Housing and Planning Committee (HPC) Special Called Meeting Transcript – 2/6/2025 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 2/6/2025 6:00:00AM Original Air Date: 2/6/2025 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] >> Awesome. Good afternoon folks. I'm going to call us to order. We are meeting here at city hall in chambers in Austin, Texas on February 6th, 2025. It is currently 2:01 P.M, and I would like to call to order the meeting of the housing and planning committee. And it looks like we definitely have a quorum. I want to take a moment to welcome some new faces to the committee. One is new entirely. Councilmember Siegel, thank you for joining us. And one was not officially on our team, but always was there. And so I'm glad to have you. Council member vela join the team and take your role as vice chair. >> It's a pleasure to be back. Awesome. >> All right, folks, so my office is looking forward to the coming year. Being super productive and helpful with navigation of policy creation and maybe most importantly, helping us to most efficiently run council meetings. Having [2:02:47 PM] run council meetings. Having game day runs smoothly and efficiently for everybody's purposes is ideal. So for this meeting, we are going to take our items up in order. We're going to approve the minutes. And so we will begin with the approval of the minutes from the housing and planning committee meeting on December 3rd, 2024. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? Moved by council member vela and seconded by vice chair vela and seconded by council member Ellis. All in favor? Looks like we're unanimous with council member Siegel. Vice chair vela, council member Ellis and myself on the dais. And with that, the minutes are approved. So next up is item number two. We have discussion and possible action. Oh, Steph, I just want to make certain before I go too far along. If I understand correctly, we don't have any speakers on any of our items today. Okay. So item number two discussion and possible action on the status of the amendments to the land development code. [2:03:48 PM] to the land development code. Hi, Stevie. Good to see you. For our new colleagues. This one is one of our standing items. We take this up every time that we congregate. As a committee where we review our prioritization and timeline of ldc amendments and discuss any proposed changes. And so with that, we're going to hear from staff regarding recommended timeline for 2025. >> Yeah. Good afternoon chair. >> This is exciting. >> Members of the housing and planning committee. And we made it through 2024. So that's first announcement but 2025. I'm Steve Greathouse and I serve as a division manager in the city of Austin planning department. And the backup for this item you will find a memo that includes the January version January 2025 version of the land development code. Amendments timeline Gantt chart, which for new members on the dais, is really the document that we try to use to daylight, both for this committee as well as the public, and kind of to keep it straight in our own minds. All of the different land development code amendments that are moving forward under the leadership of multiple [2:04:49 PM] leadership of multiple departments across the city, and it's been a fantastic method of prioritization and transparency for that work over the last year or so that we've had it as a tool since we last briefed the housing and planning committee in December, several items have moved forward, and staff has made a few refinements to the timeline that is included in backup. On December 12th, city council took action to adopt code amendments related to safety bollards, amendments related to site plan light phase two that are being led by the development services department, are currently scheduled to be considered by council at the February 13th meeting of council, amendments related to Colorado river protections being led by the watershed protection department are currently scheduled to be considered by the planning commission on February 25th, and to come before city council for consideration on March the 6th. Council is also scheduled to consider changes to the regulations that apply to short term rentals this month. These amendments, being led by the [2:05:49 PM] amendments, being led by the development services department, were presented at a joint meeting of the planning commission and city council earlier this week, and are scheduled to come before the planning commission on February 11th and city council on February 27th. Concurrently with consideration of equitable Todd station area plans for the north Lamar and south congress transit center station areas by planning commission, the planning department will also be bringing forward a procedural amendment to establish an amendment process for these new types of plan. We currently anticipate this amendment, this code amendment, along with the plans themselves and related amendments to neighborhood plans, would come forward to the planning commission on March 25th and city council on April 24th. The development services department also anticipates bringing forward amendments to article nine landscaping to planning commission, potentially on March 25th, and city council on April 24th, and finally in April. Council and planning commission are expected to hold a joint meeting on a proposed update of the preservation bonus [2:06:52 PM] update of the preservation bonus provisions of home, which would come back to council for a hearing and possible action on April the 24th. We are in the process of finalizing a proposed update to the university neighborhood overlay and will be conducting. Oops. I got ahead of myself and will be conducting engagement activities before bringing that update forward to planning commission for consideration on April 22nd and council on may 8th. Housing department staff also anticipate bringing smart housing updates forward to planning commission on April 22nd and council on may 22nd, looking ahead to the remainder of 2025, we anticipate another busy year of code reform activities. We expect to bring phase two of the equitable tod overlay forward for review and consideration at the June 5th city council meeting. That work will be out for public review and feedback well ahead of that June 5th meeting date. Also, wanted to just clarify for folks [2:07:52 PM] wanted to just clarify for folks on the dais, that will be a new phase of equitable tod overlay regulations that could be applied along the rapid bus and metro rail stations. So phase one focused on the phase one light rail alignment. Phase two is really primarily focused on applying regulations along those other rail and bus lines outside of the phase one light rail line, but part of project connect. We also don't anticipate that we would be recommending a rezoning as part of that decision that's coming back in June. That would be to put the tools on the books so that they could be applied through future rezonings development services department also expects to bring forward amendments to tree preservation and planting requirements in July. And finally, I wanted to acknowledge that we expect to be working on a number of exciting updates to our existing density bonus programs and regulating plans this year, including onboarding consultants to engage [2:08:54 PM] onboarding consultants to engage community related to an update of the east Riverside corridor regulating plan, launching and update of the downtown density bonus program in concert with a potential update of the downtown Austin plan and making additional amendments that may be initiated based on the results of the comprehensive density bonus analysis that you will hear about under another agenda item, the Gantt chart also currently indicates an amendment potential amendment being developed to the crestview tod plan or north Lamar Jackson regulating plan. If you will remember, council did initiate an amendment to the heights within that plan in order to make it more consistent with what we had put in place for the tod overlay. We are still having conversations about how to best move forward with that particular amendment, because we also have on the to do list an overall update to that plan. And that also kind of relates to the conversation about how we handle all of our density bonus programs in concert with one [2:09:56 PM] programs in concert with one another. So still, that timeline is still very much a work in progress based on the outcomes of those discussions and kind of the approach that we end up deciding to go with our density bonuses in general and with crestview in specific, this is the detailed schedule that is attached to the memo included in backup. The schedule reflects an ambitious work program, and as processes move forward, staff will continue to make adjustments while working to identify specific review and adoption dates for the proposed timelines shown on the chart and for more information, as well as a copy of the most up to date Gantt chart you can visit speakup. Austin forward slash ldc updates. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions on land development code amendments. >> Thank you very much. I appreciate the presentation. Colleagues. Questions. Council member Siegel. >> Thank you, madam chair. Next time I'll sit closer out here in the hinterlands. Well, thank you so much, miss Greathouse. I really appreciate the presentation. As you might imagine, as someone who's been on council for about four weeks, [2:10:56 PM] on council for about four weeks, I'm still catching up to all the details here. And one of the things that I noticed is how many of these different efforts relate to crestview, where which is in district seven happens to be my neighborhood. And I guess one of the questions I have is kind of big picture. It seems like a lot of these plans are built on the idea that project connect is going to eventually expand up to crestview and hopefully beyond. That's a desire and dream I share with councilman vela that we'll get there. But in terms of scheduling these processes, which involve community engagement and a lot of staff work, how do we factor in the legal and legislative risk to project connect? How do we factor in the fact that we're not sure if the feds are going to uphold their promises of matching funds? I guess already crestview Todd update is a to be determined item, but like, is there a possibility that it would fall off if project connect is not moving forward? Like how do we adjust our timeline based on these [2:11:56 PM] timeline based on these different risks out there? >> Sure. I think we always in the land use arena are responding to changing realities and investments. You know, this year is an exciting year I'm not going to speak to, and I can't I don't have the expertise to speak to, sort of like expectations around the light rail, other than to say that we are actively in the Eis process for Austin transit partnership is actively in that process. Now, I think all of our land use regulations always need to try to adjust to changing conditions. I will say, though, that the notion of the kind of equitable tod overlay phase one work that we put on the ground, literally in rezonings last year was around making sure to capitalize on that light rail investment show that we were serious about building transit in tandem with land use. But also it's about capitalizing on an existing corridor that is one of our highest ridership capmetro rapid bus routes. And so in the kind of in the [2:12:56 PM] so in the kind of in the planning realm, when Erica gets into the presentation on the Gantt chart related to our long range planning, you will see us coming back to council with station area planning for the south congress and north Lamar transit center plans. Those are obviously not on phase one light rail, but they are around very large capital metro investments, transit centers that currently serve a multimodal function in the metro transit system. So part of it is just looking at making sure that our