Housing and Planning Committee (HPC) Meeting Transcript – 10/01/2024 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 10/1/2024 2:00:00 PM Original Air Date: 10/1/2024 Transcript Generated by SnapStream ================================== Please note that the following transcript is for reference purposes and does not constitute the official record of actions taken during the meeting. For the official record of actions of the meeting, please refer to the Approved Minutes. [2:01:46 PM] good afternoon everybody. We're going to go ahead and get started because apparently ragweed is the boss. And we are not. And so I'd like for us to try to stay as close to on time as possible. With that said, I am Natasha harper-madison and I am joined by vice chair, alter and council member Ellis. And we are meeting in council chambers in Austin, Texas on October the 1st, 2024. It is currently 2:02 P.M. And I would like to call the meeting of the housing and planning committee to order. Staff, do we have speakers today? >> We now have two speakers just signed up. Okay. For item two, David Glenn. >> Talking about potentially [2:02:59 PM] >> Talking about potentially utilizing a resolution that maybe gives more direction to city staff and really find solutions to make this, this, this proposal work. I think site plan light is a really important way to make sure we get more missing middle on the ground, but it's not going to work unless we have cooperation from all the various departments that touch these items. So we're here to be a resource if there's any other, research or anything we can do, other cities are doing, we have a pretty wide range of experts all over the state. So happy to help out however we can. Thanks >> Next speaker, Carol Lee, speaking on item five. >> Good afternoon. I'm here to remind you that I spoke at the last meeting in support of senior housing co-ops. We've [2:04:00 PM] senior housing co-ops. We've been working for a long time. I'm with boomers collaborative foundation, by the way, and we've been working for a long time to get senior housing co-ops here in the Austin area. To help those of us that want to live in a shared facility to help support each other, we're especially interested in cooperative housing in Austin's new E tods. Many of us no longer drive. I'm one. And so it would be of great benefit to have transportation nearby and to be in a walkable urban village setting. So anyway, I'm here to remind you that, we're still paying attention and hope you move forward with this resolution. Thank you. >> Thank you for your time. Thank you. Staff. Moving forward. Oh, we've been joined by council member qadri as well, so moving forward today, we're going to take up our discussion items first and then finish with our briefings and future items. [2:05:01 PM] our briefings and future items. So the order will be one, two, three, five, four, six. And then we'll finish with item number seven, we need to begin with approval of the minutes in which case, from our previous housing and planning committee meeting on September 5th. Is there a motion to approve the meeting or moved by vice chair alter and seconded by council member qadri. I'm so sorry. Excuse me. All in favor? Looks unanimous. In which case the minutes are approved. Discussion item number two is the proposed ordinance that would modify development regulations. >> I don't think that's for you. What is it? It was just a timer. >> Oh. Development regulations applicable to residential subdivisions and multi-family residential site. Development of [2:06:02 PM] residential site. Development of 5 to 16 units. And pardon me. Let me make sure I'm following along. Hi, there. >> Hello. Good afternoon. I don't think the mix, brant Lloyd. >> Dsd development officer, and, thank you, council members, we appreciate the committee's time and interest in this item and the code amendments on related items that will be discussing this afternoon are a critical step towards achieving council's housing goals. And they're also different from the home ordinance and from other items that council has acted on recently in a two, two main ways. First off, these are non [2:07:04 PM] ways. First off, these are non zoning regulations. They don't change any zoning for particular properties or amend site development standards. They won't increase allowable impervious cover or relaxed development standards for particular properties. There will be no increase in allowed units as a result of this proposal. Instead our proposal today focuses on the non zoning side of the ledger. Things like drainage, stormwater, right of way, dedication and other requirements and procedures that can sometimes have the effect of preventing projects from achieving their zoning capacity, and so that's what we're going to talk about, these are regulations that council typically doesn't weigh in on. We we've acted council has acted a lot over the years on housing, on affordability through the zoning process, through water quality regulations as well, but some of the requirements that we're going to talk about today [2:08:05 PM] we're going to talk about today are things that we normally, at least in my experience, have not weighed in on. Additionally, the second way that I think our proposal is different than a lot of items council has considered is that it's not just about the code, the these items are initiated by resolution that calls for code amendments. But a lot of the challenges that infill encounters is due to administrative criteria, manuals and other practices that are not directly specified in the code. So our proposal includes code amendments, but it also includes a lot of department initiated changes that are intended to help further council's goals and help further the spirit of the ordinances that you have called for. So to start us out, oops. Hold on. This is not correct [2:09:05 PM] Hold on. This is not correct presentation, sorry. This is not, can we take a short. >> Item. To. >> So I guess we will make do with an old presentation. But this is not what we had. Can we take a short pause? I really apologize for this, but somehow the wrong presentation got transmitted. >> Okay. [2:10:06 PM] >> Okay. Let me grab a backup. >> Mr. Lloyd, if you'd like for us to, we can move to the next [2:11:07 PM] us to, we can move to the next item while we resolve this. >> >> Sure. That's fine. I apologize. I don't know what happened. >> I understand, so the next item and this is discussion and possible action, and this is an ldc reprioritization item, and so this is item number three where we'll discuss and take possible action on a request, on a recommendation to council to reprioritize the timeline for adopting amendments to the land development code. And I'll let our housing staff lead the conversation. >> Good afternoon, chair and members of the housing and planning committee. I'm Steve Greathouse and I serve as the division manager in the city of Austin planning department, there is backup for this item, but there is actually no slide deck, so what you see on the screen is the land development code. Gantt chart, in the backup for this item, you will find that Gantt chart as well as a brief memo, this Gantt chart was provided and published and [2:12:08 PM] provided and published and presented to the housing and planning committee last month at the September 5th, 2024 meeting, but we really just wanted to highlight a few things that have changed since the schedule was presented last month, as you all know, on September 12th city council voted to indefinitely postpone consideration of a density bonus for the