City Council Regular Meeting Transcript – 9/11/2025 Title: ATXN-1 (24hr) Channel: 1 - ATXN-1 Recorded On: 9/11/2025 6:00:00AM Original Air Date: 9/11/2025 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. [10:00:06 AM] Council members good morning everybody. It's 10:00 in the morning on Thursday, September 11th, 2025, and I will call to order the [10:01:07 AM] and I will call to order the meeting of the Austin city council. We are meeting in the council chambers, located in city hall at 301 west second street, and we have all of the council members present. Members, before we begin, I run through the day. I do think we ought to take a moment to recognize the date, which is September 11th, 24 years ago this morning, this on this date. This date became another day that will live in infamy in our country. And so as we begin our day today with a meeting of our city's governing body, it's probably appropriate for us to remember the lives lost as a result of an attack that was made on American soil, an attack that was made on our democracy and our way of life, and a terrorist attack. We also want to pause for just a second, to say thanks to our first responders and our firefighters, including Austin's firefighters and first responders, that we had many of our firefighters [10:02:08 AM] had many of our firefighters that went to New York City to provide help after that terror attack. So it's I think it's fitting and proper that we remember and recognize the role that they play in our lives and the bravery, bravery that they exhibit on our behalf. For this September 11th. And with that, I will now walk us through the, the, the agenda so that we can be prepared for the agenda. I will note that there are no changes and corrections to be read into the record. We will begin with the consent agenda members. We have two items that have been pulled from the consent agenda. Those are items 11 and 12. Excuse me. We will go through the consent agenda. And I do want to point out that on items 41 and 47, it's version two that you have in your backup, 41 and 47 while they are on the consent agenda. [10:03:08 AM] they are on the consent agenda. It's version two that will be a part of any motion on the consent agenda. We will hear from speakers with regard to consent agenda, and then we will at the conclusion of that, we will take a vote on that item. We will have as close to 1030 as we can, but with the number of speakers on the consent agenda, it will be sometime after 1030. We will also call. I will recess the board, the meeting of the city council, and we will then have the board of directors meeting of the Austin housing finance corporation. At that point, depending upon where we are in terms of time related to our noon time, certain we will take up item 11 and then item 12. We will also take up non consent items. Those will be items that are eminent domain. There's one of those items item 48 and we'll take up public hearings. We will have the 12:00 as I indicated noon public communications. We will take that up as close to noon. Even if we have to move something, we will take that up as close [10:04:09 AM] we will take that up as close to noon as as possible. If things work the way we hope they do, we will also recess. We will have live music during that period of time, and we will come back in the afternoon. And then of course, at 2:00 we will have our time certain related to zoning matters members. At some point during the day, it may be at the end of the zoning matters, but at some point during the day, we will also go into an executive session. And I say that to remind everybody and to also remind the public. So with that, unless there are questions, as I indicated, there are no changes or corrections for me to read in the record unless there are any questions or comments, we will go to the consent agenda and remember the consent agenda. We've had two items, 11 and 12 pulled, and I will turn to the city clerk and ask her to begin the process of working through our public comment. >> Thank you mayor. We'll start [10:05:10 AM] >> Thank you mayor. We'll start with item two. Joe Blackman. Jennifer Robert chow. >> Please feel free to begin. You go ahead. >> All right. Good morning, mayor and council members. My name is Joe Blackman. I'm here to support the funding proposal for Austin's sister cities. I serve on the global board and executive committee of sister cities international. Austin's sister cities is one of our member organizations, and I also serve on its boards for those that may be new to it. Sister cities was founded by president Eisenhower 69 years ago. Today, it's its anniversary and it's the world's largest citizen diplomacy organization connecting 2000 communities [10:06:12 AM] connecting 2000 communities with more than 140 countries working in tandem with government and city administrations. So let me just start by saying this. What this mayor, what the council has been doing and the city administration have been doing with international relations is absolutely incredible. I've lived in Austin for four years, and the impact of these programs is profound. Across the communities, Austin sister cities introduces our community to the world, and it brings the worlds back to Austin. And that people to people mission sits at the heart of citizen diplomacy and makes a profound difference across the entire socio economic spectrum. In our community. We work across business, arts and culture, law enforcement cooperation, community development, and much more. Across the country. The strongest sister city outcomes come from grassroots programs that touch many parts of the city, and I hope that's considered in the negotiations in Austin. I believe we can reach deeper into our community and with the right resourcing [10:07:13 AM] and with the right resourcing and expectations in this contract, I believe it will. And on sister city's anniversary, this is a fitting moment to plug Austin more fully into the national and global network. It's the 70th anniversary of sister cities in DC next year, and I'd love nothing more to see the amazing work the city of Austin does showcased us wide and globally. I stand ready to assist the mayor, council and city in any where I can. I thank you for all of your efforts and initiatives on international, and thank you very much. Grazia. Merci. Shukran. Thank you. >> Appreciate you, thank you. Yes, ma'am. >> Good morning, city council. Thank you, mayor Watson, for the words that you said starting us out here. I am deeply grateful for the freedoms that we all hold in this country. And when I come here and speak to you all, I do feel like I'm fulfilling part of that civic duty to make sure that we're all engaging in that process. And I think that it's important that we remember that here. >> And you need to say your name for the record to. >> Thank you so much. I'm so sorry. [10:08:15 AM] sorry. >> To fully participate in the process. We need to have you say your name. >> You're right. Yes. So I'm Jen Robichaud and I'm a resident of district two, and I've been in Austin for 21 years. >> Yes, ma'am. >> And so I know as we're looking at a lot of spending items today, this is in the context of a larger budget issue. And we're all, I know, eagerly anticipating the results of the tax rate election coming up this November. And I want you all to just be mindful that regardless of how you all are putting this out to the public and trying to make us see that we need to be taking care of each other, the citizens of Austin are also looking to ask you what you're doing to take care of us. We are paying attention to the underlying issues here, increasing our taxes and spending money on discretionary items undermines affordability in our city. We want to know what you all are doing to make sure that you are acting with fiscal responsibility, to protect the dollars that we give you and entrust you to spend wisely. Every agenda that I see here has dozens of spending items, many of them I [10:09:17 AM] spending items, many of them I would consider discretionary. Based on your voting history, I'm assuming that you're going to be approving this this consent agenda today. And so with that, I want you just to be looking at how you're implementing these programs in a thoughtful way. The residents of Austin are really looking to see what return are we getting on these programs that we're funding? What are the metrics that you're setting up to determine success, and are we reaching those success measures? When I look at the Austin city international program, I've never heard of this other than the sign that's sitting outside city council here. So what are we doing to make sure that this is building value for our community? >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> For item six, Jennifer Robichaud, bill bunch, Zenobia. Joseph. >> If your name has been called, please come forward. Miss Robichaud, you may begin. >> Thank you again. I'm Jennifer Robichaud from district two. And on item six, [10:10:17 AM] district two. And on item six, it looks like we're allocating $12 million in funds to three different public universities here in the city of Austin. And in the context of this, I want to look that we have a $33 million general deficit going into the next fiscal year. We have growing deficits in years after that. And this looks like a multiyear commitment that's tied to research and consulting services. If I looked at the items correctly, we're pulling this from the general fund. And one thing that I look at in the budget is we spend an awful lot of money on consulting services. I was totaling it up, and I think I got to about 100 million before I stopped adding up line items. That's a lot of money to be sending to other organizations. We have one of the largest staffs of any city in the state of Texas. And when I speak with people who work in the city, people who just observe what's happening in the city, a lot of us are wondering, why are we putting so much money into consulting services [10:11:17 AM] money into consulting services instead of bringing this in-house? So if we're going to be entrusting other people to perform these services for us, what expectations do we have from that? I wasn't really clear on what return we're going to be getting on this 12 million from the universities. I know they have their own budgets. They are getting grants from other locations. Are there specific metrics we're looking at? What are the research that they're going to provide to us? Why isn't that being done inside? Other organizations here in the city? Are we duplicating things that we're already doing in other staffs? So I just generally concerned that we're relying too much on consulting services here in the city and just make sure that we are getting what we're paying for when we're buying those services. >> Thank you. >> Good morning. Mayor. Council [10:12:22 AM] >> Good morning. Mayor. Council members bill bunch, district five, save our springs alliance speaking to you on number six. This is $12 million for UT Austin community college and Texas state university research and technical assistance projects. This looks like a slush fund, and I know it's been used that way in the past as a bit of an end around on the city manager's limit to fund projects without bringing it to council or taking it to boards and commissions and whatnot. Of course, there could be a lot of good done with this. It's a lot of money though, and there