zoning is right for what's even on the ground today in terms of public transit. And I know there was a desire when we did the equitable tod phase one, to look at the priority light rail and its priority extensions, which included crestview. We did not make any modifications in crestview area because it was covered by an existing regulating plan. That existing regulating plan is now out of sync with the provisions in the tod overlay, as well as even the density bonus 90 density bonus that's been put on the books for [2:13:58 PM] that's been put on the books for other areas. But certainly when we get into the actual process of working with community to update those regulations, we would be having a conversation about kind of where we're at in terms of expectations around transit timing. >> Thank you. And just like one follow up, I mean, I guess it sounds like what you're saying is a lot of this is premised not necessarily on light rail, but existing, you know, rapid bus and things of that nature. But to the extent that it's premised on light rail. And we found that light rail was going to be delayed, would that then delay the community outreach? You know, some of the engagement around these code changes? >> I don't even want to speculate that I think this conversation is really where we sort of present the timeline that we're moving forward with as a staff every month. There's a lot that goes in to figuring out if there is a need to delay something or escalate something or move. Expedite is the word that I'm looking for. And certainly because the Gantt chart is a living, breathing document that will continue to make changes, we absolutely timelines will change and [2:14:58 PM] timelines will change and priorities for work can absolutely shift and does shift. >> Thank you. Fair enough. Appreciate it. >> Thank you I appreciate it. And you know, that leads me to consider maybe formulating that into a comprehensive ask and something we can put on for our future items for consideration. Because and I appreciate your point about it being a living, breathing, flexible document that's not static. So we can make changes as necessary along the way. So I'll just keep that in mind when we take up items for future consideration later. Maybe we'll figure out a way to formulate that into an agenda item. >> Thank you chair. >> Sure. >> Vice chair. And following up on the and the to a quick response to council member Siegel's comment. We were already and I think the impetus for bringing the item to do the tod update was that we were getting requests for changes to, you know, for modifications to it. So it was like, well, let's just get ahead of this and [2:15:59 PM] just get ahead of this and update the whole plan instead of doing it, you know, because we've already gotten a request for, I think, 120ft, 150ft of height and so on and so forth to state again, that's existing demand. Like even not, you know, assuming light rail. The one other thing that that it comes to mind and I see that the tod and east Riverside are on similar timelines, not, you know, not perfectly lined up, but is there any kind of commonalities, you know, can we kind of merge them together to a certain extent instead of having kind of a unique east Riverside tod and a unique crestview tod? But, you know, again, just kind of having these are the core elements of a tod wherever it happened to be. What what does that look like moving forward, you know, in terms of harmonizing different elements of our, our tod. And I think that goes along with some of the goals of simplifying our density bonus programs to make them more kind of consistent with each [2:17:00 PM] kind of consistent with each other. >> Yeah. And I would say I don't think we have the how we have we're working in all of these areas to figure out sort of what the goals are and what the outcomes that we want to see are we don't necessarily have 100% identification of the how. So for east Riverside, for example, we know that we will be hopefully entering into a contract with consultants very soon to start beginning to do kind of engagement on what we should change about the vision of that plan. That conversation could lead to identification of a regulatory proposal in that area. That's different. We you know, it may be amending the existing east Riverside corridor plan, or it may be some other way of getting there with the regulations. And to the kind of crestview tod perspective. Same thing when we get to the place of actually updating those tod plans, we the how may end up being different than updating. You know, it may be more of a repeal and replace of regulations rather than an update of exactly the document that is in place for those [2:18:00 PM] that is in place for those regulations today. I do think we want to have that those decisions about how really informed by the conversations that we're going to be having related to our overall system of density, bonus programs and how they work together. Because fundamentally, all of those regulating plans have a pretty significant density bonus component to them. And so still a lot of work to be done to kind of look across and see what's going to be the best way to do it. But I know for east Riverside, we are planning on onboarding consultants and beginning to kind of engage because we know that that plan, we kind of paused looking at it in order to do tod phase two, and the time is definitely right to come back with working in partnership with community to figure out what we're doing in the east Riverside corridor. >> Thank you. >> Councilmember Alyssa. >> Thank you. Chair. Could you go into a little more detail about the uno, the university [2:19:01 PM] about the uno, the university neighborhood overlay? I know there's been some conversations about it, you know, a couple years back, what is currently the work that's being done in that area? >> Sure. And I may turn to the case manager for uno is sitting behind me, so I might actually let him come up and answer the question more specifically. >> Welcome. >> Hi. Alan pani, principal planner Paul books is the case manager, but I can answer. We've been doing community engagement starting last fall, talking to stakeholders about the resolution, the goals for the area and the update. We are currently finishing up the draft of our proposal and it's going through internal review, and then we will be taking that back out to stakeholders conducting kind of small groups and interviews, and then eventually do a open house as well. In the spring around March timeline. And then we will take all of that and finish out our proposal and bring it back through code and ordinances, planning commission and council on the [2:20:02 PM] commission and council on the timeline that Steve indicated. >> So is it still pretty open ended about what recommendations might be made, or are we talking specifically around height or other sorts of community benefits that people would like to see? >> Yeah, so we've taken kind of the initial stakeholder feedback we received from the different groups and members of the community incorporated those, along with the requests from the resolution into our proposal that is being currently reviewed internally. And we will be taking those back out to the public to get, again, another session of feedback on how what we're proposing, what those community benefits are, what those heights are and all that that was requested. >> Okay, that's great to see. I know a couple years back there had been a review of the university neighborhood known as west campus area. The planning commission had made a bolder recommendation. We tried to get that motion going with the city council, but we ended up not going as far as the planning commission had recommended a couple of years ago. So lo and [2:21:02 PM] couple of years ago. So lo and behold, it's back. There's still more work to do. There's a lot of students that need housing in the area. They want to be walkable and bikeable to UT, and I certainly want to support that. So I look forward to seeing what information comes back and how staff is able to address some of those needs. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Thanks. >> Thanks. >> Thank you very much. Any other questions? The one question I had, I guess, was sort of along the lines of the uno update. Well, you know, actually I'll save that one. I think I need to talk that one through with John so I can figure out exactly how to articulate it. Then the other two comments, maybe more than questions. And this is something that I've asked the city manager about it. I'm pretty consistently perplexed when we pay outside consultants to get community feedback and conduct our community engagement and outreach. It feels like the kind of thing that we have resources already embedded in the community, already trusted [2:22:03 PM] community, already trusted members of the community where there could be some sort of opportunity for us to tap into that for community engagement and outreach and or like in my office, for example, I think most of our offices, we have a community outreach person who's already sort of keeping the pulse of the community. And so just moving forward, something I wanted to flag is that I just want to I want to start to raise some questions about how we conduct our outreach and engagement. You look like. >> Sure. >> And I'm dying to hear it. >> Yeah, I would just say that it's all of the above for all of the projects that we're overseeing for planning, we typically will not typically not all of them. Actually, several of our projects we're doing entirely with in-house resources. But at points when we engage a consultant team to provide support to the technical analysis and the design and visualization, and they also provide engagement support. So that team, the teams that we are typically bringing on board to augment planning projects, are providing a range of different [2:23:03 PM] providing a range of different expertise, including the engagement. And we also are moving towards doing as kind of a standard as part of a large planning process, doing more ambassador programs, paid focus groups, etc, so that we're making sure that some of the engagement budget is really being spent on the expertise within the community. >> I really. >> Appreciate that part of what the consultant augmentation is actually helping us manage that process, which is a lot of work in and of itself. >> Because you need a coordinator for the volunteers even. >> Yes, you do. >> I know, trust me, I'm learning. And so then the other question along those lines was the article nine conversation around landscaping. I'm just curious to know, generally speaking, do you know what that content is in reference to? Contextually? I don't have it. The picture in my mind. >> Yeah, and I don't. I'd have to reach out to our partners that are actually leading that effort to get you the specifics around what article nine landscaping relates to. I [2:24:04 PM] landscaping relates to. I believe it is taking forward some of the conversations that we'd had in the past around functional green, but I would need to loop back around and get the full details on what's currently on the table for a proposal. >> I appreciate that you picked up the direction that I was headed, because that's exactly what I the direction I was leaning. Well, I think if there are no other questions. That's all right. Thank you. All right. Thank you for your time. We appreciate you. Next up we have item two. Item number three. Item number three is a high is our second standing item. This one regards discussion and possible action on the timeline for long range planning. For this particular meeting, we will also include updates on imagine Austin. So our long range planning obviously is a key part of our efforts to thoughtfully and sustainably guide Austin's growth. For example, in my district, I'm particularly interested in progress on northeast planning district and the comprehensive plan around the greater 78702 initiative. So I'll let planning staff start [2:25:07 PM] I'll