south central waterfront. On September 10th, planning commission postponed consideration of an item related to a density bonus for live music venues and creative spaces. So there's September 24th meeting, and they have subsequently taken action on that item, and it is scheduled to come to city council, as originally scheduled for adoption consideration on October 10th. Development services staff have identified a potential schedule for consideration of amendments to require the installation of safety barriers at the pedestrian entrances of medical facilities. This item was shown as scheduled to be determined on the September version of the Gantt chart. Under the proposed schedule, this item would potentially move forward for consideration by the planning [2:13:08 PM] consideration by the planning commission on the November 12th. Planning commission agenda and city council, potentially as early as the December 12th city council meeting. I also wanted to take this opportunity to highlight that we will be moving forward on some engagement activities related to future code amendments this fall. And just to ask that, folks, please stay tuned for additional communication related to these fall engagement activities and milestones. In particular, please look for an announcement coming soon regarding opportunities later this month for the public to provide input to staff as we develop the second phase of the equitable transit oriented development overlay regulations. And everybody can continue to kind of follow along with everything and all of the work related to code amendments at the speak up Austin web page, which is speakup Austin org forward slash ldc updates. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you Steph. Colleagues, do we have any discussion or suggested changes? It appears as though we don't have any, is [2:14:09 PM] though we don't have any, is there an is there any motion on this item or are we good to move on? It appears like we're good to move on. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you. Are we prepared to go back to the previous item? >> Sorry about that. There was a technical glitch in transmitting the presentation, so, we'll just dive in here. So this is all about infill development and the non zoning standards that apply to it. And infill occurs primarily when primarily within existing residential areas. And it's increasingly important to achieving the city's housing goals. The city as I mentioned and as you all know very well, has updated its zoning regulations to facilitate infill development. But the non zoning regs remain poorly calibrated to [2:15:11 PM] regs remain poorly calibrated to the scale and intensity of most infill projects, which are less than a large multifamily building, but more than a single family home. The the staff proposal seeks to right size non zoning regulations and review procedures to better accommodate different kinds of infill, and the infill plots portion. This is a proposal that includes two distinct items and two distinct code amendments, and a lot of administrative items as well. And the infill plots portion of the proposal streamlines the subdivision process and it would cover approximately 158,000 residential lots. And this would facilitate subdivision into home two lots, and it would provide an alternative to condominium regimes for, you know, people that don't want to build multiple units on a lot and create a homeowners association. This would provide a path forward to creating small, individual lots. The site plan [2:16:12 PM] individual lots. The site plan light portion of staff's proposal streamlines the development process for 5 to 16 unit projects, and this would cover approximately 3500 multi-family zoned properties. Projects that meet the applicable requirements, which we're going to discuss, would cost significantly less to develop than they do today. And I do want to emphasize that, you know, not every property within that 158,000 is going to be able to utilize the maximum relaxed development standards. Under our proposal. There will be some that have to comply with a little bit more, but we believe this proposal will cast a very wide net and benefit a great deal of residential properties throughout the city, it's important to also emphasize the things that this proposal would not affect. This proposal will not appreciably impact lot to lot flooding. As I mentioned before, the tech glitch, there are no changes proposed to [2:17:14 PM] are no changes proposed to zoning regulations or impervious cover limits, it does not reduce protections for water quality and it does not waive or limit, it does not waive limits on development in the floodplain and it does not increase the number of units allowed within any zone. So talk about the infill plots portion. This is what we call a Greenfield subdivision. And it is the subdivision, the sort of the classic American subdivision that our land development code is, is very well suited for and is, is really envisions this style of subdivision. And you see that it has all the all the classic attributes of a subdivision. You've got right of way dedication. You have water quality ponds, detention ponds. You've got parkland, you've got open space, you've got lots of uniform residential lots and then we've, we've, emboldened and red, a quarter acre couple lots that total a quarter acre. [2:18:17 PM] lots that total a quarter acre. And this is going to be our example that we're going to discuss of infill. So let's turn now to the infill proposal that is before you today, so under our proposal it focuses primarily on drainage regulations. The code amendments, as I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of things that affect infill that are not in the code, but drainage regulations, which sometimes total as much as 35 to 45% of project costs are in the land development code. And so our the code amendments that are before you today focus principally on drainage regulations. And so for the infill plat portion, if you're up to a quarter acre, there are no drainage studies or on site detention ponds required. And that would mean that for subdividing into smaller lots, if you're again a quarter acre or less, it would be the same as 1 to 4 units on a single lot, I think the spirit of this is to not make method of ownership be [2:19:18 PM] not make method of ownership be the determiner for regulations. And so if you could do everything on one lot without doing drainage regulations or on site detention, then this would create a path forward for subdividing and not having to do those things either. As long as you're a quarter acre or less. So if you're a quarter acre to an acre, there would be no drainage studies or on site detention ponds required, as long as some requirements are met. So the lot needs to drain to the street right of way or to the storm drain without grading, and to do that, you just need to submit a simple grading plan that shows topography that would not require full engineering, it's a simple plan that would simply show where the water flows. And we're going to give you an illustration of that in a second. And then if grading is required in order to get the water to flow to the right of way or storm drain, then compliance with smp is required. And smp, as I think some of you [2:20:22 PM] And smp, as I think some of you know, is a program that our watershed protection department has developed that allows applicants to not provide on site detention, but they have to show that the water flows appropriately, and they also have to provide some engineering and volumetric analysis