needs to be total transparency and community engagement upfront before you spend any money on any single project. It should not be a [10:13:22 AM] project. It should not be a backroom slush fund where you're hiring academics to basically serve as a technical backup to give you the answers you want. The report that was done by UT on the convention center is exhibit a there. If you go back and look at that report, there's a lot of great stuff in there. But it was a combination of the business school, architecture and community and regional planning. If you go read that report today, you'll see that what you're doing today is nothing about what was recommended in that report. And it's actually in direct conflict. But at the same time, there's a bunch of garbage in there where they wouldn't even talk to the national expert, professor Heywood Sanders, at their sister institution, UT San Antonio, about the real economics of convention centers. [10:14:22 AM] economics of convention centers. Don't approve a slush fund. >> Item seven bill bunch, Zenobia Joseph. >> Item number seven, Mr. Bunch. >> I will pass on that since I didn't study it. >> All right. >> Item nine Jennifer Robichaux. Item ten, also Jennifer Robichaux. >> Good morning again. This is Jennifer Robichaux from district two. So here we're looking at a quarter of $1 million to the other ones. Foundation for reentry support. And I believe this is coming from the community court budget. And it looks like this is to provide reentry planning, shelter and workforce assistance to reduce recidivism and homelessness. And I think we can all agree that these are really positive goals. I wasn't able to find any data on what the actual outcomes were hoping [10:15:23 AM] the actual outcomes were hoping for, but I did find that in 2023, the other ones foundation spent about 14 million or had about $14 million in revenue and served 700 clients. And some rough math that comes out to $20,000 per person and for $20,000 per person, I think somebody could have a job, at least a part time job, where they're engaging in society and providing some real value and building some success for themselves. Be able to live and pay their own rent in a group setting. So I think this is a lot of money that this group is receiving. And I think if these people are still returning back to their life on the streets, or drug abuse habits or life of crime where they're finding themselves in community court, we need to be asking, seriously, what results are we getting from this investment? So what are the long term success rates that we're seeing from investing in the other ones? Foundation. Are we seeing the [10:16:23 AM] Foundation. Are we seeing the success that we expect from this? When I look at these organizations, a lot of funds go to the actual salaries of the people that run these organizations, and it's concerning that it might not be going to the actual services that the citizens of Austin want to fund. We do want to solve these problems, and we need our money spent wisely. Thank you. >> You're signed up on the next item two, please. >> Thank you sir. >> This is Jennifer Robichaux again, district two. And here it looks like we have one and a third million dollars going to the communities for recovery addiction support. I believe that we are pulling in an initial $266,000 from the downtown Austin community court budget, and the extensions are contingent on future funding. And I'm curious why extensions aren't contingent on success. This goes back to the same questions. What? How are we [10:17:25 AM] questions. What? How are we measuring success in these efforts? I do think we need addiction support in this city, but a lot of people are concerned that our harm reduction programs do not support people who have addiction problems, rather, they enable these problems. So how can we make sure that the funds we're putting into this, which are coming out of the pockets of taxpayers, renters, homeowners, businesses who affect the people that find affordability the biggest concern already, the most many people who are already on the edge, maybe even dealing with these problems themselves in their personal lives, but their lives haven't gotten bad enough for them to make it into these support structures, right? So why are we going to start this funding without a plan for how we're going to measure its success? Why are we going to continue funding it if we aren't meeting success metrics? And with all of the programs we fund, is there any way that we can orchestrate these? Together, [10:18:28 AM] can orchestrate these? Together, rather than spreading out these funds to so many different organizations? So that way we're more efficient with how we're using these limited dollars that we have in our city's budget. >> Thank you, thank you. >> Item 15 bill bunch. And then item 18, Jennifer Robicheaux and Zenobia Joseph. >> Mr. Bunch, are you going to speak? >> 1518 yeah. Displacement prevention. >> Mr. Bunch, you signed up for bill. I'm sorry for item 15. >> Sorry. My bad. >> Item 15. Yeah. >> I don't have that down. >> Okay. He's waving his opportunity to speak on 15. Miss Robicheaux, you can speak on 18. >> Thank you. This is Jennifer Robicheaux again from district two. And here we are funding $2.8 million to two different organizations for displacement prevention. And this takes me back to some of the other [10:19:32 AM] back to some of the other concerns that I have about consulting. So with well over 100 million, I think the number was closer to 175 million. And consulting services in the 2025 2026 budget, when we're looking at $33 million shortfall, you just have to ask, why are we funding so much in these consulting services? I know that this is being funded through the project connect budget, but that raises even more questions, to be honest, because project connect is not delivering what it said it was going to deliver. So if project connect is supposed to help us with establishing affordable housing along these public transportation routes, what are we getting from the consulting side of it? Consulting services don't build houses. They give us information. Why is that information not coming from in house? We have very smart people that live and work here in Austin. If the people that work for the city are anything like the people that are [10:20:33 AM] like the people that are working in the private sector, we have top talent here. Why are we not paying our city employees to be able to research these issues? >> For us? >> This is a city project. And I am also concerned about just the general metrics that we have on this. I believe that this was based off of a pilot, but I couldn't find any metrics on what that pilot was supposed to accomplish, and no way for us to evaluate what's going to come out of future funding on this. So, you know, these consulting dollars, I expect, could be spent in much better places. And if we're going to spend them on consulting, let's make sure that we're tracking what we're getting out of those services. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Item 20 bill bunch. >> Good morning bill bunch. [10:21:42 AM] >> Good morning bill bunch. District five save our springs alliance. This item since you're not telling us anymore what they are $83.5 million for temporary technology staffing. I know that's a cap, but seriously, $83 million for temporary technology staffing. And it's on consent, and there's virtually zero backup. And we're in a budget crisis, and y'all are asking for a tax increase. And we have a lot of smart people on staff that can do technology. This is Austin. Who's getting this money. Why are we doing this? There's a lot of tech people who are out of work right now. If you don't [10:22:43 AM] of work right now. If you don't happen to notice, let's hire people who are competent and who are working for us, not private sector folks. This once again looks like you're rewarding campaign contributors. You're serving big money and not the public. You're privatizing services that should be provided in-house. This is classic Milton Friedman rey reaganesque neoliberal economics. Privatizing our city, our public domain. You really need to stop and show a little bit of respect for the community, for your own staff, instead of farming stuff out like a logo that could have been done in-house with current folks. I mean, you have unbelievable graphics and marketing people on staff. They were completely excluded from that process. And this is just another example of throwing money at a problem that you [10:23:45 AM] money at a problem that you shouldn't be throwing. >> Mr. Bunch. >> Item 28 I have a remote speaker, Michael Hirsh. >> Yes, I'm Michael Hirsh. I'm from district nine. I'm the Dean of the college of arts and sciences at Houston Tillotson university. And I'm here to speak in favor of item 28. We stand ready to assist with the community based, research, student led projects, program evaluation and policy advisory services. We have a long history of serving the city of Austin going back to 2005, we oversaw the evaluation of the weed and seed program. 22,008 evaluation of operation prism 2009 the evaluation of Austin Travis county combined gang project. We've done a cultural assessment for the watershed department in 2019. More recently, we partnered with ispeak Austin on the [10:24:46 AM] ispeak Austin on the translation service community engagement database creation. We worked with Austin public health, lady bird, capacity study for parks and recreation department. We've done we assisted with the affordable housing navigator. We've also do an entrepreneurship training service contract with city of Austin, and many members of the university have served in various capacities, including doctor Bennett, who co-chaired Mary mayor Adler structural racism committee, doctor Karen Magid, who was in the community advisory resilience committee, and I also served on the advisory board for 15 years. So we're here to speak in favor of of. >> Is that all? >> Yes. If you're in favor of something, you get cut off. >> I have in-person speakers for item 28. Skip Voss. Josh. [10:25:48 AM] for item 28. Skip Voss. Josh. Rebecca, Jennifer Robichaud, bill bunch, and Zenobia Joseph. >> Welcome. Thank you. Honorable members of the Austin city council. City manager Broadnax. Mayor Watson, I urge you to vote in favor of allocating resources to Houston, Tillotson university, Austin's oldest institution of higher learning and its only historically black college or university. This university has been a cornerstone of our community for 150 years, fostering education, leadership and cultural heritage, particularly within the African American cultural heritage district. Supporting Houston Tillotson with resources will enhance its ability to empower diverse students, drive academic excellence, and contribute to Austin's vibrant economy and civic life. By investing in this historic institution, we strengthen our city's commitment to equity, [10:26:49 AM] city's commitment to equity, education and community growth. Please vote yes to ensure that Houston Tillotson continues to thrive as a vital asset to Austin. >> Sir, could you just state your name, please? >> Please state your name for the record. >> Skip Vasquez. >> Thank you. >> Good morning, esteemed Austin city council members. My name is Joshua Rebecca. I strongly support the allocation of resources to Houston Tillotson university, a vital pillar of our city's education and cultural landscape. As Austin grows, investing in this historic hbcu will impact and amplify its impact, providing equitable access to education, fostering innovation, and strengthening community ties in east Austin. By voting yes, you will empower H.T. To continue its 150 year legacy and enriching and transforming and enriching the lives of our city's diverse fabric. Let's seize this opportunity to advance education and equity in Austin. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Robichaux. >> Good morning again. City council, this is Jennifer Robichaux from district two, and I thank you so much. I [10:27:50 AM] and I thank you so much. I really appreciate hearing from you all because I was curious, like, what are we funding in this? And I do think that education is very important for us to be encouraging in our society and our city. Although I do have to respectfully disagree that I don't think the city should be subsidizing education, not in a private university sense. I think we have a city education system that we already fund, and we fund it generously. Austin community college is the one that I'm thinking of, and I want to see really great competition between the universities here in Austin. As I've been looking through the funding, I think I've seen that we're funding six universities total between these and a total of like $45 million, $45 million between the two items that were funding for this. And it's a $33 million general fund shortfall in the coming year. And to to put that in context, we also have universities in Austin that aren't receiving any of this funding. And I [10:28:50 AM] any of this funding. And I would argue that some of those other universities have some of the brightest minds in the country running them who are actually transforming the nature of public education as well, or I should say, private education. This, though, generally comes back to the consulting funds. It sounds like one of the big reasons to fund this is in order to subsidize the education. But if the city is putting funds towards something, we should be seeing a return on that investment as well. So what are we getting back for that? Yes, we're getting some well-educated individuals in our community and there is a huge value in that. But I think that that value can be spread in a much broader way. If we're making sure that what these consulting services are returning to us is something that's going to benefit the community much more broadly. Thank you. >> Thank you all. >> Okay. Moving on to item 30. >> Know I'm speaking okay. >> When your name is called, if [10:29:51 AM] >> When your name is called, if you'd please come forward that way. We know you want to speak. >> I thought there was somebody else ahead of me still. >> And to queue up for item 30. I've got Carlos, Leon and Zenobia. Joseph. >> Good morning. Mayor, council members, bill bunch, save our springs alliance, district five. This is item is parallel to the earlier one with UT $12 million for research and technical assistance with huston- tillotson university, concordia and saint Edwards. These universities are pillars of our community. They haven't been supported like they should have been by the city, by the private sector. I support this, but just like you know, these these schools don't have however many ungodly billions that UT has in its endowment. It also has incredibly talented. They have incredibly talented faculty, diverse student bodies. And they're they're very [10:30:54 AM] And they're they're very important to Austin. But just as with UT, this should not be in the back room. There needs to be a public process where when you're looking at doing a project with one of them that it's it's it's disclosed and it's vetted in an appropriate manner, depending on the subject matter, so that the community can can engage and offer good ideas. We have tons of smart people that care about this city and can probably help on some of these projects, and it really just shouldn't be a slush fund in the back room to be spent without real community engagement and total transparency. Thank you. >> Yes, please. >> So, Carlos Leon, first and foremost, gracias a dios for letting me speak to item 30. Do [10:31:55 AM] letting me speak to item 30. Do not support this transit interlocal agreement that metro just issued me an unwarranted six month suspension from its services and properties. Alleged retaliation against me whistleblowing cat metro criminality at their board meetings, as well as to you city council. In front of you now is my 20 page packet documenting how cat metro's Darrell jamail, senior director, public safety and emergency management, wrongly justified the suspension with false pretenses, false statements, false representations to falsely project guilty cat metro's misconduct onto me. This upside down, backward Obama insanity must be defeated with truth and its works destroyed by accountability, meaning restoring my full access to metro services and properties and firing Darrell [10:32:56 AM] properties and firing Darrell jamail just like miles turpin asap. Similarly, a full doge audit of what capmetro has and has not done with project connect funding should be done asap. So Austin voters who approved it know whether or not the money has been misspent. By whom? For whom? American hero Charlie Kirk would support all that, but evil assassinated him yesterday. However, he will not be silenced. May his turning point work be multiplied by factors of ten nationwide and worldwide. God bless Charlie Kirk, a Christian martyr for free speech, truth, justice, the American way, and Jesus Christ, my lord and savior. And never forget 911 our constitutional republic, our way of life is under attack. May god grant us the victory. >> Thank you sir. >> Item 34 Zenobia. Joseph. [10:33:56 AM] >> Item 34 Zenobia. Joseph. Item 35 summer. Alexander, Jennifer Robichaux, Blake. Thompson. >> Your name has been called. Please come forward. >> Good morning, city council. My name is summer Alexander. My name is Alexander. And I'm here to represent Texas harm reduction alliance. I'm one of their justice involved peer specialists, and I work every single day with individuals that are unhoused in this community. Now, the funding that you're putting in this is in regards to y'all continuing another year of service with the $600,000 out of the opioid abatement money. And that funding is not abstract. Yes, it does provide or employ people like myself to help people in the community, but this is very much needed without having people like myself who have also been unhoused and has have been able to crawl out of that particular space in their life, you [10:34:57 AM] space in their life, you actually lose the opportunity to save their lives. I can tell you firsthand that by working with a person that has lived experience, I became able to see a vision again. I felt like I could connect with someone and someone understood me. This money is imperative to continue doing this work. Right now I work with over 70 people by myself. I make sure that if they're in court still, they are having being connected to good services. They're getting housing. And to answer this lady's question in regards to like money for the other ones foundation, currently, they don't even have an open bed. And that's because they don't get funding. Just like, you know, we lack the the amount of funding we really need to be quite frank. And in order for those things to be fixed, we have to make sure that those bridges meet and there has to be enough, because 700 people is a lot of people. If you put that in a room of people unhoused, that's a lot of change. And we have to be able to fund this kind of stuff. If it was not for programs like [10:35:57 AM] it was not for programs like this, I would not be sitting here right now. And I'm a mother of five, and I became unhoused because I was a victim of a stabbing here. So it's imperative that we start putting money into our people again. You may not understand why they're there, but I promise you, if we can love them where they're at, they will come out of that. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Good morning, city council, this is Jen Robichaud from district two. And it was actually really wonderful to hear somebody who has been able to directly benefit from these sorts of services, not to, you know, go back to what other groups are doing. I think the idea is we need to be looking at something that doesn't just address the symptoms. You know, we look at this harm reduction, Texas harm reduction alliance right now at $600,000 extension on the contract we have with them. And, you know, I know that they're providing some valuable services here. They're distributing narcan. They're making sure that people are not dying from their drug issues, but that they are actually getting life saving treatment in order to be able to continue [10:36:58 AM] in order to be able to continue on another day. And that's very positive. But we need to make sure that we're not ending there. And I think if we're just funneling money into into putting band-aids onto these solutions, rather than finding really permanent solutions for people and saying that we shouldn't just accept this as life, seeing somebody who has moved beyond that in their life is wonderful. I would also like to see, though, that people move beyond the entire lifestyle. No disrespect meant, but there is a world beyond continuing to help in these capacities and working for non-profits. Our our whole city is built around businesses who are innovating and providing services to each other, and that are really adding true value into that part of the community. And I would like to see these people that are currently experiencing these problems with drug use to be able to return to a life where they're providing those sorts of services. And I've seen people in my own life, people who've had problems, they've gone and become mechanics. They've gone become, you know, [10:37:59 AM] They've gone become, you know, construction workers and carpenters and things of that nature. In another broader context, this is part of the Austin public health fund, which has $38 million allocated to nonprofits in the next budget year, which is well beyond what our budget shortfall is. Thank you. >> Item 36 Jennifer Robichaud. Zenobia. Joseph. >> Good morning, city council, this is Jen Robichaud from district two. And here we have another nonprofit being funded. Looks like $620,000 to life new restorative justice for youth. And I think we can all agree we want to help our youth make responsible decisions. We do not want to see them go into life led by crime. One thing that catches my attention here is that this organization receives a lot of money, and they provide mentorship. As far as I can tell, I've been a [10:39:00 AM] as I can tell, I've been a mentor before, and I didn't receive a dollar for the services that I provided. So it is curious to me that an organization would need so much funding in order to provide a service that many people in the community are willing to provide for free. Beyond that, I would like to see how are we making sure that the lessons that these youth learn continue on into the rest of their lives? In the city of Austin, we have a broken justice system. We might teach them the skills that they need right now, but as soon as they end up back in the hands of law enforcement, we see a system that