let planning staff start with their presentation. >> Good afternoon and thank you for introducing this item. That was lovely. >> I am Erica leek. I'm development officer for the planning department. We provided a little bit more detailed update at the last housing and planning committee about where we are with our various longer range planning initiatives. Stevie covered the specific land development code amendments. So these are really looking at, you know, what are what are the longer range, more planning types of initiatives that are happening in the city. So I won't go through each one of them, but there are a few for which the dates have changed a little bit due to staff capacity and things like that. So we've had adjustments in a few things. One of them is the east [2:26:08 PM] One of them is the east Riverside corridor vision plan update to match the timing of the land development code updates for that area, and then the northeast district plan schedule is also updated to be more realistic with how long we think that process will take. Our next steps with all of this is actually to come back to the housing and planning committee at their next meeting. At your next meeting in April, to provide cost estimates for the four items that have the yellow bar, which basically identify that they are in the scoping and cost estimating stage. So we'll come back in April to let you all know what the cost estimates are for those projects. And then to be able to move forward with next steps. We do hope to have memos out with those scopes of work by the end of February, so [2:27:10 PM] work by the end of February, so that you all can have a better understanding of what what that work will entail. As we imagine it. And now I am going to turn it over to Evelyn Mitchell, who leads our comprehensive planning group to provide an update on one of the exciting long range planning initiatives. The comprehensive plan update. >> Good afternoon. Hello, chair and vice chair and committee members. My name is Evelyn Mitchell, principal planner of the comprehensive planning team. Today, I'm going to provide an update on the imagined Austin update process covering our work over the past several months with an update to imagine Austin is important and necessary, and proposed changes, including some updates that we've made and feedback gathered from council. One on ones and subcommittee [2:28:10 PM] One on ones and subcommittee meetings. So over the past several months, we've met with the imagined Austin sub quorum to discuss priorities for the update. We also held individual meetings with each city council office, including new council members, to understand their goals and their priorities. Looking ahead, our next steps include presenting to you all today, bringing a resolution to city council in March to initiate the imagined Austin update if approved, and then, based on our discussions with council offices, we've set a target completion date of spring 2027. So imagine Austin was updated in 2012 and has not been updated or was adopted in 2012, but has not been updated in the past 13 years. So over that time, Austin has experienced significant growth, demographic shifts and major events like the Texas freeze and other climate disasters and the pandemic. So factors that have influenced city council priorities and [2:29:10 PM] city council priorities and goals and have impacted the city as a whole. Most comprehensive, most comprehensive plans are updated roughly every 7 to 10 years. So it's time to update imagine Austin to reflect the city's transformation and address emerging challenges. As a city, we've committed to creating compact, connected, and complete communities. Given the changes over the past decade and the many new plans that have been amended and attached to the comprehensive plan, an update is essential to ensure alignment and reinforce that commitment. With project connect underway, the update must reflect its impact on transportation, housing and economic development to list a few. So this update will also include and consider the following population changes. Progress made in housing supply and affordability since 2012, as well as identifying the remaining gaps that must be addressed to achieve our housing goals, resilience and safety [2:30:12 PM] resilience and safety considerations. Ensuring we're planning for growth of the entire city. Having meaningful and intentional community engagement to incorporate community members input across the city, and then also inclusion of council city council priorities. The proposed themes and considerations listed here are also what we've heard from council members, and that we're incorporating in our scope of work. So integration of plans to make sure that they're speaking to each other and that they are aligned, financial alignment and financial feasibility of policies. So making sure, for example, that the comprehensive plan is in alignment and coordination with the strategic plan and a robust and action oriented implementation framework that guides city action for the duration of the life of imagined Austin. One component to the comprehensive plan that is missing is a city wide map. We are proposing the creation of a citywide future places map. This [2:31:13 PM] citywide future places map. This type of map provides a more holistic guidance on a city's future growth, based on the identity of a place, and not just the specific land use typology. It's more inclusive of different typologies and better able to evolve with goal and zoning changes, and more supportive of changes that come to the Austin's that come with Austin's population growth. In this next slide is an example of what a future places map, specifically, what place type categories look like in a real world example. Here we have Denver. They've implemented their future places map several years ago. Their place types are centers, corridors, residential areas and districts. These place types allow for flexibility within each category. So for example, under residential you can see that the categories are low, low, medium, high, medium and high, which only does that allow for more flexibility, but acknowledges that these [2:32:14 PM] but acknowledges that these different residential areas are supported by different uses to provide complete community. And then this next slide kind of shows how Denver, the Denver's future places maps have implemented their place types spatially. And then just to kind of give a little plug in, we one of kind of our engagement and outreach kind of events, we're doing our speaker series. We have one this month on February 19th at the carver museum with the city demographer Leila Valencia and city manager Broadnax. And it will be moderated by professor Jake Wegmann with the community and regional planning program at the university of Texas. This will cover how the importance of city demographics and demography, and its relationship to planning, [2:33:16 PM] its relationship to planning, and kind of the vision for the city of Austin. I'm sorry. Yes, it's 330 to 5 P.M. >> Please. Council member Alyssa. >> Thank you. Chair, I have a question about the map of future places. I'm sure there's people who feel certain ways about seeing something that's color coded like this. Can you talk about the interrelationship between these community places versus zoning cases? Would we be rezoning properties, or would it just be something that each individual property owner would have to go through the same zoning process that most people follow all the time? >> Yeah. So the difference between a traditional Flum is it's use space. The future places map is place type or [2:34:16 PM] places map is place type or character based. And so the kind of biggest difference between the two is that the future places map allows for more flexibility with its different place types. So you would have to have kind of an update to the future places map, but it would be much less significant than if it was a use based, more like zoning parcel by parcel in that case. So I, I don't I don't answer the other part of your question. I'm not exactly sure, but the zoning changes wouldn't have to be reflected repeatedly with the future places map. >> So our work and the community conversations around, you know, regional uses and placemaking are not rezoning properties. Folks that want to do that would have to come through a proper rezoning to actually change the use. >> Yeah, I believe so. >> Okay. I want to make sure I understood that because I know sometimes people see color coded maps and they think that there's this, this intent to completely change your zoning. And people [2:35:17 PM] change your zoning. And people start asking us questions about property tax assessments and things like that. And it gets very detailed very quickly. And so I just want to make sure as we work through this, it's a great conversation to look at complete connected communities, corridors, walkability, you know, that placemaking center that we know in Austin has been very good at dictating over the past decade or so, but that looking at these and saying these might be ideal uses for this space N no way actually changes the rezoning until someone wants to. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. Okay. That's fantastic. And I'm very excited about this. I've got I don't think we've had the opportunity to meet quite yet, but I've got the oak hill corridor activity center. It's one of the environmentally sustainable ones that has been on imagined Austin since its adoption in 2012. A lot of these places have not gone through any new conversation around what are appropriate uses. It's got an ACC campus. It's on project connect, metro rapid that the voters approved. And unfortunately, a lot of those [2:36:18 PM] unfortunately, a lot of those properties are prime for redevelopment. But their floodplains have changed. So there's a lot of folks out there that aren't quite sure what the future looks like or what options are. And so I'm hoping through this conversation, we're able to engage with the property owners to better understand if they have a smaller footprint and they still want to be a part of this complete, connected placemaking area, how we would do that. So I just wanted to flag for you that I'm looking forward to those conversations and hoping to see how we can really make that area come in line with 2025 and beyond, and less 1980 parking lots, so I hope that we can get there, but really appreciate this information. I think it's a great way to start planning. Thank you and to continue the planning. Thanks. >> Any other questions? Vice chair? >> I just wanted to say that I appreciate the presentation on imagine Austin. And this is probably the I think the best presentation that that that I've gotten just in terms of the [2:37:19 PM] gotten just in terms of the thinking behind and the needs behind it and the kind of the reasons that we should update it. And I think the timeline is appropriate. So I just wanted to say that I appreciate the information. Thank you. >> Any other questions? I was yeah, I was like, Evelyn Mitchell, I haven't met you. I remember everybody. It's a pleasure to formally meet you. Welcome aboard. Thank you. So I had a couple of questions. One, so well I'll start with the last one, the event at the carver from 330 to 5. You know, we always talk about accessibility and I'm just curious who's the audience for a 330 to 5 P.M. Meeting on a Wednesday afternoon. >> Right. So it's both for community and staff. We've been working with the city manager's office to identify kind of the best time that he would be available. Yeah. And so this is kind of what we came up with. But it is open to everyone to [2:38:21 PM] But it is open to everyone to attend. >> Yeah. Well I mean I'm certain you recognize that that's a challenging tricky. The kids get out of school at 245. And so you know that that happens to also be my neighborhood, in addition to being a neighborhood that I represent on the council. And so all the kids from kealing and Blackshear and