So it's a question of the knobs. >> Renteria: Mayor, also is is that when -- in the inner core especially because of the lack of land, when you are starting to sell lots that are 90 by 60 for the land value itself is valued at appraisal at 270,000 and some even $300,000, now what we're looking at now is you have -- you have a retired couple that's waiting at home, have just retired and they are looking at a 4,000 to 5,000 dollar tax bill every year that they go through. You know, it doesn't take much for someone to come by and offer them the money -- if they are paying $500,000 and they are demolishing the house and building two more units, I don't think they are going to be able to build two units that are going to be able to sell for $100,000. That's not going to happen. So, you know, we're facing that right now in east Austin, and it's just growing. I mean we're having people [3:28:53 PM] that are tearing down, paying $600,000 per lot and building two units and they are charging -- they are nice houses and all that, but they are charging $740,000 apiece and that's just one lot. We haven't done much of anything yet, but the land value is just going up so high in that area that I don't see how we could even build three units of housing when it would be able to offer low-income housing. It's not going to happen. Not there in the inner core. Maybe if we go further out we could do that, but it's just not going to happen. >> Mayor Adler: Mayor pro tem. >> Tovo: Yeah, and I am happy to continue having this conversation, I think my colleague, councilmember Casar talked about having this conversation, by no means am I asking you not to reflect how you think the market will influence some of these changes or how these changes could respond to the market. What I do have an objection with is in areas where -- where the mapping appears to have -- doesn't appear, has diverged very dramatically from the existing neighborhood plans. When we have a imagine Austin document that said the existing neighborhoods will be preserved and we will follow the neighborhood plans in crafting land development code and that has verged the answer seems to be because there is a market driven interest in redeveloping in those areas and that is, in my mind, not the right policy direction. And in addition when some of those areas are projected to redevelopment -- to redevelop at a rate of one out of every four, you know, that seems to me almost uncon shunnable we would accept that as inevitable we would redevelop some of our older neighborhoods and not do what we could to look for tools within code next that could help us. Thank you for some of the [3:30:53 PM] ideas you've offered. That is abiding concern for many -- how we balance a code that allows flexibility and consistency but does what it can to preserve the existing neighborhood and does not sort of -- we're going to accept this is where the market wants to develop. I think we need a better balance and look forward to continuing to you're to work -- to work with you to see what we can do to achieve that. >> Mayor Adler: There were additional pages. I don't know if you got through the entire book on this. Did you get through it all? >> I did. >> Mayor Adler: There were two other things, as we finish up here that I just want to mention because we discussed them yesterday. And manager -- I've gotten a lot of comments from the community supportive of two conversations that we've had. And my hope is that you will think about these and come back and tell us either today or next week whether they are things you can commit to so as we leave for the summer people know those two things are going to happen. The one is concept of having an additional report. You talked about several different ways to do it, but I think that the concept of however it's best to do that, to have that additional report coming out I think is important in that timing, even if it means it gets to the council a month and a half later because I think it will save us time and we can still get this done in April because we'll be in a better position as a council to do that. So I really want the community to hear that's something that's going to happen. And then the second thing is is that we'll get in the maps something with reference to the corridors and the centers, activity centers, corridors, the activity centers, the nodes that are not in the [3:32:56 PM] urban core area that they will appear on the new maps that when they come out in August either mapped or if it's inappropriate to map those now, I understand why there might be reasons. Some kind of overlay and says someone is going to significantly redevelop in that area it's going to trigger a real quick swat area, plan something so that we recognize that's happening, especially with the bond moneys that are being spent so that people can see that part of what we're doing here includes taking a look at that. Because if we're going to be doing green field development in some of these areas, we should do it in a way that maps with whatever our new theories are with respect to how we're approaching the code rather than creating the false impression that we're going to exacerbate or continue suburban land planning that in 15 years we're going to wish they had planned it differently. So I don't know if you are ready to do that now, but if we could think about those, but next week before people leave, I would like to hear your commitment to do those two things. >> Tovo: By report do you mean additional draft? >> Mayor Adler: An additional draft -- a third draft. >> Tovo: I just wanted to clarify. I think you may have used the report. We're talking about another draft. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. Yes. This was really -- did you want to say something, Greg? >> We can certainly come back and give you that information next week and we are seriously discussing the -- an additional draft, 2.5 or whatever we want to end up calling it at this time. >> Mayor Adler: Additional draft and also doing something about the activity corridors in the mapping. >> Yeah, we probably spend [3:34:58 PM] more time talking about the drafting than the corridor for the mapping because, frankly the former is much more involved discussion than the latter as far as workload. >> Mayor Adler: And I don't understand it being much of a workload issue, the latter one, but I think it is a really, really important signal to send to the community. As well as to be able to put in perspective and context what we're doing. While that doesn't take a lot of the workload, it is equally important, I think. If you could come back and give us a commitment of those, I would appreciate it. >> Yes. >> Mayor Adler: Thank you. And if it doesn't look like that's going to happen, I need to bring up a ifc before we leave, let me know that too. We need to do that. [Inaudible]. >> Anything else? Then we stand adjourned. Thank you for coming down.