does not serve them. They get slaps on the wrist and they're let back out and they cause havoc for the rest of us who are going about our lives and following the laws of society. So teaching them these lessons now is only half of it. How do we make sure that they know that the consequences in the real world are actually real? And I [10:40:01 AM] world are actually real? And I don't think that we can just stop this here. With funding a nonprofit, we need to make sure that they have some way to connect with the broader system. So that way these youths really have success in life and don't just become another cog in a broken system. Thank you. >> Item 37 Jennifer Robichaud. >> Good morning, city council, this is Jen Robichaud from district two. And the last time that you'll be listening to me this morning, this item caught my attention. It is $77,000. So a relative drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the funding today to the Austin revitalization authority for health education. And in my research, I found that we've been working with this group for decades. They've received almost $1 million in funding since we've been working with them. So actually quite a bit [10:41:02 AM] them. So actually quite a bit less than other groups. But I couldn't find any metrics about what they're supposed to accomplish here. And so, you know, when we're looking at just fiscal responsibility in the city overall, this is one portion of our $38 million in nonprofit and grant funding from the public health budget. And I think every dollar of this needs to be scrutinized. The public health efforts that they're undertaking do seem like they are valuable. It seems like they are are being thoughtful in the sense of looking at who's most likely to suffer from these health problems. I think I remember what they were, but I don't want to misquote any information here. I do want us to urge this group, though, to give us some metrics. Are we seeing a reduction in people who are experiencing the diseases that they're targeting here, and has given the lengthy time that we've been working with them? Have we had any sort of an audit of this group because we are continuing to fund their programs. So we [10:42:02 AM] fund their programs. So we should be seeing some results from it. Thank you. >> Item 38 Carlos Leon. Zenobia. Joseph. Michael. Francis. >> So I Carlos. Leon. First and foremost, gracias a dios for letting me speak to item 38. Your library commission meets at various library branches throughout the city. I use public transportation, mass transit, cap metro to go to those meetings to listen and speak. Exercising my legal right to participate in municipal government. However, capmetro and their senior director, public safety and emergency emergency management, [10:43:03 AM] emergency emergency management, Daryl Jamal, are trying to stop me from getting there by issuing me this unwarranted six month suspension from its services and properties. Alleged retaliation against me whistleblowing capmetro criminality at their board meetings. In other words, capmetro and Daryl Jamal are trying to silence my in-person testimony at open meetings throughout the city, including my evidence based testimony to you, city council, about acpl interim director Hanna Terrell's continuing alleged multiple offenses, violations and crimes, including blatantly disobeying your rules for public use of city properties, openly rejecting your authority over her, which the office of city auditor has and is currently examining. Are you going to allow evil to win? Clearly, capmetro and Daryl Jamal are trying to starve me [10:44:03 AM] Jamal are trying to starve me out because I also use capmetro to get to work sites across the city, as well as go for groceries like any other austinite cat metros and Daryl Jamal's misconduct is the exact opposite of what they're paid to do, which is mass transit, the transportation of passengers and their hand- carried packages and baggage. Texas transportation code for 51.001. Part four. Right this wrong now city council. >> Mr. Francis, please go ahead. >> Good morning, mayor Michael Francis. I'm a member of the building and standards commission. This is my third appearance before you. The past two visits were about quorums. We're still struggling with that. The good news is we've gone from 6 to 7 members. So we've made some progress, but we still can't reach that 11 [10:45:04 AM] we still can't reach that 11 number. And some of these seats have been empty, one empty from 23, one from 24 to this year. So we're really struggling. And because of that we keep not having meetings. So it's a huge undertaking by code legal staff for the commission, the commission members. And ultimately we're not serving the citizens. Perhaps that structure should be looked at. And if there's a real struggle with trying to get 11, maybe that format needs to be condensed down. Just thinking out loud with you, and it would sure help us move things along expeditiously. Members are remoting in while they're on vacation. Just anything we can do to kind of keep moving forward for that. So I'd like to not come back. Love seeing you, but I'd really like to not come back. So perhaps that ought to be looked at. Y'all could talk about that and maybe find a way to get that a little bit more streamlined for us. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. >> We appreciate the love. >> Item 41 Michael curry, [10:46:05 AM] >> Item 41 Michael curry, Barbara Mcarthur, Jenny Grayson, Halima foster, Brad Massingill I'm not seeing any movement, so I'm just going to keep calling names. >> I see all the people or many of the people. >> Oh please come on down. If your name has been called and. >> If you're going to speak. >> Susan Spataro, Monica Guzman, Zenobia Joseph, Betsy Greenberg and Chris Paige. >> Go ahead and begin. >> Mr. Susan Spataro, district eight I wish to speak in favor of 48. And thank you, council member duchen for bringing this forward. The affordability in in Austin is a disaster. It just plain is. And displacing people from where they live creates an instability. People don't feel safe. The children [10:47:06 AM] don't feel safe. The children don't know what school they're going to. It's a big deal. And I think this program is a really good one to prevent people from being put in that position. In other words, help them be able to afford to stay in their homes. You know, I hear a lot of the the hearings on these kind of things, and it's almost like, I mean, acacia cliffs broke my heart, to be honest, because people don't recognize the fact that that, you know, people don't know where they're going to go if they're displaced, they don't know where their child's going to go to to school anymore. They don't know if there's going to be a bus. It's a terrible insecurity. And they say, well, you know, I mean, just move and later more move where and who's going to pay for the move. So it's a huge problem. And I love this program I do I think it's the right thing to do, help people who want to stay where they are. And this instability that people are facing results in mental illness. In so many [10:48:06 AM] mental illness. In so many programs, you hear mental illness is the problem. Can you imagine not knowing if you're going to be able to stay in your apartment and a child not knowing where he's going to school? So I think this is a good program. It doesn't cost a lot of money. City manager move fast if you can and get this implemented. And thank you, council member duchen and all of those that supported this. >> Hi, I'm Michael curry. I'm here to speak on 41. I appreciate a councilman member duchen bringing this forward. This this came up at the acacia cliffs matter when we saw a need to be able to fund a naturally occurring affordable housing, and this seems like a thoughtful response to that. I hope that we can use it fully and get it fully funded through the city funds, and also [10:49:07 AM] the city funds, and also through private funds, so I hope you'll look favorably on this. And and we'll implement it as proposed without trying to restrict it in any way. Thank you. >> Yes. Please proceed. >> My name is Betsy Greenberg and I live in district nine. I'm speaking in favor of item 41, a resolution intending to preserve naturally occurring affordable housing known as Noah. I want to thank council member duchen and his co-sponsors for bringing this forward. The resolution looks to develop and better utilize funding sources that could support housing preservation. The city manager is directed to prepare to prepare code changes to enhance relocation support. The manager should also be directed to make the code changes that are needed to require preservation or [10:50:08 AM] require preservation or replacement of Noah units. When density bonus programs are used. These requirements were written but removed when db 90 was passed and were weakened. For D.B. Todd, these changes could be in code quickly and easily, so the manager should be directed to to bring back an ordinance with code changes and given a deadline of the end of this calendar year to get it done. I have seen that resolutions that direct action without a deadline are given low priority. Protecting Austin's supply of existing affordable housing should be given the highest priority. Preventing displacement prevents homelessness. It also prevents the generation of extra traffic that occurs when individuals are forced to move outside of the city. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Brad Massingill, district three. Thanks, council member [10:51:09 AM] three. Thanks, council member duchen for for bringing this forward. Having been involved in in the acacia cliffs debacle and seeing it compared to other negotiations around town like the arrow apartments, the outcomes for this can be really different with the with the little help, you know, the, the the main driver. I'm hoping that this is a first step toward trying to figure out how to do some other things about zoning, because this it's it's displacement is driven by not only the placement of the db9's and etas and whatnot, but the adjacent ramifications of taxes going up in these areas and making these affordable houses less affordable. Because the transference of the landowners burden to the the renters and the prices go up and people [10:52:13 AM] the prices go up and people can't afford to live there, you know, it, it takes a lot of single moms to make the city go around, you know? And as we all know, their plates are full. They don't have time to be looking for a new place and being displaced every six months or a year. You know, we need to do something now about stabilizing the affordable housing market. So I appreciate this first step, and hopefully this is the beginning of a some communication. Like the mayor indicated a few months back about re calibrating the db ordinances and hopefully compatibility and some of the other things that are affecting neighborhoods. Thanks. >> Chris. >> Chris Paige district one. I'd like to thank the district ten office for bringing this forward. The need for it is obvious. I think it's clear. [10:53:14 AM] obvious. I think it's clear. I'd like to echo what's already been said about the affordability 1 to 1 replacement, which council member Fuentes brought up for 1832 a-1, which is a redevelopment requirement which requires one one replacement. And I think by having that in D.B. Todd, another