and a fee. So if grading under our proposal, if you're within that over a quarter acre up to an acre, and you need to grade your property to achieve the necessary water flows, then compliance with our smp is required. And watershed has. And we'll get to this later. Has proposed changes to our smp that will enable projects of this scale to participate in it, which they're currently not able to do. And so if you're over a quarter acre and you're not able to meet those requirements, then full subdivision would apply. So here's an example. This shows a lot that would comply a lot. That's, a quarter acre, and it's the topography, position is [2:21:23 PM] the topography, position is positioned so that the water will flow to a public right of way or drainage system. So no drainage review would be required. No on site detention would be required, just like you were building a single family home situation that the provisions are meant to guard against. It's a situation where water would flow to adjacent properties. And under our proposal, the grading would be allowed. As long as you're no more than an acre and you comply with our smp. And that is a benefit over what exists today in terms of not having to build on site detention, which builds, consumes, buildable area and is expensive to design and construct as well. So site plan like part two is the other piece of this, and this is for to facilitate again the non zoning regulations. But instead of subdivision this is for unit for building 5 to 16 units on a [2:22:24 PM] building 5 to 16 units on a single lot. And I want to emphasize that this proposal would not make would not change zoning to allow 5 to 16 units. So as a practical matter, this is going to create development opportunities on multi-family zoned properties. And additionally, projects that want to utilize affordability unlocked would have the opportunity to use this process as well. So getting getting all wonky and back into drainage. So no drainage if you're, less no more than half an acre, no drainage analysis or on site detention would be required. Again if your lots drain to street right of way or the storm drain, and that would just require a drainage map that would not require engineering, we have topographical information that's pretty user friendly, and we're confident that that process of preparing a simple drainage plan can be done in a cost effective manner that will fit well with within the [2:23:25 PM] will fit well with within the scope of a residential style development process. And then again, if you need to grade your property in order to achieve the required flows, compliance with smp would be required, if you're over a half an acre but no more than an acre, compliance with smp would be required as well, and if these those requirements are not met, full compliance with the ldc and drainage criteria manual would be required, just as it is today for everything, so we believe this both this and the infill plots proposal create a very large universe. As I said, it casts a wide net for properties to develop without compliance with full drainage review. And we think that's justified in light of what our evidence shows about lot to lot flooding. Drainage is intended to deal with principally with flooding impacts on adjacent properties and watershed protection is here [2:24:25 PM] and watershed protection is here to speak to that today. If council has questions. But we're confident that with applicable impervious cover limits and the other restrictions that are not being changed, that the construction of what we call micro ponds, small drainage prawns that don't provide a lot of value is not necessary. And so that is the focus of what this proposal is about, here's this should have been my first slide on the site plan light piece. But this is an example of the site of a site plan light project. It's eight units condominium development on naught .49 acres, and this is at 60% impervious cover. And I think that's an important point to make. One of the reasons that so for subdivision, if you're less than one quarter of an acre, there's a no drainage requirement. You don't have to provide any drainage review whatsoever. And in working closely with our floodplain administrator and in watershed protection, you know, it was [2:25:26 PM] protection, you know, it was determined that because site plan light projects are going to be multifamily zoned, they're going to have higher impervious cover. The impacts on surrounding areas are going to be a little bit more intensive, there is not a just no drainage option for site plan light of 5 to 16 units. Instead, we have the option for if you're less than half an acre for just showing that you drain to the right of way or storm drain system. And then alternatively, if you need to do grading, you can do smp, which is not available for this style of project today. So as I mentioned earlier, a lot of the challenges, the regulatory challenges that confront infill are not directly in the land development code. They pertain to things that are in administrative criteria manuals or just sort of well established review practices. And like our code itself, a lot of those rules and practices are well suited to Greenfield, but not [2:26:26 PM] suited to Greenfield, but not well suited to infill. So I want to go through some changes that, that our departments, our partner departments have worked with us and have agreed to and that are detailed in our staff report to planning commission, the first two items, though, are actually code amendments, the first one is impervious cover. So we're not changing the amount of impervious cover that can be built on a property. But our subdivision regs use what's called assumed impervious cover as a way to calibrate whether water quality regulations and other standards are met. So you're not actually building any impervious cover when you create lots, you're just creating lots. And so in order to have a assumption, we have use assumed impervious cover as a threshold for applying certain regulations at subdivision. And currently those assumptions are very suburban. They assume high amounts of impervious cover that are not reflective of the actual lot sizes for infill projects. [2:27:27 PM] lot sizes for infill projects. And so we are recalibrating the impervious cover assumptions in a way that will allow people to create more lots with a single application. You know, in our I think in our analysis, and I don't have this right in front of me, but I think for, a quarter acre resubdivision, I think the difference can be as much as, three lots under current I C assumptions and closer to more like nine lots under the revised assumptions. Assuming that you're going to the very smallest lot allowable, which is the 1800 square feet under home two, we've also reclassified or proposing that site plan of 5 to 16 units be classified as a small project. And that is not a silver bullet for everything, as I'm sure some of the stakeholders will tell you. But it does lower fees and it provides a foundation for a more streamlined review process. So we think that's an important step towards right sizing the site plan process for 5 to 16 [2:28:27 PM] site plan process for 5 to 16 units. Additionally, one of the biggest concerns that we heard during our testing in June was the requirement to connect to existing storm drains. So under today's rules, development is required to connect to an existing storm drain, with no exceptions. If it's within 550ft of the existing storm drain and there are situations where that can create tremendous expense, that can require, putting