L.L. Campbell, they converge upon the carver museum and library right around that time of day. I don't know if you guys have been there at that time of day. And so just like I'm thinking, I always jump to logistics and I know how my kids behave after school and it is wild. It is very lord of the flies at that time of day. And so I was just curious, one who the audience is and two, logistically does it really work? So I just wanted to flag that as a point of consideration for me. And it wasn't a question so much. >> As I do want to note that it will be recorded at and I'll be there, and so it will be recorded, and we'll make sure to distribute the recording to everyone. >> Awesome. They should get some [2:39:21 PM] >> Awesome. They should get some b-roll of the teenagers in the in the library eating takes and practicing swear words. It's awesome. And so the future places origins map. So to your point about people's eyebrows raising at color coded maps and to your point about timeliness, I couldn't help but think about. I've been having some conversations recently with folks who really don't understand the not maybe even the logistics, but the function, the practical application of dollars and subsidies. Et cetera. When it comes to sort of a strategic planning for vertical mixed use. And so we were having conversations with laypeople around capital stacks and around retail considerations. You know, this retail operation influences that one. And if you have this type of business, then you want the this kind of business to complement that one and how it's all, you know, by design and not necessarily just an accident [2:40:23 PM] necessarily just an accident where people who need commercial real estate, brick and mortar end up there. There's some forethought as to what types of businesses would complete the community and complete this, you know, sort of retail amenity offering to the community. So I was kind of looking at the color coding, wondering if there were a way for us to like, take those colors and make them symbolic of the things that you need to make a retail stack work. Just the more that we're trying to, for lack of a better expression, really gamify land use and commercial real estate applications for the community to just better follow along in the conversation and make really substantive contributions. Having them really understand what the thought behind it is. You know, as this conversation about grocery stores and communities really evolves and we dig down into it more, them really getting to understand why H- E-B, they sell groceries, but they're in the business of real estate, you know what I'm [2:41:24 PM] estate, you know what I'm saying? And so getting folks to really recognize kind of the whys really helps to, I think, clarify their contributions to the discussions. And so just curious if that's the kind of thing, you know, like a if you have a purple, then you need a yellow to make the Orange work kind of a color coordinated map to really get folks to follow along better. >> Yeah. So we that the as you know, the Denver case study is just an example. Right. So we would work with you all to kind of see what type of place types and those different color combinations, what works best. And kind of tying this into our I would call it community engagement kind of principle, but we're really wanting to build on education awareness and just kind of building that foundation with all of the stakeholders, obviously, including community of understanding, used to be a teacher. So really understanding the why behind what we're doing. So building that foundation. So [2:42:25 PM] So building that foundation. So when we really get into the engagement of creating the future places map that people kind of get that and then kind of crafting and developing that future places map together. >> I really appreciate on the on the receiving end of people's frustration sometimes, you know, I entirely understand why they're frustrated and why they're hollering. It's just not. It's not helping. They're just hollering into the ethers. It's not helpful. I mean, it's not even germane to what it is that the discussion is about more often than not. But once you clarify, then they're like, oh, well, we actually agree on that thing. And I would like to see it like this instead of like that. I think the more we really simplify, you know, relatively obscure terminology and subject matter for community members to contribute, they really have a lot to offer and can be a part of the conversation much sooner, as opposed to feeling like they're an afterthought during the course of conversations around land use and zoning applications. >> Yeah, definitely. We really want our engagement to be [2:43:26 PM] want our engagement to be intentional and meaningful. >> So I think it's critical. Thank you. It's nice to meet you. >> Nice to meet you. >> Anything else? Colleagues? I think that'll be all. >> All right. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. We really appreciate you. >> Thanks. >> So we're going to move on into item number four now. And this is discussion and possible action on the comprehensive analysis of density bonus programs. I think this is going to be the thick one. This item is extraordinarily important to our efforts. It helps to really maximize attainable housing options across all levels, especially along transit and connectivity points, while still fostering opportunities for thoughtful, comprehensive growth. I also really look forward to working with fellow committee members and our colleagues on the necessary legislative action needed to support housing staff on this effort. So I believe we have some folks from housing staff that are going to present for us, and some guests from [2:44:26 PM] us, and some guests from economic planning and planning systems to present today. So if you guys want to introduce yourself and go ahead and start with your presentations. >> Hi, Alan Rainey with the planning department principal planner. And yes, we have Darren Smith from eps, and he will be doing the first portion of the presentation. And then I'll follow up after. >> Invite a guest into your home and then make them start. >> He does the hard part. >> Good. >> Good afternoon again I'm Darren Smith with the consulting firm of economic and planning systems. It's nice to be with you this afternoon. Our firm and clarion associates were hired a little over a year ago now to take a look at the overall density bonus ecosystem of the city of Austin. You have lots of different programs. And the intention of the rfp that we responded to was to look at them, see what how we can do some comparing and contrasting, look at what other communities are doing. Look at how they're performing frankly, where they are more used and where they are less used. Do some stakeholder [2:45:27 PM] less used. Do some stakeholder outreach to developers and land use attorneys. And again, both market rate housing developers, affordable housing developers, commercial builders in some cases, and come up with some recommendations for program refinement. The intention of the work initially was to look at ways to enhance utilization of these programs, because some are very well utilized and some less so, and to see what kind of tweaks we might be able to recommend that would help them to be better utilized and deliver the community benefits that are so desired and needed. The program inventory. You have 15 different affordable housing or density bonus programs, all of which have an affordable housing component as their primary feature. This is an unusual number of affordable of density bonus programs for a city of your size. Each of these different programs has unique goals and approaches. You can see that in the language, in the resolutions and ordinances as [2:46:29 PM] resolutions and ordinances as they were adopted, and some of them provide not only for affordable housing, but they have a menu of other community benefits that are also desired, and some apply citywide, but most of them are for specific geographies. The two that apply citywide are the smart housing program and affordability unlocked, but the others are consistent with the map that's on the screen here. And I'll speak to each of them in a moment here. But you can see that it's, you know, the different colors correspond to the different programs. Some of them are very focused, like the downtown and Rainey street programs. North burnet gateway, a very geographically specific. Others are spread out along corridors that are meant to have transportation improvements or already have transportation improvements. And you want to capitalize on the value of those improvements and the opportunities for development along them. This complicated matrix shows 11 of the 15 current programs, and what it is [2:47:31 PM] current programs, and what it is intended to do is show where there's consistency and where there are differences. I've highlighted in yellow the things that are different. The first set of columns are what are the income levels that are being incentivized here. So in most cases for ownership units you're looking at 80% of median family income. But in a couple cases you have something else in downtown density bonus rather than 80%. It's set at 120% for the uno area. It's at 50 or 60%. Similarly, on the rental side, most of the time it's at 50 to 60% of median income, but in downtown, it's at 80%, in Rainey street it's at 80%, and so on. Most of the programs require this affordability for 99 years for ownership or 40 years for rental. But the smart housing requires it only for one year for ownership and five years for rentals. Uno requires it only for 40 years, rather than 99 for [2:48:32 PM] for 40 years, rather than 99 for ownership and so on. And then the middle section there is really about the denominators of the calculation. What is the basis of the application. So for instance on affordability unlocked, that's the highest proportion of affordable units to qualify for affordability unlocked you must provide 50% or greater of your units as affordable units, again priced at 50 to 60% on rentals or 80% on ownership. That's the highest of all your programs. The east Riverside requires 25%, but it uses a different denominator rather than the total number of units. It's the total bonus square footage. So if you're allowed to build to this height or density today, then the 25% applies to the amount above that current base zoning allowance. And you can see that there's differences in number. But again also some are total units, some are total residential square feet which is different than units. Bonus square feet. Bonus residential square feet. Or in [2:49:35 PM] residential square feet. Or in the case of uno where you have a lot of student housing obviously. And rooms are oftentimes rented or rather units are oftentimes rented by the bedroom rather than by the unit. It's based on either 10 or 10 to 30% of the units, or 10 to 30% of the bedrooms. So a lot of complications here that makes it difficult for developers to compare apples to apples, because it's always a different denominator in these calculations. Similarly, on what you get, the incentive that you get, those vary by program as well. In some cases, it's a proportionate increase to your height. For instance, affordability unlocked unlocked allows up to 50% above the height allowed under your base zoning, but doesn't speak specifically to density or for floor area ratio. In other cases, it's not a proportion, it's a total or total height allowance. So db 90, for example, allows up to 30ft above [2:50:37 PM] example, allows up to 30ft above the base zoning rather than a proportion. And in other cases it's just a maximum overall. And similarly on the far, some of them are silent on the question of far, some of them base the allowance on the floor area ratio rather than height. And so again, sort of all over the place. And finally on the last column are fees in lieu of providing the units allowed. In some cases, yes. In some cases no, in some