density bonus programs will actually reduce the strain that would otherwise be felt in funding. What's brought today in this new housing funding amendment or initiative. The costs to replace the affordability that was lost at acacia cliffs was estimated between 60 and $70 million. I don't think the city is going to have 60 to 70 million extra anytime soon. So you have to fix your ordinances first. Your density, bonus programs and anything else that affects those. It is truly heartbreaking what happened to [10:54:15 AM] heartbreaking what happened to the families at acacia cliffs, the instability and the uncertainty that they now face. And it's a very fixable thing. I'd also like to echo the call for a hard timeline on when db 90 and other density bonus programs, or other land use policies could be fixed to be preventative instead of reactive. Because reaction costs ten X. What prevention costs? So please do that. Thank you. >> Hi, my name is Barbara Macarthur and I live in district seven. My neighborhood was full of Noah housing spacious units with two and three bedrooms for families that were affordable. Down the street from me was section eight housing. That housing was demolished in favor of db 90, which will produce less units than what was already demolished. What I see is we are building small luxury units to cater to displacing families [10:55:16 AM] to cater to displacing families throughout the city. I did a personal study of your D.B. Todd upzoning. I got your data. I calculated how many acres of mf1, mf2 and mf three housing you up zoned with D.B. Todd. And when you do the calculation, a modest calculation, you just upzone 22,000 affordable units. Assuming that the older zoning things are older units because, you know, these days you guys aren't handing out zoning for multifamily. So in that action, you took a. You just you indicated that it was okay to dispose of existing affordable housing. Existing affordable housing doesn't have to be luxury. It has to be affordable. And it has to be room have enough room for people and their families. Thank you. [10:56:16 AM] their families. Thank you. >> Good morning. I'm Monica Guzman, policy director at Garza. Lugo Austin vamos. Austin. We thank council member duchen and his co-sponsors on this item. We thank assistant city manager doctor Eric Johnson for his Noah briefing to council at the September 9th work session session. We agree with his remark that all cities should have a Noah plan. We view item 41 as favorable and want to point out that lines 59 through 111, the directors to the city manager all lack stated deadlines. The city manager's directed to explore any and all opportunities and what they should, at minimum include the second, be it further resolved states, annual reports and presenting recommendations. The third one about preparing an amendment to the city code that applies to the density bonus incentive programs and goals are the same. Not one of them has a specific schedule of when to report to council. Not one of them says [10:57:17 AM] council. Not one of them says report this back in three months, six months. So directors without deadlines are like budget recommendations, without dollar amounts. They look good. But when will action begin? Will it even begin? And if so, when? We also oppose use of subjective language such as high quality in council member vela's amendment, subjectivity without a standard is a potential loophole and opportunities for developers to take advantage of. In closing, we reached out to doctor Johnson's office for a follow up. If he and or a member of his staff is here, I'd appreciate a quick conversation. Thank you. >> Mayor. All speakers for consent have been called. >> Thank you very much, members. That concludes the speakers on consent. Remember item 13. I'm sorry, item 41 and 47 are [10:58:17 AM] sorry, item 41 and 47 are version two in the backup? I failed to say earlier, but the item 13 also has a version two. So item 13, item 41 and item 47 are version two. The chair will entertain a motion with regard to the consent agenda. >> The item. >> Yeah, you're right, I apologize. I was waiting to get to 73 and I didn't hear it, so I just skipped over it. Item number 73 members is a proposed settlement, and so we need to have a quick presentation from council before I take a motion. Thank you for reminding me. Thank you. >> Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Council members, mayor pro tem, I'm assistant city attorney Jeremy Thompson. I'm here today to recommend that you approve a settlement payment in a personal injury lawsuit that appears on your agenda as item number 73. We recommend that [10:59:17 AM] number 73. We recommend that you approve a payment of $190,000 to settle the John Chapman individually and as representative of the estate of Michael Chapman versus city of Austin lawsuit. This lawsuit relates to a March 2022 car accident involving an Austin resource recovery vehicle, where John Chapman, as representative of the estate of Michael Chapman, seeks payment for injuries allegedly sustained in the accident. In exchange for the payment, plaintiff will release any and all claims against the city from the accident and will also dismiss his lawsuit filed in the district court of Travis county. The law department recommends that you approve payment based upon these terms, and I'm available to answer any questions you may have. >> Thank you. Thank you. Members. Anybody have any questions of council? Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate it. Thanks for the reminder. All right. With that, we now have completed the consent agenda. Comments. So the chair will entertain a motion with regard [11:00:19 AM] entertain a motion with regard to the consent agenda. Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda as read? And I'm looking over here to my right I can't imagine. Yeah, there's there's council member Siegel. He's he's for it. And council member Laine seconds the motion. Yeah I understand with that. Let me let me ask if anybody wishes to be heard with regard to the consent agenda. And if you do, please queue up in the in the council member Velazquez, you are recognized, followed by councilmember Laine and council member alter. >> Oh man. First up I was I was waiting on my notes here, but. >> Council member harper-madison I got you. Okay, you'll follow council member alter. >> So colleagues, today we have a packed agenda with a number of items that are addressing affordability and anti-displacement. The first one, district three is 70% renters. And when we talk about housing and housing options, we need to make sure that we are ensuring that they are part of the conversation. I submitted a motion sheet last night on item [11:01:20 AM] motion sheet last night on item 12, and it's asking that we allow renters to be eligible to apply for short- term rental, a short term rental license, if it's allowable in the term of their lease. This would be a relief to renters and a valuable additional resource and and source of income that will help prevent displacement in some of our most rapidly gentrifying areas. On item 18, I'm encouraged by the expansion of the displacement prevention navigators program to include montopolis and areas one mile of project connect, and I'm looking forward to working with the new contractors to help people in my district stay in their homes. On item 41, I am proud to be a co-sponsor and to have worked with councilmember duchen on this item on preserving naturally affordable, naturally occurring, affordable housing, and I wanted to share how grateful I am to doctor Johnson's expertise and leadership. I would also like to take the opportunity to welcome director Dean, our new housing director, who already in our first meeting is a breath of fresh air and [11:02:21 AM] breath of fresh air and inspiring. I'm excited to see what we can accomplish for the have nots of this city. Item 46 today. Today we're working to extend the existing homestead preservation zone in east Austin with item 46. The current hpp has helped create almost 650 units of affordable housing, and we're giving it another ten years in additional and an additional 20% that will give us the opportunity to generate even more and necessary affordable housing in the coming years. And with item 47, we are looking to expand the benefits of that home of the homestead preservation zone that can bring that can bring it to other parts of Austin, and staff will be looking at additional eligible areas in districts two, four, seven and nine. Following council member alter's amendment. I've said this before, but I think it is important to reiterate we are using everything in our toolbox to slow and prevent displacement, maximize [11:03:21 AM] displacement, maximize affordability, and protect low and moderate income austinites from housing related financial stressors. This is something we can do, and I feel privileged to be serving on this dais with, with, with all of you and being able to advocate for this. I want to thank on on my items. I want to thank council member alter mayor pro tem Fuentes and council member vela. Thank you to our housing staff for working closely with our office on these items. Thank you to the district three senior policy advisor for putting up with me through all of our work on these items, and a special shout out to representative Eddie Rodriguez, who carried this item in the state house some years back, and a little known senator from Saginaw, Texas that carried it in the senate, senator Kirk Watson, we appreciate your efforts, and I'm so glad you get to be here with us seeing all this come to fruition. >> Pretty cool. Thank you. Councilmember Laine followed by councilmember alter, then councilmember harper-madison. >> Thank you. I comment on items three and. >> Four, which are related to [11:04:22 AM] >> Four, which are related to Austin energy, energy efficiency and solar rebates, with approximately half of Austin residents now renting their homes and the percentage of their income that is spent on housing continuing to increase, renters in all property types should be able to benefit from energy efficiency improvements that bring down utility bills and reduce energy consumption. Therefore, I want to express my full support for Austin energy's initiatives to expand the use of energy efficiency and solar rebates, and I look forward to continuing to work together to build this momentum. In relation to item 12 short term rentals. I want to thank my colleagues on council for bringing this short term rental item forward. I am encouraged to see so many important protections included now, and I look forward to working with our community stakeholders to address the remaining challenges and ensure that we build an efficient system that works better for everyone. I look forward to getting something passed so that we can then continue to improve so that we have these protections in place. Item number 36 is related to life van eenoo and [11:05:24 AM] related to life van eenoo and violence support and prevention for K through 12 students. I am very glad to see violence prevention programs that target our young students and those who care with them, care for them. Children exposed to violence at a young age need even more accessible support than adults, and this life anew engages children and those who care for them in conversation about what causes violence and how to prevent it. I want to thank