in a line that goes as much as a city block or even more. And so that can be a deal breaker for some projects. And so watershed protection is proposing to initiate a change to the requirement. That's a criteria manual, not the code that would lower that to 300ft S. And it would also provide an exception for properties that are half an acre or less, where there would be no connection to the existing storm drain system required. So I think that will we believe [2:29:27 PM] I think that will we believe that that will tremendously reduce the burden that that requirement imposes on development. And as I mentioned, our smp is also proposed to be expanded to capture some of these properties that don't meet the no drainage option that we've provided for, or that require grading in order to flow to the appropriate for water to flow to the appropriate places. And this will provide relief for lots of properties as well, and finally, our last two items we have worked closely in the last few weeks with, our transportation and public works dpw, and they have, I think, proactively in response to stakeholder concerns, proposed a method of streamlining the right of way dedication process. So a lot of infill projects are of a scale and intensity where it just doesn't make sense to require a right of way dedication, and but they still have to under today's process, [2:30:29 PM] have to under today's process, they still have to go through a review and the review and the level of discretion that can be brought to bear in that, is challenging for our applicants. So tpw has proposed a system where if you're on a level one street, which is your standard residential street, there's going to be a real easy path forward to not have to go through a right of way. Dedication review process, and additionally, Austin water is proposing to institute predevelopment meetings that will provide a and I think the details of this, remain to be worked out, but it is intended to provide a robust consultation process that will help applicants to understand the infrastructure obligations of their projects. One of the concerns we've heard from stakeholders is that projects commence construction, are well into the review process, and all of a sudden there's a requirement to upgrade older infrastructure that is brought to light that they feel they [2:31:29 PM] to light that they feel they should have known about earlier. And so I think we hear different perspectives on why that happens. But the bottom line is everybody agrees that it does happen and that it shouldn't. And so there's, Austin water has proactively proposing to make this process early consultation process more robust to avoid those situations, so that pretty well is our proposal. We have asked for a 90 day delayed effective date for the ordinance. And the reason we've done that, that seems like a long time. But this ordinance, unlike, I think, a lot of ordinances that council considers is going to have deep inter-departmental impacts. This this is going to affect all aspects of the review process. It's going to require creating a new tier of drainage review. And although that review is ultimately going to be more cost effective, more streamlined, [2:32:30 PM] effective, more streamlined, more efficient, it's going to require training staff and creating a new pathway for applications. And all of that takes time. And the holidays are fast approaching. So we have asked council to, make the ordinance not take effect until 90 days after passage. And that concludes my presentation and we're available for questions. >> Thank you very much for the presentation. Any questions? >> I have a couple of questions. I really appreciate the thorough report that you're giving, certainly appreciate the involvement of watershed protection department. I know they've been very collaborative over this process, and in a number of different conversations, we've had over a number of years, can you talk about the incorporation of atlas 14 maps? Is this something that's going to be able to accommodate, differing floodplains throughout the years? Oh, I see Kevin Shunk is here. Hello I want to make sure we're flexible enough that as floodplains change that, that we can make this kind of a living, breathing document in addition to the information that you're [2:33:30 PM] to the information that you're going to be receiving over the next five, ten years. >> Yes. Thank you. I'm Kevin Shunk, I'm the city's floodplain administrator. And as brant mentioned, the proposal that he laid out. And we're laying out in this instance for these for this situation doesn't affect the floodplain rules at all. And our floodplain projects that are restudying our floodplains to incorporate the rainfall information from atlas 14 is continuing. And that will be part of the process of the of the of the regulation method that we have with new models. If something is projected to encroach within the floodplain. Okay. >> That's great. Thank you. I appreciate that that level of expertise on this project, maybe this is a question for brant again. Can you talk a bit more about the utilities? I saw Austin water and some of its involvement. I realize there's a lot of overlapping regulations when we get into Austin water and Austin energy, but are there any other changes or extra levels of involvement that you see from the water utilities? [2:34:31 PM] see from the water utilities? Just to make sure that as this continues to be built out, that we're looking at things like utility setbacks. I know mayor pro tem pool and I have worked closely on street trees and other issues that involve E and W. Can you speak to that a little bit? >> Absolutely. So we've had many productive discussions with our utility departments who have also been very actively engaged in our testing sessions and also participate on the tarp, the technical advisory review panel, which is a multi- stakeholder group that includes city staff as well as, builders to look at really technical issues that affect development, and as part of this proposal, as I mentioned, Austin water is committed to instituting some new procedures that will help with identifying infrastructure impacts of projects early in the process in an expedited way, so that developers are not caught unawares as they get into the [2:35:31 PM] unawares as they get into the project with those impacts. We've also worked with Austin energy, who are in full agreement that the tarp will consider the Austin energy clearances, the safety clearances. Those are really important for our utility providers, but they, as you all know, and as we all have heard, they have an impact on housing. And Austin energy is aware of that. And so we are planning the land development code rules administrator who works in dsd and oversees the tarp, is going to be facilitating a deep dive discussion into those clearances and looking at what other cities do. Do other cities have a uniform clearance the way we do? Do they have more context specific clearances that may have cost impacts on development? There's no easy answer to these questions. So we're going to use the tarp to look at those issues. And additionally per I think a prior council direction, the street tree issues are also being explored through the tarp. And I [2:36:32 PM] explored through the tarp. And I think actually tomorrow there's going to be a meeting of a working group to look at those issues. So we have processes in place that are moving those issues forward, but other than the process I mentioned for Austin water to the early determination process at this time, our proposal does not