cases only for ownership units. So again, a lot of different approaches have been taken under these different density bonus programs. Some things to keep in mind as we think about the economics of density bonus programs, the heights that we're talking about generally, these are based on height or floor area ratio. But what we're talking about from place to place can be very different in terms of the cost of construction. So in this graph we show, for example, that we think townhomes can be built [2:51:38 PM] we think townhomes can be built for roughly $200 a square foot, all in by contrast, a high rise building of 120 to 200ft in height, with structured parking on the lower levels that can cost almost twice as much. And because of these differences in construction costs, the economics of requiring affordable housing also changes from place to place, because not all of these things are in demand everywhere in the city, but also depending on the construction type we're talking about, we may be able to afford more or less proportion of affordable units. So that's one thing to keep in mind. You saw on the previous slide a lot of consistency with, say, 10% of the units at affordable at affordable prices. But depending on what you're building, maybe you can't do all ten or maybe you could do more than ten. So there's a lot of different economics in addition to the costs, which is what's represented here, the values or the revenues associated with [2:52:38 PM] the revenues associated with these units also varies from place to place and from type to type. We do see, generally speaking, that, for instance, downtown, the rents for the tallest buildings are higher than the rents for intermediate or lower level buildings, often associated with views or amenities and things like that. So again, it's a sort of a balancing of costs and revenues in terms of what you are able to afford to provide in affordable housing and still have a feasible project. >> Of course. >> If we interject. >> With a. >> Quick question. >> Here is just can you go back to the prior slide right quick? This just reminds me of statesman pud discussion of the healthsouth discussion of, you know, the whole on site versus fee and Lou. And I think this is a good illustration of where, you know, it costs us twice as much on a dollar per dollar basis to get on site affordable housing in a Rainey a downtown area, whereas the fee in lieu [2:53:38 PM] area, whereas the fee in lieu generated from that and used in, you know, holly or Travis heights would produce double essentially the units. Again, I just wanted to kind of note that because that's been an ongoing discussion and honestly, a very heated discussion at times. But, you know, I generally I think the council has been the more the better, the more affordable housing, the better. But I just wanted to kind of note that and I appreciate the slide. I think that's a that's an excellent slide that really explains a lot in one picture. Thank you. Thank you. >> Anything else before I proceed? Thank you very much. This slide takes a similar note in terms of economics. It's an illustration of the sensitivity of what a project could potentially provide and stay feasible based on changes to the marketplace. So the sort of gray dashed line in the middle says, okay, if the baseline is that this project, which we're [2:54:39 PM] this project, which we're assuming is a 60 foot building with wrapped parking, if they could afford to provide 10% of units under your current program. But development costs as do change if they go up by 2% and everything else stays the same, the value of the market rate unit stays the same, then that 10% drops to 6.3%. And if development costs go up by 5%, it drops to practically zero. Conversely, if the market improves and costs stay the same, but the values of the units go up by 2%, then they could afford 13 instead of ten. Or if it goes up by 5%, they could afford practically 18% of units at affordable prices rather than the ten. So there's a lot of sensitivity to current market conditions embedded in these programs, and that's one reason that it's important to revisit them from time to time to see where we are in the marketplace, what you can afford, what you are willing to concede potentially, or what what additional benefits you may [2:55:42 PM] what additional benefits you may be able to incentivize in in an up market condition. I spoke to the fact that we looked at the performance of the programs. This is a slide that shows for many, but not all of your programs. How many units have been produced? These are affordable units, not total market rate units. We see that the blue is what has been produced through 2024, and the gray is what is being planned. Affordability unlocked is a huge number of planned units. Nearly 6000 additional affordable units are being planned as of the middle of last year, toward the end of last year through the affordability unlocked program. So that's a relatively new program. It's only been around since 2019. Again, it it prioritizes or incentivizes projects to provide at least 50% of their units as affordable. And it's extremely popular primarily for really 100% [2:56:44 PM] primarily for really 100% affordable projects that are taking advantage of the added height that they can get through the program. And again, it's applicable citywide, so lots of opportunities to use it. By contrast, the next one down the downtown density bonus, which has been around since 2013, has produced four affordable units in a decade. You'll see in the next, well, a couple of slides from now. Everybody's paying the in lieu fee instead of producing the units. And there's an economic reason for that. It's costly to provide those units in the high rise configuration. Plus the fee is a, you know, financially advantageous approach. It's not that much. So everyone has been using that. There is a project or two that's in planning that may be providing the units, but that's in planning. So again these represent the extent to which these programs have been utilized. You see some are producing a lot, some are [2:57:44 PM] producing a lot, some are producing not very much in terms of affordable units. Now this slide leaves out smart housing. We wanted you to be able to differentiate at this scale among these these programs. When you add in smart housing it dwarfs everything else. There's 11,000 units have been produced through the smart smart housing program since 2007, and another 11,000 in the planning right now. So that is far and away the most widely used program. There are reasons for that, and it's fair to note that smart housing isn't a density bonus program per se anyway. It provides incentives like fee waivers and things like that in exchange for a relatively short period of affordability. So a lot of projects have taken advantage of it. Now, many of those projects have been predominantly or 100% affordable, and they were able to qualify because of that. So they got the fee waivers through smart housing. It's not like they're taking advantage of the situation necessarily. It's one [2:58:45 PM] situation necessarily. It's one of your incentives and it has worked very well. But again, that that smart housing bar dwarfs all the others by far. This slide shows the fees in lieu that have been paid. Now, not every program allows fees in lieu of the units that are otherwise required, but downtown density bonus does. And through 2024, you had collected $27 million of fees in lieu, which again dwarfs the rest of them. Combined, by a good measure. But there have been lots of projects where the fee in lieu was an option that have opted to pay that, rather than producing at least some portion of the affordable units. And this slide shows the darker the green, the more utilized these programs have been. So uno, for example, since 2014, 100% of the units produced in uno area have taken advantage of this program, [2:59:46 PM] advantage of this program, demonstrating its its great value relative to the base zoning under which they could otherwise develop. Similarly, Rainey street has had 100% participation for the residential projects. There have been some nonresidential projects that don't qualify. Downtown density bonus. Virtually all of the units produced downtown have taken advantage of the program, but again have paid the fee rather than producing units on site. So again, you see the variation in how many projects have participated since the time of their adoption, because these all came in at different times. Actually, the years of their adoption, plus two years, because we know that things take a while to actually work through the permitting and construction system. So some of the inferences that we can make from these performance metrics, again, smart housing has been very widely utilized. It is a fee waiver program rather than a density per se, but because of [3:00:47 PM] density per se, but because of the advantage of those cost savings through the fee waivers, plus the fact that the affordability restriction is pretty light, only 1 to 5 years and you can qualify for it with your rental housing at 80% of median income, rather than 60 as in most of the programs. It's been extremely well used. Downtown and Rainey street and uno have been also extremely well used. Essentially 100% of projects that could have qualified for them did use them. And this is primarily because of the market condition, high value area where there is in fact demand for high density development and the prices at which those units can be offered, especially in downtown density bonus, are higher than under most of the programs. Affordability. Affordability unlocked is very popular for projects that qualify, but most of those are mostly or well, all of them are mostly affordable [3:01:48 PM] of them are mostly affordable because you have to have at least 50%, and many of them, the vast majority, are entirely affordable projects. North burnet, gateway, tod, vmu, db 90 are increasing in use, but they're not quite at the same level of utilization as some of the others. East Riverside has not really been used very much. It has a high affordability requirement, 25% on that chart, compared to typically ten. And the market is just not as strong in that area for the higher rents that can support that level of affordability. The micro unit program, which is intended to incentivize the construction of very small units under 500ft S, has very seldom been used and in fact is not a density bonus per se. It has other design criteria that it offers. And then there's two versions of smart housing that are intended for Greenfield development. They're called [3:02:49 PM] development. They're called Greenfield programs. And we could find we and staff could find no evidence of them ever being used. So something to consider ever. Yeah. Could not find a single project in the database that had used those two things as opposed to the regular smart housing fee waiver program, which was very widely used. We also did a fair amount of stakeholder outreach. We did online surveys that were circulated a number of times over several months, sent to folks who had applied for development in the city to get their feedback on how the programs had worked. We had group discussions with affordable housing developers and the real estate council of Austin. We had individual discussions with with developers and planners and land use attorneys to see how they're able to use the programs and what recommendations they might have. And the general feedback we got was first, and I think this is important. They didn't [3:03:49 PM] this is important. They didn't really have an issue with the fact that there's 15 different programs. I was interested in that because I kind of assumed that they would they would say that it's problematic to have that many different programs. They thought that they understood that they all had some different goals for different places, and that that was okay. There were, however, strong recommendations that, for instance, those denominators used for