Austin public health and life anew for extending this agreement, which I know will continue doing important things for Austin families, preventing violence is less expensive and more effective than than responding to its consequences. So I very much appreciate this targeting of our youth in these programs. In relation to item number 41, I want to thank council member duchen for bringing this item forward. Council member vela for his ongoing work on these issues. It's so important to continue this important this work to address Austin's housing challenges. And I welcome also the expertise of assistant city manager Johnson and what he [11:06:26 AM] manager Johnson and what he brings to this work. I'm committed to striking the right balance between preserving existing housing and adding new and adding new housing so that Austin moves forward towards a better mix of housing that's both affordable and truly livable at every stage of life. And I consider myself quite fortunate to have so many members of council working so hard on this as topic. Still, with respect to items 46 and 47, well, actually I'll I'll focus on item 47. This is related to new homestead preservation districts. Another important topic for continuing to preserve that balance of housing. I want to thank my colleagues for the work that has been done on this, and I really appreciated the backup that staff provided that had maps of Austin census tracts with higher poverty and low income concentrations. I do want to elevate my concern that these maps omitted income data for Austin addresses outside of Travis county. As I know my own district best, I will share that 60% of it is in Williamson county, and all of the low income and poverty clusters, or [11:07:27 AM] income and poverty clusters, or the vast majority of the low income and poverty clusters in district six, are within Williamson county. So by preparing what appear to be citywide maps that do not show us where the low income and poverty clusters are in Williamson county, we have omitted the entire part of my district that would benefit from this type of analysis. It is also an area that has limited access to public transit, other services that support low income families, and in particular these Williamson county clusters have significant numbers of families with young children. And so I think it's important that as we see where poverty is clustered in our city, that we also see that in the counties, in the other counties. So I'm hopeful that these staff could update these maps to include low income and poverty characteristics in Williamson county, and to whatever extent, hays county should also be enclosed so that we can see that information about our low income families and young children. And finally, I would just quickly like to note in relation to item 62, which is zoning matter, it is the indefinite postponement of the river place pda. And I want to [11:08:28 AM] river place pda. And I want to note that this postponement appears to me to be a very clear indicator of the need to resolve how Austin will implement sb 840 quickly, so that all stakeholders have clarity moving forward. And I want to thank Austin's planning staff in advance for the hard work that will that will come, that will be required to fully implement this this sb 840. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Councilmember, councilmember, alter. Councilmember harper-madison. Then councilmember vela. >> Thank you very much. A little bit of echoing here, but wanted to start with items three and four from Austin energy. I had a chance to meet with some of my neighbors this week and talk about incentives and rebates that our utilities offer, and this item or these two items are going to make that experience easier and more accessible for our both single family and multifamily customers. You know, we have seen so many of these [11:09:31 AM] seen so many of these incentives cut at the state and federal level. And so it's even more important today that we are doing everything we can to continue to help homeowners and renters be able to access incentives that not only save them money, but is more sustainable and good for the climate. So I just want to thank Austin energy for their work on this. I also want to send kudos item 47 on the homestead preservation district expansion. I remember getting to work on that. I was the the staff member behind the member himself, getting to help do my little part, and it's really cool to see something that you get to work on now. Go into the community and help real people. That was always the goal that we talked about was, how can we have one more tool, and now we can see that that tool is going to bring real affordability for residents throughout Austin. [11:10:31 AM] residents throughout Austin. And so I applaud the leadership, both of the mayor, then senator, and now council member Velazquez, on trying to use this tool to its maximum. And and also the openness to look into areas where our students live and recognize that they too, while often forgotten in the affordable housing conversation, need that help. And looking at item 41 that the council member duchen brought, you know this. We have to just collect all these tools because there is no one way to solve Austin's affordable housing challenges. We have to use every, every tool and every creative thought. We have to get there. And so today, I'm really excited that we're doing that and look forward to the implementation of these items so that austinites can continue to live here and enjoy everything that Austin has to offer. >> Thank you. Council member. Council member harper-madison. [11:11:32 AM] Council member harper-madison. Council member vela. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll avoid reiterating most of what was said already, but I'll acknowledge that no is cheaper, faster and greener than new construction. And with our ability to save 50 to 75% of embodied carbon and avoiding lengthy permitting, as I speak to that, I wanted to just make note. One of our colleagues, I'm sorry, one of our constituents earlier made note that in addition to maintaining affordability, we have to maintain livability. I, my family, had the great misfortune of having three naturally occurring income restricted housing incidents where we ended up in the hospital with carbon monoxide. So I just want to make certain that as we place the priority on maintaining affordability, that we recognize what council member was saying when he said Liverpool decent. What he was saying was, if you live in a house full of lead and asbestos [11:12:33 AM] house full of lead and asbestos and carbon monoxide, you know there has to be a better way. And so I just I'd like to make certain that we, you know, as we speak on issues about preservation of affordability. We also recognize that sometimes it's affordable because it's not a great lived environment. And so just wanting to make note of that, I also wanted to bring up that our peer cities that are doing it the way that they're doing it really well is by leveraging public and private dollars. The district one office had a really cool opportunity to go to Detroit recently and have the opportunity to to sit in on a, a, an event that was about land trust. And what we're talking about there is our city's ability to leverage what we have. And oftentimes that's land. And then what our philanthropy community and private partners have, which is money that we don't. We can also do the same and see the [11:13:34 AM] also do the same and see the same with bonds that are successful in peer cities. So I'm looking forward to see and how we're able to recognize that Austin is unique in a lot of ways. You know, I, I appreciate that two of my colleagues have made mention of the newest senate bill, and I couldn't help but recognize that some of our constituents were speaking. I think some of what they're talking about is about to be obsolete. And so I do really hope that council member lane's, you know, requests that we get to see what the practical application looks like. So we actually know what we're talking about moving forward. I personally suspect it's going to change a lot of what our discussions look like around housing. Moving over to item number 45, this fee waiver totaling $23,000, it will remove a significant financial barrier to building three affordable 3D printed homes in central Austin. This particular company, I just happened to stumble on a show on apple TV, and they were building these 3D [11:14:36 AM] and they were building these 3D homes in Mexico, and it was extraordinary. And I hope that we do take the opportunity as a technological city, as an innovative city, to think about all the ways that we can produce housing, never be shy about, you know, nontraditional methods. The one thing that I kept thinking about as I was watching the show is that they were building houses in Mexico. We have another friend of city hall who has an organization called project schoolhouse, and they build schoolhouses, but they build them in south America. Barriers by way of cost and construction and access and zoning. And, you know, I would love to see more organizations that are coming up with super innovative ways to address poverty, have the ability to access those opportunities in the states, you know, and that we take that opportunity to remove barriers, then moving beyond that. Item number 47, this I'm super interested in seeing how the [11:15:39 AM] interested in seeing how the new homestead preservation district affects communities. So really interested to to see how we move forward there momentarily. And then I think there I only had one other. And so yes. So just really thinking about our opportunities around affordable housing and recognizing that I absolutely don't believe that moving forward, we're going to have the opportunity to incentivize as many developers as we otherwise could have with what we've acknowledged is potentially flawed affordable housing programs. But that means as we hit the drawing board again and as we put our heads back together, I would love to see that that conversation be more productive. Between the council, our friends at the state and our constituents, because it's going to take us all to figure out such a complex issue and a state with complex rules. So [11:16:40 AM] state with complex rules. So thank you for acknowledging me, I appreciate it. Thank you, everybody, for your. >> Yes. >> Councilmember vela. Councilmember duchen. >> Thank you. Mayor. I just wanted to comment on the contract, the that's going out for the Austin sister cities international, great group that has been doing phenomenal work, all volunteer based with a tiny little budget, organizing multiple festivals around the city, organizing multiple trips to international communities where just, again, folks, you know, pay their own way and build relationships and build goodwill for for Austin and for Texas. It's a lot of work, and hopefully this money will help them hire a full time staff member. For the first time in the 50 plus year history of the organization, they've grown to the point where they really do need the administrative support, and I'm glad that we're going [11:17:40 AM] and I'm glad that we're going to be finally able to provide it. And I also wanted to take a moment, just as an example of the work that they do. September 20th, next Saturday is the oita festival at the long center. I've been the last two