set set out to tackle those. >> Okay, I appreciate that. And I, I know watershed protection is kind of coming to the table first to look at those drainage regulations and making sure that those, new rules, new standards are going to function well. But I also know there's a heightened interest in seeing buried utility lines. I know some of the folks that are building new construction from the ground up are choosing to bury utility lines, energy lines in particular, on their own, because they just know that they're more weather resistant and maybe more esthetically pleasing than some of the other, styles of development that we've seen over over the years. And so I realize there's a more complex overlapping conversation to this and look forward to being able [2:37:34 PM] and look forward to being able to move this section forward and tackling those conversations in the future about how do we really make sure everything is working. And, and making sure everything's working in tandem with the conversations we've had through home phase one, home the information and look forward to ongoing conversations with with utilities. Thank you. >> Council member qadri did you have any questions? Thank you very much for the presentation. >> Thank you. >> Can I ask a question? Sorry >> Oh. Council member alter apologies to not be there in person for this. >> I was just hoping picking up a little bit on what councilmember Ellis was just talking about. If you could talk through, let's say that this goes into effect, an application will still have certain reviews, whether that's Austin energy right away, just if you could talk through the various reviews, that would still apply. And where you might foresee any bottlenecks because, you know, [2:38:37 PM] bottlenecks because, you know, we want to make this a streamlined, easier process. And I think watershed is one of the big ones. But if we still have something hanging out there that makes this a protracted process that doesn't serve the ultimate purpose. So I was hoping you might just talk through a normal application and where someone might run into a bottleneck, >> Council member alter that's a great question, the review process, is driven by the applicable regulations. And so I think before we can speak in granular detail about how the review process is going to change, we need to have the regulations in place and then do the hard work of coordinating with our partner departments and looking at every step in our current process. And asking the question of, is this still required in light of council's direction? In light of the code amendments in light of the commitments we've made to change criteria manuals, and I think that's the complexity of that work and the inter-departmental [2:39:39 PM] work and the inter-departmental nature of it is part of why we're asking for 90 days, so council member alter, I cannot speak specifically to exactly how this will affect the review process, but, drainage is a substantial impact. And it's one of the provisions that is directly in the land development code. And as I mentioned, it has sometimes up to 35 to 45% of project costs are driven by drainage requirements, so we're committed to making that a more streamlined process. We're committed to providing avenues for applicants to determine their utility obligations on the on the water side, very early in the process. By virtue of making site plan lights, a small project, we have staff in place and a sort of organizational infrastructure that is set up to consider how we can make that occur in as expedited a way, as possible, but there still will be reviews required. Site plan [2:40:43 PM] be reviews required. Site plan like part one, which you all adopted last year, created a just a site plan exemption for up to four units. And I'm happy to report it took effort, but we now have up to four units on a lot going directly to residential review, no intermediate reviews required. So it's a really a single family home level of review, but this proposal is more complex. These are more impactful projects. They will have more impacts. And so there is still going to be a review process, but again, we're committed to making it as expedited as possible. And we're committed to using the tarp, which you all helped us create by resolution as a way to work with our stakeholders and with our partner departments to explore, other options for improving the process on the administrative side, specifically with respect to utilities and clearances and the street tree issues. >> Well, thank you very much. I think after this is implemented, it would be really helpful to [2:41:45 PM] it would be really helpful to kind of have a report back. And I know you all face the challenge of being one department who doesn't have control over the other departments. And so if we need to help, get any of that streamlining done with the other departments, I think it would be good to have that follow up. I appreciate your work on it. >> Thank you. >> Thanks again for the presentation. Okay. So we're moving into item number five at this time. And as we move into this item, it's regarding discussion and possible action to recommend that the council consider the planning commission's recommendations on cooperative housing for seniors, last month we heard from the planning commissioner, from planning commissioner Alice woods and Carol from boomers collective on policy recommendations for senior cooperative housing. Those recommendations have now been reviewed by our staff and our legal department, I'd like to thank the planning commission [2:42:46 PM] thank the planning commission and the boomers collaborative for and city staff for their work on this. I think it's moments like this that really help to demonstrate how the voices and ideas of our community can be woven directly into city policy. With that said, we have a formal draft resolution that would ask staff to explore the policy proposal and bring back any recommendations. Are there any further questions on the item? With that, I'll make a motion that we bring this resolution to the full council to consider so that city staff can explore this proposal and provide recommendations. Do I have a second? Seconded by council member Ellis, if the motion passes, I think it's going to be for us to just think about being really creative with our housing needs and fulfilling those so [2:43:48 PM] needs and fulfilling those so with that said, all in favor? Council member alter, I can't see you are you still with us? >> He's not. >> In which case it looks like the motion passes unanimously with I'm sorry, could I make a comment once we pass it? >> Sure. Great, >> It looks like the motion passes unanimously. Unanimously, with council member alter off of the dais, councilmember qadri. Great. >> Thank you. Chair, I really support the idea. I'm really, you know, and I support the co-ops, especially for seniors. And, you know, and having them near transit, my hope is that we can better learn about the tradeoffs of achieving the planning commission's recommendation. And get real options to grow the capacity of co-ops and senior co-ops, like, like, you know, via financing, resident capacity building and just part of a community benefit menu. So I'm really excited we were able to get this, over the, over the hill 3.0. So go from their mutual excitement, [2:44:49 PM] their mutual excitement, >> So moving forward, I think we're going to move into item number four, which is a hud pro housing grant application. We're going to hear a briefing from the city's application to the U.S. Department of housing and