the calculation, just find find one, find two ways that you do it instead of 5 or 6 different ways that you do it to make it easier for them to understand and for staff to understand and so forth. They thought that it was important to recalibrate the programs every few years to reflect market conditions. As they evolve. They suggested that in lieu fees and other flexible solutions could be enhancing of the project feasibility. And this this commentary came from both market rate developers and affordable housing developers and commercial developers that the in lieu fees, at least for a portion of the community [3:04:51 PM] portion of the community benefits, was a sensible way to go about it because it's not possible for every project to provide, say, retail on the ground floor, especially some of those non affordable housing community benefits that are desired. And finally again I think this this is very important. We got a lot of very positive feedback from these stakeholders about the housing department's administration of the programs. Recently they understood the complexity of them, but there were a lot of positive feedback for the folks in housing staff that were in charge of implementing them. We also looked at case studies. We looked at about ten other cities Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Miami, Minneapolis, Portland, San Antonio, San Diego, and Seattle. And in some cases, we did a deeper dive than in others, but spoke with planning staff in a number of these places about how their programs have been working, how they've evolved over time, and so forth. The general trends that we noted among these [3:05:52 PM] that we noted among these different cities was they tend to have few programs, a couple, maybe three, not 15. They do typically calibrate the requirements by different market areas within the cities. So in places that are of higher demand downtown where you can get high rise demand, for example, might have a different amount of affordability or a different in-lieu fee or things like that than a lesser demanded area of the city. They focus on affordable housing rather than some of these other in-kind community benefits. They find that much easier to administer and enforce over time, and to value. One of the challenges of having these other community benefits is, whereas for affordable housing, you can easily say this is what a market rate unit goes for. This is what an affordable unit goes for. We see the difference between those things. But what is the value of required retail space? In some cases it's going to be positive. You can get good rent for it. In some cases nobody actually wants that space. So it's just a drain [3:06:52 PM] that space. So it's just a drain on the project. So some of those in-kind things they were recommending are are difficult to monetize in a positive way. Many allow and some even prefer in lieu fees because they are able to take that money generated from high value places and spend it in places that may have greater need. They typically had a streamlined process for updating the in lieu fees over time, and they noted that Austin's two programs, in particular the uno program oriented to densification of the campus area and affordability unlocked, were kind of unique and special, and something of a national case study of their own. For some of these other cities to look to you to see how you're doing. So broad recommendations that have been derived from this process. Number one, and very importantly, we are not attorneys. And all of this is tied up in legal situations and evolving legislation and so [3:07:54 PM] evolving legislation and so forth. So we absolutely recommend that you get a comprehensive legal review of what the what the box is for these kinds of programs. It may be different for programs that are continuing than newly created programs. And so just have as much legal guidance as you can get, which we cannot provide. That said, the things that we as economists and real estate economists can recommend is the potential consolidation or updates for consistency by geography and purpose. There are places, a number of programs that are really oriented to transportation corridors. For instance, do you need 5 or 6 different ones if they're kind of serving the same purpose thematically, maybe you want to differentiate by market area within them, but do you need that many different programs? Similarly, downtown and Rainey street and potentially even uno, they're contiguous areas. Do they need to be different in some particular way as they are [3:08:55 PM] some particular way as they are today? We recommend near term and frequent recalibration of the requirements to better reflect ongoing evolving development economics. It was mentioned earlier that a couple of those programs are underway or shall be soon. So that's that's great. Allowing an in-lieu fee for at least some portion of affordable units in most of the places. Certainly, there's been a lot of conversation about in-lieu fees for condos in the downtown area, for example, which can be very hard to monetize in the same way that you could even a rental unit. So considering more use of in lieu fees for at least some portion of the affordable units, allowing flexibility. So, for instance, if you say that our standard is that these units, 10% of units have to be offered at 60% of median income, maybe it's not all 60, maybe it's 5% at 50 and another 5% at 70, and allow developers to reach an average of 60% rather than everybody is priced exactly the [3:09:56 PM] everybody is priced exactly the same. There may be advantages to doing that that might provide more diversity of affordability within your project. Similarly, some of your programs already allow this, but maybe you say you got to do 12% at 60 or 10% at 50, or 8% at 40 or things like that. So give them a menu that they can decide which one works best for them. Maybe they're able to leverage some outside funding for some of those units and not others, but that too may give you more diversification of the affordability levels. We recommend that you have sort of limited expectations for benefits other than affordable housing, again, because it can be hard to predict and monetize what those costs will be even as you're calibrating them, even as developers themselves are putting together their pro Formas, it can be hard to say. Well, I know this qualitative thing that we're asking for is going to cost me this and I will get revenue from it or I won't. So really focusing on affordable housing is what most other communities are doing. Missing [3:10:57 PM] communities are doing. Missing middle homeownership production. There are a number of things underway that are not density bonus programs, just kind of rezoning that may address this issue and try to encourage, say, townhome development. So just keep track of that and see what kind of production you're getting for that sort of development and maybe have that on your your future list. If you're not getting that kind of ownership opportunity, that's so important. Reconciling rent differences across the programs. There are at least three different numbers that represent a 50% median family income two bedroom unit. For example, some programs charge 1100 and other programs charge 1180, and another program might charge 1800. So they're different from place from program to program. And reconciling those could be an important way of, you know, normalizing these programs, a consistent approach to affordable ownership units. Again, some of them are required on site, some of them are [3:11:58 PM] on site, some of them are allowed to pay an in lieu fee. Sometimes it's a mix a consistent approach to the section 418 redevelopment requirements with respect to things that already exist, whether it's commercial development or residential development. To the extent that you are essentially replacing existing development, some of your programs addressed that today, and some of them have not yet incorporated those requirements into their programs. Did you have a question? >> Well, I. >> Think I have a question, but in order to accurately articulate my question, I want to get clarification on your point number. I suppose point number nine and ten. So when you say consistency, you know, so you can either make the contribution to fee and Lou make the contribution to the affordable housing trust or produce the affordable units. When you say the thing about consistency, because it feels like these are recommendations for approval of current [3:13:00 PM] for approval of current programmatic efforts. So I just I'm trying to figure out what's the recommendation to establish consistency there, because I think the mix is to open up the options. But when you say the recommendation is to be more consistent, I'd just like to get some clarity. >> Yeah. >> Thank you for the question. Let me consult my notes about specifically what I meant. >> Okay. >> Can I come back to that at the end of I think this might be my last slide? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Number 11, nonresidential development. Some of your programs like downtown density bonus allow, give you more density to build an office building or a hotel or what have you. If you participate in the program by way of paying in lieu fees, other programs don't give any density bonus for commercial development, which may be fine, but perhaps you would consider allowing greater density along transit corridors, for example, [3:14:02 PM] transit corridors, for example, because jobs also want to be near transit, not just housing and having jobs spread out throughout your transit system might be a positive thing as well. And perhaps a way to incentivize that dispersion and sort of cross commuting and reverse commuting and so forth might be to encourage through a density bonus program, still greater density on nonresidential developments as well. And then finally, this is sort of the denominator point that I was making earlier. You've got a number of different ways that developers have to figure out, and your staff, for that matter, have to figure out what's allowed and what percentage of what is provided, and finding some way for consistency as these things evolve over time. So it perhaps it's always a percentage of the bonus square foot instead of the total square feet. And the numbers of course would adjust accordingly. It wouldn't necessarily stay at 10% if you change the denominator, but finding some way from program to program to make it more clear [3:15:02 PM] program to make it more clear how the calculation should be done in the first place. And I have not forgotten your question regarding nine and ten nine in particular, but I just want to see I'm going to go consult my notes and pass this back to Alan while I'm doing so. >> As as you're doing that consultation, it just I just remember there was a part two to that question, and it was about adjusting levels of affordability to it sounded like compromise was the recommendation. And I just want to make sure that I am not speculating in the wrong direction. It felt like when you made reference to Riverside's 25% requirement, I remember being in those discussions and just thinking, damn, 25% is a lot, and I just wonder if we're going to get there. And so this might be the validation I'm looking for. But I don't know that I extracted a recommendation from that. I think that was you just sort of daylighting it. But when you answered the other question, if you could maybe offer some. [3:16:03 PM] you could maybe offer some. Wright like. >> Well, that one I. >> Can respond to recommendation. >> Yeah. On on east Riverside in particular, it is both the 25% and again the denominator, which is the bonus square footage. So it's not a blanket across all programs. The 25% is a lot, but it only applies to the bonus area, not to the total project. So depending on how much higher above base zoning you go 25%. If you're only adding one extra floor, for example, to what is otherwise a four story building, then you're doing 25% of one