years. Unfortunately, I'm going to be visiting family on that weekend and I'm going to miss it for the first time in a few years. It was such a successful event that we had to move it from the Asian American resource center over to the long center. Last year there must have been 3000 people there, packed beautiful events, beautiful cultural events, food, music, martial arts, just a great mix. I really encourage people to go check out the festival September 20th in the afternoon. Just as an example of the tremendous sister city relationships that that we have built and the the cultural opportunities that they open up here in the city of Austin. >> Thank you. Thank you, [11:18:42 AM] >> Thank you. Thank you, councilmember. Councilmember duchen. >> Thank you. Mayor. First, I want to quickly mention item five, which we really haven't talked about today. And that's regarding the Colorado river alliance. I had the pleasure of learning more at their very cool mobile river trailer when they are at a fundraiser recently for first responders at mozart's in my district. This is a really cool, state of the art facility that helps residents understand their water usage, and they've got a lot of interactive tools and games to learn more about water and water policy. So I had this really brilliant idea, I thought, and suggested, wouldn't it be great to bring them here to city hall to help educate people? Well, now we block 17 lanes of traffic outside, so I guess mission accomplished. But yeah, I know I was. I was way ahead of this. In all seriousness, I invite everybody. If anybody's curious to learn more, head outside when they have a chance. It's a really great opportunity to learn more about water policy. [11:19:42 AM] learn more about water policy. >> They'll be there till one. Okay. >> Thank you. Mayor. Like councilmember vela, I want to thank the work of the sister cities program. I see some friends here in the audience to support this effort. This is really a great program about creating relationships, about economic development opportunities, and about learning from other cities across the globe about how we can improve our own city. And then the last thing I want to touch on is item 41, which is the naturally occurring affordable housing preservation item. First, I want to start by just expressing a lot of gratitude to the mayor's staff, council member Velasquez and councilmember qadri, and mayor pro tem Fuentes, the resolution's co-sponsors. With their help, we were able to craft, I think, a better policy. And I also want to thank my own team and especially William grant, for quarterbacking this for four months. Most importantly, I want to thank doctor Johnson, our new acm. And I think also the city [11:20:43 AM] And I think also the city manager, for having a hand in bringing him here. Doctor Johnson, this would have been infinitely harder without your help and domain knowledge and expertise in this space, and we're looking forward to taking your knowledge and trying to swiftly implement this here more broadly. Gentrification, displacement, I think we've already seen this year continue to plague Austin, and despite a lot of efforts from this and prior councils, we're going to need new tools to combat these, these challenges. So part of what the resolution does is lay the groundwork for we've been calling it the Austin housing opportunity fund, based on Dallas's. I'd love for y'all's ideas to workshop that, which is one of the chief tools that's been effective elsewhere. We tried to get this resolution on the agenda as quickly as possible. As doctor Johnson pointed out the other day, we're losing upwards of 800 new units every year, so the city is going to need to act fast with a fund like this to help prevent those losses where [11:21:44 AM] prevent those losses where possible. And obviously, per councilmember vela and others, where it's appropriate. Moreover, we we think that between multifamily land and units and land prices being somewhat lower than they have been in recent years, that's also a contextual opportunity for us to try and stretch every dollar we have, because I sense that that housing preservation is only going to be more expensive going forward. The other reality I want to just alert us to is that even with the fund, there's really no single tool. I think that's going to win this battle alone. Every neighborhood in our community has neighbor, has no properties and more broadly is at risk of being redeveloped in different ways. And so I'm encouraged that our council's working together on this rather than focus on individual properties or individual districts. So I said, I'm just looking forward to what doctor Johnson brings to us, hopefully in a matter of days, if not weeks. And I know you have [11:22:44 AM] weeks. And I know you have moved swiftly and other in other places to get these kind of programs implemented, and I'm optimistic we can continue to move rapidly here and review, implement your recommendations. Thank you. >> Thank thank you, councilmember duchen members. Those are all the folks that have indicated they want to speak on the consent agenda. I do want to just for clarity purposes, what councilmember duchen was referring to is the mobile river Colorado river alliance trailer that he was referring to. It's our water department, our water staff. Austin water staff has that out on second street and it will be there for free tirz until 1:00 for folks that want to see that. And it's it's worth doing. So I want to make sure that we're clear on that. Thank you for bringing that up. Council member members, is there anybody that wants to abstain from a vote on the consent agenda or any item on the consent agenda? Is there anyone wishing to recuse themselves from a vote on any item on the consent agenda? Anyone wishing to be shown voting no on any item on the consent agenda? That being the case, without [11:23:45 AM] That being the case, without objection, the consent agenda as read is adopted. Members that will now take us to item number 11. And just so that the public will know and members, what I think we'll do is we'll take up item number 11. And then I'm going to go ahead and go to our eminent domain and our public hearings to work us toward our 12:00 noon. I'm sorry. Before we go to item number 11, I want to go to Austin housing finance corporation. So we'll do a sfc. Then we'll go to item number 11. I apologize for that. Members. Without objection, we will recess the meeting of the Austin city council at 1123 1123 1123. Man. I'm tired. 11:23 A.M. We are we are recessed. I will call back to order at 1132, the meeting of the Austin city council at its regular scheduled meeting of the Austin city council members. As I indicated, I'm going to go to item 11. Then I'm going to probably we'll see how how that long that takes. And then we will probably go to the eminent domain and public hearing items [11:32:52 AM] domain and public hearing items as we shoot for our 12:00 time, certain unless there's some objection or question to that. So I'll call up item number 11 members. Item number 11, as you know, is related to approval of an ordinance related to graffiti, including a new definition for transportation infrastructure, and prohibit prohibition of graffiti and establishing a notice procedure and graffiti removal removal process and creating offenses. What I would like to do is get a motion on the table. Is there a motion to approve item number 11? Motions made by council member Velazquez, seconded by councilmember Ellis. Now, members, we have two proposed amendments to item number 11. They are both proposed by council member duchen. Council member duchen. I will recognize you on what I'm referring to as duchen amendment number one and members, it's in front of you and it's labeled duchen direction collection of data. So it's labeled collection of data. But that will be proposed [11:33:54 AM] data. But that will be proposed duchen amendment number one to item number 11. Councilmember duchen, you have the floor. >> Thank you. Mayor, I wanted to start by saying I'm supportive of this item. And graffiti is a serious issue for our city. It's been an issue for some time. It's been an issue in my district. I'm sure it's been an issue in your districts. I've had the privilege of consulting with a variety of stakeholders and business owners and downtown commissioners regarding this issue, and one point that keeps percolating up and up is that if we leave this issue alone, it gets worse. And so abatement is key to managing this challenge. The the first motion that we've got really is just about making sure that we're monitoring that our efforts are successful. And so I want to make sure that we've got a good handle on our activities, our timelines, and that we're clearing these challenges as they come up. And that's really the extent of that first motion. I'm hoping that you all will [11:34:55 AM] I'm hoping that you all will agree with me that being able to track this and being able to show that we're doing a comprehensive job addressing this wherever it pops up, is going to be useful to trying to solve this issue. >> Councilmember duchen and members, for clarity purposes, you have a version two of item number 11, and that's the the motion is to approve item number 11, version two. That's in the backup. Councilmember duchen moves to amend item number 11 with duchen. Number one collection of data. Is there a second to the motion? Second by council member Ellis. Is there discussion on the duchen motion to amend number one hearing none. Without objection. The motion duchen motion. Motion to amend number one direction collection of data is adopted that will take us to duchen amendment proposed amendment number two to item number 11, as amended. Related is labeled removal from public property. Councilmember duchen, [11:35:56 AM] property. Councilmember duchen, you're recognized on your proposed amendment number two to item number 11, as amended. >> Thank you. Mayor. This is also a pretty basic amendment. We're just trying to make sure that we're emphasizing the public challenges that we have with graffiti on on city property. As much as we are asking individuals that have private property to help manage their responsibility. So really just trying to make sure that we're not overemphasizing on one when we know that we've got our own challenges here on city property to try and address. And that's all we're directing staff to make sure that while this resolution I think is really helpful in terms of implementing a plan for working with private property owners to try and do that abatement and pay for it from the city, I want to make sure that we're not neglecting our city responsibility on our own property as well. Thank you. >> Councilmember duchen moves to amend item number 11, as amended with duchen number two removal from public property. Is there a second second by council member Ellis? [11:36:58 AM] council member Ellis? Discussion with regard to duchen amendment number two to item number 11, as amended. Hearing none without objection. Duchen. Number two removal from duchen. Amendment number two to item number 11, as amended. Removal from public property is also adopted. Members that will take us back to the main motion. I'll just say this is something that since I've been back in city hall the last two and a half, two and three quarters years, this has been one of the things that I've probably whined about the most. So