urban development for the pro housing grant funding, it's my hope that receiving these funds will allow us to expand our progress and generating more attainable housing. And so with that staff, if you wouldn't mind presenting. >> Absolutely. Thank you for having me. >> Thank you, Mandy Demayo, interim director of the housing department. >> I am here with Rachel Tepper, who is our planner, principal and has really been the guiding force behind this new applicant to hud for an exciting grant opportunity called pathways to removing obstacles or pro housing. So I'm going to turn it over to Rachel to walk you through the application. [2:45:51 PM] through the application. >> I'm just going to grab the clicker. >> All right. Good afternoon, I want to start off by just, going over the highlighting, the key activities we're seeking funding for, we're seeking funding to update the strategic housing blueprint and opportunity mapping index. These were last updated in 2017, and the tools need a refresh to incorporate new programs and policies, such as project connect displacement prevention efforts, new real estate tools, and recent council resolutions, our second activity is to partner with the planning department to develop new zoning tools, this initiative will help unlock missing middle housing as well as mixed use development. These these items are already on the planning department's list, and this will help expedite those, those amendments. And finally, we're seeking funding for affordable housing near planned light rail investments, specifically to fund affordable housing along north Lamar and [2:46:51 PM] housing along north Lamar and south congress corridors to give a little bit of background on the grant, it basically, it supports, removing barriers to affordable housing production. So in 2024, hud awarded 21 applicants or 21 recipients in the inaugural round. The second round actually offers more than the first 100 million, but they are limiting the ask to $7 million. So $7 million per award for a six year performance period, and the priority is given to applicants showing commitment and progress to overcoming housing barriers, especially in areas in high demand like Austin. So we've made significant progress, especially over the last year. So we're well positioned to receive this funding, and one of the things we need to do in this application is to make and make a case for the need. And Austin, like I mentioned, is a priority geography. And you can see why. [2:47:52 PM] geography. And you can see why. So this graph on the right shows that in Austin we face a challenge of incomes not rising as fast as our home values, and we also face challenges with the uneven distribution of affordable housing displacement and an aging rental housing stock. So in our application, we've identified three categories of barriers to affordable housing in Austin. We have sociopolitical barriers, regulatory barriers and economic barriers. And we want each one of our activities to address that. These buckets of barriers, so for the socio political, we need an action plan that will help us navigate those barriers and, and achieve our housing, our ambitious housing goals for the regulatory barriers we need to continue to advance the updates that we have been making towards our land development code. And finally, for our economic barriers, we need to [2:48:54 PM] economic barriers, we need to invest in affordable housing near planned light rail investment to ensure easy access to transit jobs and services, so I'm going to go through each one of these in a little bit more detail to provide an overview of the key deliverables that we're hoping to produce with this grant, as well as the timelines, so for the first one, the strategic housing blueprint, we are hoping to have to provide or to produce a new opportunity index map as well as an updated action plan for the strategic housing blueprint. We've done a pretty good job reporting on the number of units that we've created through our housing blueprint scorecard, but we actually haven't gone back and updated our action plan. And we've we've actually, achieved over half of our actions, but we know we still have, we must need to create new actions in order to achieve our goals. So that's what that will be focused on, it [2:49:55 PM] what that will be focused on, it will be this this money will go towards consultant fees and a new staff member dedicated to gis mapping and tracking progress. And the timeline for completing this extends to q4 2027. Our second activity, creating new Zones to unlock missing middle housing, which we know is limited by our current zoning framework. So the goal is to create clear and financially feasible zoning solutions that open up more development across Austin. This grant will. The grant for this activity will fund consultant services to draft these new ordinances, and we expect the grant funded program of this work to be completed by Q2 2026. And finally, our last activity, the development of affordable housing near planned light rail. Specifically, we aim to close a 5% financing gap for the Ryan drive redevelopment and support, land acquisition and property [2:50:56 PM] land acquisition and property development along the south congress corridor. This grant will cover the financing gap fund, a new position specifically focused on land acquisition and pay for consultant services to manage the property solicitation, and we anticipate the Ryan drive project will be completed in q3 2027, and the south congress transit corridor project be complete by q1 2029. As for our grant timeline, it's been a pretty short, process, but we launched our public comment and, our public input site on September 19th, and we will be accepting public comment through October 10th, and we plan to go to the community development commission for a briefing and public hearing next week. On October 8th, as well as the project connect community advisory committee on October 10th. And then the application is due October 15th. So to review the application, you can [2:51:56 PM] review the application, you can visit our speak up Austin website. Speak up Austin org slash pro housing grant 2024. And that concludes my presentation. But Mandy and I will be happy to answer any questions. >> Thank you for the presentation. Any questions? >> I have one and I'm sorry if you went into more detail and I just didn't catch it. New zoning tools to unlock missing middle and urban mixed use development. What does that look like? What will the public involvement process be? I see Stevie great. >> Fortunately, we have Stevie Greathouse here from the planning department, so I'm going to turn it over to her. We've been working closely with the planning department on this activity. >> Yeah. What ideas do you have coming down the pipeline that council hasn't already kind of unveiled? Yeah, sure, Stevie. >> Great house planning department. So on the land development code amendments Gantt chart, you will see kind of a two part item. One is sort of studying the ability to put new missing middle and mixed use [2:52:56 PM] new missing middle and mixed use Zones in our code. And then the second item is actually developing the specific code language and doing detailed engagement to really put those on the books. This grant would help to provide support for consultant services to actually get us over that finish line piece of it. So we are still moving forward, as shown on the Gantt chart, to develop a study that we hope to be able to present to council next year, that would then lead into actually initiating code amendments. This