floor, which ends up being, what, 4% of the total project or 5% or something like that. So there's all kinds of different pulls and levers in these calculations. I know that east Riverside is revisiting that is on staff's agenda for this calendar year. And so I would expect, rather than us making a recommendation based solely on sort of generic things, I know [3:17:04 PM] sort of generic things, I know that there's going to be more specific economics and community outreach and such about the goals for east Riverside and what's feasible. So I would hesitate to make a concrete recommendation of how that particular one should change at this time, based on the fact that there's a lot of work still to be done to figure out what's most important, because even there, there's more than just affordability. There's also open space requirements there and other things that are tied up in the density bonus program. That could be, again, levers that maybe if you allow an in lieu fee on parks and open space out there, instead of requiring every project to come up with that on site, you may be able to get more affordable housing and so on, but I would hesitate to give impromptu recognition for specific numbers because those tend to stick in people's heads. >> Which I, you know, I really appreciate. And, you know, it's not my ministry to be jack of all trades. So I tend to defer to the experts. But I think what [3:18:05 PM] to the experts. But I think what I heard you say, though, was that it's an underutilized area for the application of our density bonus initiatives, in which case I would expect a recommendation for staff's consideration during the course of their recalibration. For sure, we're not using the programs, right. >> We have seen more applications come in. There hasn't been much produced since the program was adopted, but there are a number of plans that have appeared to. And that's one of the slides that we showed is the sort of blue and gray what's been done and versus what's planned. There does seem to be some traction being gained out there. But then we also hit a pretty rough time in the market. So to say that those are definitely happening, happening, I can't say that for sure. >> I appreciate it. Sure. Vice chair. >> On that note, and again, the discussion of the number of percentage of affordable housing is one of the core issues. And again, this is my sense I'm not an expert in this area. 10 to 12% feels like a sweet spot. I [3:19:05 PM] 12% feels like a sweet spot. I mean, just when you look at the programs and you know, the vmu, those kinds of is that looking nationally and not just outside? I mean, again, I'm looking at the production from your chart that vmu jumps out at you as as the people are clearly taking advantage of that. What's the sense nationally? What are the good programs that we're looking at nationally? And what are the percentage of affordable housing that they're asking for? >> Yeah, I would say that the 10 to 20% for standard density bonus is that's kind of the benchmarks. It is rare to see something more than that. But your affordability unlocked, for example, is very intentionally for 100% affordable housing projects and provides bonuses for them. But in terms of a true mixed income that is primarily market rate, I would say it's pretty standard to be in that 10 to 20, with 20 being the strongest markets where, you know, the market rate price of things is highest, that those [3:20:07 PM] things is highest, that those are the places in which you can potentially afford, as long as the construction costs to are not necessarily the highest. So in a place where you can sell $1 million townhome, you could very well ask for more. And in a place where you, you know, there's only a market for $400,000 mid-rise condos, there isn't that much of a delta between the cost of producing those and the value that you get. So you might have to ask for less in those cases. But to directly answer your question, 10 to 20 is the typical ballpark. >> Thank you very much. Are there any questions before we proceed? >> Go ahead. >> Thanks. And I'll be back. >> So I'm going to talk a little bit about what active work we have already in our Gantt chart that relates to the density bonus study, as well as future steps. One item really quick I did want to note is we do have recommendations for each individual density bonus program [3:21:08 PM] individual density bonus program in the report and attached as appendices to this presentation as well. We won't go through all of them because we have so many density bonus points that we might be here all day, but we did receive kind of specific recommendations for our programs from eps. However, as he mentioned, it is not calibration for those programs. So there is not a number that says east Riverside corridor should be this number because that requires a lot more work, obviously. But there are broad recommendations and specific recommendations. So as far as active work, as Steve mentioned a little bit earlier, you know, this spring we are already working on bringing back the university neighborhood overlay, the equitable transit oriented development phase two, part of that density bonus, as well as a new zoning district study, which will be presenting, you know, proposal for new zoning that could help with that missing middle kind of vacancy that we saw in the broad recommendations. Additionally, in our winter timeline end of this year, we have downtown density bonus scheduled as well as an update to the east [3:22:08 PM] as an update to the east Riverside corridor. As mentioned previously, we also have, you know, crestview on the schedule and other programs that are already being incorporated as we are updating these density bonuses, we are incorporating the recommendations from this study as well as the broad ones and specific ones. So we are starting to think about how do we make things more concise and aligned between the different programs, as well as specific items about how to make these programs function better? What is working in uno, for example, and how do we maintain, obviously, that success while updating the program, not losing the value that we have there? >> Actually, I'd. >> Like to. >> Pose a question before we go on. That way we can just sort of keep things in alignment. Does anybody else have a question on that slide or that subject matter part? So specifically, I couldn't help but notice that you said something about potential new zoning to address the missing middle. Component. But earlier I wrote down, and I [3:23:08 PM] But earlier I wrote down, and I think maybe it was Steve that said something along the lines of during the course of phase two considerations, there's some talk about regulations along rail and bus lines, but that there wasn't any anticipation of the need for new zoning. What was it? >> I don't know, something fell. >> Is it a ghost? Okay. >> Yeah. So. >> So I'm worried about y'all. Is bulletproof up here. Intend to. >> Hit the dirt. >> The current plan for phase two is to bring recommendations for. New tod. We're going to call it paper district, where people could opt in to rezone into those districts. But we will not be bringing back a rezoning action in spring. >> Any questions there, y'all? >> I don't have a question, but I know there's been a lot of work happening on site plan light right now, and so I know that right now there is a set number of zoning districts that [3:24:08 PM] number of zoning districts that already have that. So it's kind of how to how to better leverage properties that already have that missing middle style of zoning. So maybe there's another part of this where tod is trying to say, well, if site plan light gets adopted and is an option on the table, how do we provide greater flexibility to some of these districts so you don't get the, you know, one story versus tons of stories? You get kind of that nice blend. I won't speak for staff, but that would be my guess is that there's already work happening with site plan light. Maybe there's a way to embellish the usefulness of what we're doing for other districts already. >> Vice chair vela. >> Is the fee in lieu on the density bonus programs that goes into the housing trust fund. Is that correct? >> Yes, that's correct. >> And the housing trust fund is where we're funding tenants assistance out of. Is that correct? >> Housing? You can probably answer that better than I can. >> Answer. >> I think they'll be long enough. [3:25:10 PM] enough. >> Mandy Demayo, interim director of the housing department, the housing the housing trust fund houses a few different things. One is the fee in lieu, which is very specific to either geography or intention via ordinance. So like the downtown density bonus, it's all segregated within the housing trust fund. The remainder of the housing trust fund is the revenue that represents the difference between the formerly publicly owned land that was put out and became privately owned, and thus property tax generating. We get about $10 million a year in that portion of the housing trust fund, and that is roughly divided between two things. One is displacement prevention, which includes the $3.6 million for emergency rental assistance through el Buen. And the other part is for our local housing voucher. Right now, that's $4 million a year for local housing voucher for [3:26:10 PM] for local housing voucher for people experiencing homelessness. Okay. Did that clarify? >> Very, very much. So the properties that are. Are, are revenue generating that $10 million a year, which properties are those. >> So as an example. So our friends in financial services department budget calculates this every year. And they have they go through the property tax roll and calculate the differential. But as an example the easiest example is an older one, the W hotel which was formerly city owned property and went into private hands and became property tax generating. So that was one of the first parcels that started contributing to the housing trust fund. It has subsequently grown from any parcel that previously was publicly owned, not just city owned, but publicly owned and thus transferred, subsequently [3:27:11 PM] transferred, subsequently transferred into private hands. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions? >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it. >> Oh I don't you can't see behind you. But there was a very enthusiastic leap to his feet. >> Okay. Thank you for having me back. So rather than trying to. Summarize, I will simply read what we had to say about the question of consistent approach to affordable ownership units. And I think maybe a coordinated rather than consistent might be equally important here. Currently, some programs require affordable ownership units on site, while others allow developers to pay fee in lieu for such units. Price points and the length of the affordability restrictions also vary considerably among programs. The consultants and city staff acknowledge that affordable ownership units can be challenging, especially for projects with very high construction costs and hoa fees, like in downtown high rise condos. The city should strive for more consistency across [3:28:12 PM] for more consistency across programs and potentially explore a concerted approach to capturing significant fee and lieu revenues in high value locations and using those revenues to develop affordable ownership units in other high resource but less expensive locations. >> I appreciate that. I think that's the answer I was looking for. I schiera vela. >> I'm sorry, one more question. And this is just, again, anecdotal reports I hear from developers about struggling to rent the 80% mfi affordable units because 80% of mfi is a decent amount of money and, you know, you got a credit check and, you know, there's different kind of qualifications. Any sense either from from staff or or yourself on on the validity of those kind of anecdotes and thoughts, concerns. >> Yeah. We find across the country that there are sort of tipping points at which it becomes challenging to get folks into the units, for that may be [3:29:13 PM] into the units, for that may be 180% in some parts of the city. Is market rate right? You're not really getting a discount, but you have to go through extra hoops. >> In district four. That's market rate, right? >> In some places, having units that are, you know, for sale units priced at 50 to 60% of median income, for example, it can be hard for folks at that level to qualify for a standard mortgage because of other reasons. So there's always some kind of issues with picking the right level of affordability and making sure that it works not only for the developer, but for the tenants themselves that they they are, in fact, getting a discount. They are getting some value out of it, rather than it just being an onerous process that they have to go through to save ten bucks a month or something. >> And just to the, the, the affordable units, in some conversations that I've had, they say that those are the hardest to fill and that they'll sometimes turn over the most. So [3:30:13 PM] sometimes turn over the most. So even though those are the affordable units within the building, they, they, you know, they, they struggle to at the, at the 80% mfi level in particular. Those are the ones that I'm, I'm thinking of just because of the credit, the income level and kind of credit score. Yeah. >> I could imagine that being the case. I didn't remember hearing that when we were reaching out to developers on this topic, but I can imagine that being a challenge. I also think it's pretty true that if you're renting a high demand area at 50 to 60, it's not going to be hard to find folks who would want and go through the hoops to get that unit. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Good question. >> I was going to say no. Yeah, absolutely. Please proceed. >> I want to talk a little bit about next steps. So beyond the work that we already have scheduled, staff is aware of potential other work. And so we are looking at a potential initiation of a more citywide [3:31:14 PM] initiation of a more citywide tiered density bonus program. And so this is conversations we've heard from developers, things we've heard related to db 90 vmu. The goals for potentially having a density bonus that's somewhere in the middle. And so kind of aligning those into more of some of these citywide programs where we have maybe a couple more tiers as well as any, you know, desire to update any of the other density bonuses that we don't quite yet have in our grant schedule, but we know need updates based on the recommendations we're receiving. We also have been working on a replacement for pdas and will continue to work on that. We brought that to council at the end of last year, but it was pushed on indefinitely. And so we are still striving to find a solution to pdas. And lastly, we are, as I mentioned earlier, working on the zoning district study, which would be presented later this year, and if desired, council would initiate the creation or revising of existing zoning districts to respond to that study. And as I mentioned, [3:32:15 PM] that study. And as I mentioned, I'll just show you real quick there's an appendix that has dashboards essentially for all of them, so people can review those with more time. And it has recommendations and numbers for each of the individual programs. But any questions? >> Just have a few any questions? Colleagues. >> I think my question is actually came about by way of your next to last slide, where you're talking about the tiers. And so I think during the course of this conversation, and anecdotally in other conversations, as we discussed, that chunk, that missing middle chunk, that what happens in the center there, I think there's some additional considerations that I've observed. And I just wonder, where is it our place to help to mitigate there and or when, when do we hit that threshold to work more collaboratively with outside partners who can help? So the two things I'm thinking of are traditional lenders. I think we're finding that there are [3:33:15 PM] we're finding that there are subsidies that exist and resources that exist for the lower end of the income spectrum and the higher end of the income spectrum, but sort of some scarcity there in the center. And I just wonder if between the two presenters here today, both staff and staff and our visitor, is that something that you've extracted from the process is that there's some some trickiness with lending accommodations for folks there in the middle. >> I would say most of our conversations were probably with developers on maybe, you know, higher end, even though obviously a lot of light tech developers were contacted as well. And that's a different type of developer. I do think lending is hard at the moment, given interest rates. A lot of the requirements being asked from lenders. So I would say given the environment we're in currently, I would. Lending is probably difficult overall, and that obviously kind of complicates some of the development. And that's why we might see a lot of these planned [3:34:16 PM] might see a lot of these planned developments in the different density bonuses that aren't quite being started at the moment. And unfortunately, probably a little bit out of our control for now, given the nature of the situation. >> I appreciate that. >> And I think that's the kind of thing that we need to daylight for the general public when we have these conversations. So, you know, one of the things that I'm going to bring for future consideration has to do with projects that have just gotten abandoned, you know, by way of the, you know, your project tripling in cost because of construction or labor or other, you know, interest rates climb and people just not being able to afford to finish their projects. What happens to those zombie projects is one of the things I'd like to discuss in the future. But that said, just recognizing that those are considerations. And so when we show kind of a static, you know, data point, but don't offer contextually, you know, this is what happened here, here and here to affect this. So it's not [3:35:16 PM] here to affect this. So it's not that the program is ineffective so much. As you know, we can't control the adjacent environmental variables. Yes. And so I just wonder if there's a way for us to sort of, kind of unilaterally have a more, kind of a more context informed discussion with the general public. I think just across the board, I'm trying to find ways to have more comprehensive and substantive conversations with the general public about this subject matter. >> Yeah. And I guess from our perspective, that's a big reason where we're striving to. And one of the big recommendations we're receiving is about consistent recalibration, because these market conditions change, whether it is construction costs going up, interest rates going up, or just the market values going up, right. It can go both ways. And so the ability for staff and for the city to recalibrate. Often we're working towards having, you know, fees and low that are updated annually. So everything is generally speaking you know up [3:36:18 PM] generally speaking you know up to date with market conditions. As much as we can is going to help those conversations so we can explain why there's fluxes in numbers and, you know, production. >> Thank you I appreciate that. And this might be completely, you know, off the charts in terms of whether or not it's germane to this part of the conversation. And this actually might be a mandi question. So the dollars, the fee in lieu dollars that go towards the affordable housing trust fund, another anecdotally thing that I'm hearing back from folks is the requirements for down payments. And there are some rules around how you produce down payment assistance, like who can offer you a loan or a financial gift for down payments. I wonder, in addition to the production of more affordable units, could any of our fee in lieu dollars go towards city subsidized down payment assistance? Down [3:37:19 PM] payment assistance? Down payments are a thing that you know, having that cash down payment is something that. >> So our fee in lieu dollars. Mandy Demayo, interim director, housing department our fee in lieu dollars are prescribed by the that created them. Whether it's the, you know, transit plaza, saltillo transit oriented development or the downtown density bonus. And typically to my recollection, they are all for capital. It it constrains it to capital. We deploy those fee in lieu dollars through our rental housing development assistance and ownership housing development assistance programs. Rhoda and oda, to my recollection, almost all of our fee in lieu dollars that have been deployed have been for rental housing thus far. Our down payment assistance is currently funded. Our our dpa program is funded through federal funds, through our home funds. And we did see a slight decrease this year in our home funding. But we do anticipate [3:38:22 PM] funding. But we do anticipate exceeding our goals for dpa. Last year, we did about 30 down payment assistance, down payment assistance. Loans, and we anticipate meeting or exceeding that again this year. Okay. >> I think it might be helpful. >> For us to have some of that data. So I'm going to figure out exactly which points might be helpful for us to extract from you all to, to really influence something that we're working on in the future. So I have John. >> Okay. >> Great. Thank you. Any other questions colleagues? I believe that's all. Thank you very much. Okay. In which case we are down to the last item for consideration today, which is item number five. And that's future items for considerations. And this is our opportunity to oh, so we lost council member Siegel. But I think I I'll work with him to see if there's an agenda item that we can formulate from his question. But this is where we have the [3:39:24 PM] this is where we have the opportunity to suggest items for consideration in the future and future discussion to bring before the body. So are there any recommendations? Well, so I have one maybe split into two. And it's about our density bonus housing trust and really thinking through procedural processes. And so we talked about affordability impact statements. I think there's a new one coming out soon. And just really wanting to make sure that that has all the information that we're all looking for. As we update that. And then we discussed bringing back something that we had discussed last year, and that's around alternative building materials, I believe council member alter at the time was talking about what's the timber called John. Mass timber. There [3:40:27 PM] called John. Mass timber. There were conversations from council member alter around mass timber and I specifically was bringing forward considerations around hempcrete. But along those lines of conversations around alternative building materials and what the implications are with discussions around hemp regulation and the state of Texas, it also occurred to me that it might be a good time for us to talk about repurposing. I'm just hearing more and more about vacant commercial spaces, office spaces in particular, and just wondering what feasibility looks like for repurposing some of those spaces for more of a like, hostel like living environment. So, you know, you have your bare bones room and shared kitchen and restroom spaces. Just wondering what our plan is for utilization and repurposing these really very vacant office spaces around [3:41:30 PM] vacant office spaces around town. And then lastly, I just wanted to bring to your attention. We are attempting to and it's looking likely that we're going to have an off campus housing and planning meeting at campus. And so we're looking to have our April meeting on campus at H T and bring housing and planning conversation to the people. So with that, that's all I had. And if there's nothing else, I'm going to call us. Adjourned at 3:41 P.M. Thank you everybody. Appreciate your time.