grant, if we were successful, would help pay for the consultant augmentation to actually develop the code language and articulate it with community and get feedback on it, prior to bringing it back for council adoption in 20 2626. >> Okay. Very intrigued by that. And part of it is the conversation, you know, we just talked about site plan light with, you know, missing middle that 5 to 16 units, I've also just generally been curious about where in town are we missing the missing middle. You [2:53:57 PM] missing the missing middle. You know, there's I think about what's west of mopac in particular or parts of central Austin that are further from the core. And it seems like there's a whole bunch of duplexes or quadplexes that date back to the 70s and early 80s, and a lot of those are hitting that very old mark of people saying, do I redevelop this or do I continue to put money into maintaining an old unit that is leaking air? Our energy bills are going up. They don't have tight roofs. The windows aren't as insulated as they should be, so I think about a lot of those properties. And how do we kind of create that complete community in places where it doesn't exist? So I'm hoping that's something that's on your radar is where do people not have access to missing middle? Where where can we allow more people to have flexibility there? Yeah. >> And I think this project would really be looking both at creating new zoning tools to support missing middle kind of beyond what we were able to get to with homes phase one and two [2:54:58 PM] to with homes phase one and two or home phase one, but also looking at creating new Zones that would actually support, transit focused mixed use development, which as you all know, our zoning code is not a great friend. It has lots of things that we've done over the years to kind of make it happen, but we don't actually have base Zones in our current code that I think allow the kind of transit supportive, higher intensity, mixed use along corridors that we'd like to see also. So it's kind of a it's a two part. It's looking at both of those and really looking at the, the gaps in the current suite of base Zones to support the kind of development we'd like to see in the city moving forward. >> I appreciate that, and I appreciate the call out to the strategic housing blueprint update and understanding where the opportunity Zones are. I truly think that, you know, dating back to 1984, 40 years ago, is kind of when we saw this divide of everything had to be giant master planned neighborhoods with only single [2:55:59 PM] neighborhoods with only single family zoning versus apartment complexes. And so you're still seeing that huge divide coming in a lot of our zoning cases. And we're trying to bridge that gap. But I think with the, with the strategic housing blueprint update would be fantastic to kind of see how the maps have changed since the last time we did it. It was before Natasha and I came on to the dais that we've had that. So we've been working with, you know, a, a, an approved blueprint that hasn't been updated in our entire six years of doing this work. But I also think about all the federal grants that we're chasing and trying to make sure that our land use is making sure that we can bring down federal dollars. You know, the oak hill parkway, the metro rapid that is set to go into oak hill still doesn't have the appropriate land use to be able to even submit the application, and we would love to make sure that we're getting all three of those metro rapids out of project connect, because we know the other two have the supportive land use density and cap. Metro is already rolling out getting those busses and getting those routes circulating. But we're just not [2:56:59 PM] circulating. But we're just not seeing that west of mopac right now. And there are people west of mopac that that want to have transit supportive density. They want walkable communities, they want corner stores and mixed use development. And so I'm appreciative of this foresight and this work that's going in right now. >> Looks like council member qadri has joined us virtually. Council member do you have any questions? >> I do not okay. >> Well, thank you for your presentation. >> Thank you. Thanks. >> I think we're also up next, if I'm not mistaken. >> Oh, so this is item number six where we're going to discuss student housing opportunities that is correct okay. >> It's the same cast of characters. Mandy Demayo, interim director of the housing department. And Rachel Tepper, planner, principal, who was our lead on the student housing item from council that came forth. And we want to go through [2:58:03 PM] And we want to go through progress to date and kind of next steps. So we look forward to presenting. >> Please proceed. Thank you. >> All right, okay. So we are here to provide an update. As Mandy said on council resolution 2023, 23043, basically the resolution that asked us, to address the need and availability of affordable housing for post-secondary students. Next, I can do that all right. So just a little bit of background, so from July 2023 to June 2024, my team in the housing department collaborated with all of the higher education institutions and their students, we have a website, which is atx student housing study, public input slash atx student housing [2:59:03 PM] input slash atx student housing study, where we looked at, we had a survey that reached over around 1000 students. We, had data analysis and case studies, and we ultimately, on June 14th released a staff memo that summarized, summarized our engagement linked to our data analysis and our case study research and our ten recommendations that that we laid out, and I believe this briefing was to try to get an update on where we are with each one of those recommendations. And so I'll just go through each one and provide that update. So the first recommendation that we made was to establish a consortium between the city of Austin, the higher education institutions, which we found to be very valuable. We formed relationships with the colleges, as and so we think that this it [3:00:04 PM] as and so we think that this it was a very fruitful, initiative to bring to bring us together, but at the same time, kind of our, our update is that this would require additional resources to continue this on a kind of annual basis, so we wanted to just make, that formally known that it was a very valuable opportunity to, to bring together the, all five institutions, but it might take additional resources to, to really form a student housing consortium. And we'd like to include the student college commission. The college student commission, which actually hasn't met yet for the 24, 25 school year, our our next recommendation was to maintain a student housing dashboard with annual updates. And so this, dashboard is complete, although [3:01:04 PM] dashboard is complete, although we do plan to update it with 2024 enrollment figures, but we did develop a power bi dashboard that is interactive, where you can select each school and see the enrollment breakdown, and to see if they're on financial aid or if they live on campus or off campus, and we think that's a valuable resource to have. And the schools found it valuable as well. So we can continue to update that, this, you know, in the next in the coming months. Our third recommendation was to update the affordable housing online search tool. So right now there are a few gaps in the affordable housing online search tool. If you're a student. For one, there's not a student filter, and as well as many of the uno units aren't, showing up on the, the site right now. So, the update for this is that [3:02:08 PM] the update for this is that staff is has recognized a lot of updates that need to be made to the to the affordable housing online search tool and is currently working with housing works to improve the reporting process with property managers. Because the tool is only as good as the data and making sure that it's updated. And so we're looking at a process improvement, to improve the functionality overall. And after that, adding new information to the a host will occur, so this one is in process. For is we made the recommendation to accelerate and ease the permitting process for university housing, and so university housing typically has a lot of students, provides a lot of housing for students on financial aid. However, it doesn't quite today. It doesn't necessarily meet the definition [3:03:09 PM] necessarily meet the definition of affordable housing, so additional directives could be provided from council to consider revising the smart housing ordinance to create a process for university residence halls to qualify for the program. If certain criteria are met, this recommendation kind of came about, with from concordia university, who recently built a dormitory and had some challenges in the permitting process and building that dormitory, even though there certainly are many students in that dormitory on financial aid, our fifth recommendation was affirmatively market city owned housing redevelopment near campus facilities to low income students if they're determined to be a priority population. And so, the Austin housing finance corporation has a process for identifying and developing a solicitation of city owned land. And part of that process is [3:04:11 PM] And part of that process is identifying priority populations. So if through that, through through that public engagement process, students were identified as priority populations, then hfc could require as part of the solicitation that the developer affirmatively market towards income qualifying students. We don't have any updates at that time, but we're committed to this as a process, six is to continue to explore ways to utilize the density bonus programs to facilitate the construction of off campus student housing, where, where appropriate. So our study did not identify other areas necessitating direct application of a land use tool like the university neighborhood overlay. But as part of this work, we did conduct an analysis of the university neighbor neighborhood overlay to understand the kind of successes and challenges of the program, and then in April 2024, council passed the resolution to revise uno and, [3:05:12 PM] resolution to revise uno and, and in some of that was to address some of the challenges and opportunities that we noted in our evaluation and case study research. So the status for the uno, updates are that the planning department is spearheading that. And, they're currently working through the code amendment process, and they anticipate adoption in early summer 2025. Our seventh recommendation is probably our sort of most, I don't know, out of the box idea. And that's the creation of an intergenerational home share pilot program. This came from looking at, case study, research in Boston, where they have, a pilot program that they've actually extended funding on, and the goal of this program is to pair, students with elderly homeowners to who [3:06:17 PM] with elderly homeowners to who may have extra rooms in their homes, and in the in the Boston example, there were also apps created in the Boston area, to facilitate that. Connection or match between students and homeowners. And so this would be something that if, if council were to explore this or wanting to or if council was interested in allocating funding, we would recommend partnering with the innovation office as this is kind of an innovation idea, and it's also sort of a technology idea, these matches, can happen on apps like nest early, which is a, an app that does this in other communities, eight is to develop educational outreach materials about affordable housing and how to navigate the housing market as new renters, so this idea would be to develop, materials that help new [3:07:18 PM] develop, materials that help new renters understand leases, as well as, you know, subleases scams that could potentially be out there, that students might be subject to, we currently have contracts with Austin tenants council, but we would need additional funding to develop a kind of materials outreach materials like this, but we do think it is a good idea. And then nine, we also recommended, similar kind of education and outreach around code education and accountability. And the code division of development services has really taken with this. And they are already they have a campaign right now called how to choose safe housing, and I definitely encourage you all to check it out. It explains how to use their, the tools that they have to, to look at code violations and to report code violations, so they are already [3:08:20 PM] violations, so they are already off and running with this, recommendation. And finally, our last recommendation was to make sure to engage students in the imagine Austin comprehensive plan update. When that happens, Austin is made up 10% of Austin's population are post-secondary students, so they are a big share of our population. And just to make sure that they, don't get left out of a large planning initiative for the city. And our understanding is the imagine Austin planning team is currently finalizing the stakeholder engagement plan for that, so in summary, we have one complete, action. We have several kind of underway, and we have four actions that would require additional consideration of council, so that's the presentation and I'd be happy to [3:09:21 PM] presentation and I'd be happy to answer any questions. >> That was a really fantastic presentation and very inspirational. Any questions? >> I don't have questions. I just love the idea of the multigenerational aspect of this. Not only that, folks who own their home and maybe have a bedroom or two that they're not utilizing, being able to collect rent and having college students, you know, closer to where they need to be for school or for work, but I also think about when we look at affordable housing, how to make sure that our affordable housing units may have a good mix as well. So you're getting that same cross generational influence. I think that's really good for our community. And it helps people live longer, healthier lives and helps out college students too. So it's a new program for me. I'm not that up to speed on kind of how to engage the folks that are in college now, but, but really love the intent here and love the work that's, that's being put in place. >> Thank you very much for the presentation. This is the part [3:10:21 PM] presentation. This is the part of the meeting where we discuss potential items for future meetings. Council member qadri. Council member Ellis, >> Yeah. >> I don't have anything on my docket, but I really do. I was going to say for the previous presentation, I really do appreciate the presentation and the work that councilman Ryan alter and his office had done on the item, and I'm really looking forward to the next steps. >> Thank you very much. Any items? >> Not off the top of my head, but we know where to find you. If we come up with anything. >> Well, so with that, thank you all for joining us today at 3:10 on Tuesday, October the 1st. We are going to adjourn this meeting. Thanks, everybody.