I'm very happy we are moving forward on this. To council member duchin's point, some of the discussions that he's had, I really strongly feel that if we want to preserve and protect and enhance our sense of place in Austin, Texas, the beauty of our city, we need to be moving forward on things like this. It, it it stabilizes the feeling of the value that comes from not having damage to properties in [11:38:00 AM] having damage to properties in our city through vandalism and graffiti. And so I'm very pleased to see us moving forward on this and appreciate councilmember duchen amendments to make it a stronger proposal. Is there any other discussion with regard to item number 11, as amended? Hearing none without objection. Item number 11, as amended, is adopted. Thank you all. That will take us now to item number 48 members. Item number 48 is an eminent domain item. Let me first turn to the city clerk's and ask if there's anyone signed up to speak on item number eight. >> There are no speakers for 48. >> I'm sorry. Yeah, 48 members. There are no speakers on item number 48. So with respect to item number 48, this is a nonconsent condemnation item. The chair will recognize a motion to the effect that the city council of Austin authorizes the use of the power of eminent domain to acquire the property set forth and described in the agenda for this current meeting, and for [11:39:01 AM] this current meeting, and for for the public use that's described therein. Is there a motion on item number 48? As I've indicated, motion is made by council member alter, seconded by the mayor pro tem. Is there any discussion with regard to item number 48? Hearing none. Without objection. Item number 48 is adopted. Members. We will now go to item number 50, which is a public hearing. Item number 50 is a public hearing. And it's brought forth because there is no feasible and prudent alternative to the use of dedicated parkland. And all reasonable planning has been and will be taken to minimize harm to such lands. Members. For the record, the dates of the public notification in the Austin American statesman were August 17th, 24th and 31st, 2025. I'll turn to the city clerk. Without objection, we will open the public hearing on [11:40:03 AM] will open the public hearing on item number 50. The public hearing is now open on item number 50, and I will turn to the city clerk. >> Thank you, mayor, for item 50. I have Cameron Cassidy, bill bunch, and Bobby Levinsky. >> If your name's been called, please come forward and have a seat. >> They just nominated me to go first. >> That's what. >> It looked like. Bobby Levinsky, save our springs alliance. So item 50 is a condemnation of about three and a half acres of parkland at the Hemphill park. I want to express some concerns about what continues to be a trend of using parkland to satisfy the infrastructure deficiencies in [11:41:04 AM] infrastructure deficiencies in our growing and Austin's growing city. Since at least 2012, the watershed protection department has highlighted the need for code changes so that redeveloping properties contribute to the flooding solutions that these areas need. We were promised those code changes would proceed after the most recent home related code changes to date. Those have not been brought forward, and they could really make an impact on the amount of water that's being contained on these developments. A lot of the flooding in this area is actually caused by development that occurred before we had adequate flooding standards, and so we're exacerbating that problem by not addressing it on site with each one of those developments. Austin already ranks fairly low compared to its peer cities, 54th out of 100 of the largest cities in America. That ranking is going to continue to drop with the state legislatures restraint on our on the city's ability to acquire parkland, on the ability to raise money, to [11:42:05 AM] ability to raise money, to maintain it. So we really need to be maintaining all of the parkland that we have throughout the city. If we have any hopes of having adequate parkland for Austin's residents, this should be really concerning. I understand that the flooding benefits that are being presented by this item, but what we are seeing is a trend across the city where this is a approach that's being used on at each site. Under the staff's own analysis, the resulting land will have a 50 to 80% diminishment of its use to the neighborhood. You know, that is should be concerning for the trash and debris that's going to be building up the amount of flooding that occurs on the property. I plan soccer fields where it really doesn't work. >> Thank you, thank you. Whoever wants to go next. >> Go ahead. >> Somebody go. >> All right. >> I'm Cameron Cassidy with district nine. And I wanted to echo what these folks with save our springs are saying. These guys know a lot more about it [11:43:08 AM] guys know a lot more about it than I do. But I also wanted to give an input because I think Austin is Austin because of its parks and its greenery. And otherwise if we keep. Putting development over our parks, we're going to end up with a concrete jungle and lose the soul of Austin in a sense. Austin should strengthen its redevelopment policies instead of sacrificing our limited parkland. The public should not have to suffer because of poor development practices taken up by corporations or landlords. They should. They should be the ones to solve the drainage problem themselves and not get pushed off onto the public and use the public spaces as a type of grabs for them. An analogy I came up with was if you live in a in a apartment complex and your dumpsters were continuously getting full and overflowed with trash, that [11:44:09 AM] overflowed with trash, that would be like using your tenants parking spaces for. To offload the duty onto them. And that doesn't seem very fair. And I think that should this responsibility should be left up to the developers. And not the public, and use the public parkland. Thank you. >> Mr. Bunch. >> Good morning mayor council bill bunch save our springs alliance, speaking against this as vehemently as we can, diverting roughly a third to a half of Adams Hemphill park in the heart of our city historic park to flood control. We're. We desperately need to save every square inch of our parks in the central city in particular. And as you've heard before, this is basically taking the flood water that y'all should be requiring redevelopers to handle on site and dumping it onto our the [11:45:10 AM] and dumping it onto our the public's back and diverting parkland to what is really providing private flood control services. You got to stop this. This is a legal standard for basically condemning public parkland for a non-park use. The legal standard is no feasible and prudent alternatives. The backup just makes that that there aren't any. There's no evidence in the backup. You're not introducing any evidence in this required public hearing to support this conclusory statement. Where is the cost benefit analysis? What alternatives did you really look at and evaluate and see what you could get out of? What benefits are you getting out of this? What's the real cost? The backup only tells us, oh, we're going to pay parks this mitigation fee of 2 million. But how much does it actually cost to build the project? That information is not even in there. And what real flood [11:46:12 AM] there. And what real flood benefits and who benefits from this flooding is that high dollar commercial property as well downstream? Is it UT property where they should be helping take care of this? We really need to back up and have the flood control flood waters managed by the private property owners, commercial and residential. We can help them. That's a decentralized and community building process that is effective alternative. >> Members. The I'll entertain a motion on item number 50. The motion will include that it's being brought forth because there's no feasible and prudent alternative to the use of dedicated parkland, and all reasonable planning has been and will has been and will be taken to minimize harm to such lands. It will. The motion will also notice that the dates of public notification in the Austin american-statesman were August 17th, 24th and 31st, 2025. Motion is made by council [11:47:12 AM] 2025. Motion is made by council member vela, seconded by council member Siegel. Discussion on the item. >> Mayor. >> Yes. Councilmember Siegel. >> Mosque, a representative of watershed to come down. Ask questions. >> Jorge morales, director of the watershed department. >> Thank you, director, for coming down. And I've gotten to see some of the watershed materials about this project, which to me seems very important and something that needs to be replicated. A lot of neighborhoods of the city. But I want to start by asking you to kind of just lay out the need for this watershed facility. >> Thank you. Council member. Yes, and I have some of our staff here, too, and the parks department, if you want to get more specifics. But overall, this is a storm drain improvement project for the Guadalupe neighborhood, which is, as you know, similar to some of the districts in your in your neighborhood, in your neighborhoods, in your district, [11:48:13 AM] neighborhoods, in your district, there are older neighborhoods that have existing flooding issues. So we have to upsize the storm system. Part of our policy is we have to mitigate the impacts of any additional runoff that's created when we upsize our system. So we look for open space to be able to mitigate those flows. And for this project, that's what we're starting with. Adam Hemphill park is an ideal spot that helps us create that opportunity. And it's a partnership. We've had numerous meetings with the community, with the parks department, and what we're here for is eminent domain, not eminent chapter 26. So it mitigates the impacts on that park property. So we go through that process and calculate the fees. And there's betterments that are created as part of this improvement project. And that's posted on the website as well. So that's generally the process. If you have any more specific I'd be happy to answer that. >> Thank you. Yeah I guess my main additional question is could you describe the impact of this project on the park and access to the park? Yeah. Go ahead. >> Janet Spencer, watershed protection assistant director. Yeah, so the goal of the project, as as George was [11:49:14 AM] project, as as George was mentioning, is to move water. I think we're impacting about 285 residents and having flood risk reduction. And most of those are residential. And so it is something that is difficult to accomplish through some of our development and redevelopment is because a lot of these residential will stay residential. And then as as far as the park and the impacts to the park, there is a lower basin that will be kind of an open field area that will be the main area that collects the water. It's also an area that is partially inundated now in some of these storm events. And so the goal is when there's heavy rains in these areas, most people aren't using the parkland in large events. And so our parkland can, in this land, can work as hard for our residents as possible by providing that flood benefit. And within 24 hours, that water would be gone and it can go back to park use. And so similarly, our detention ponds aren't doing much for us when it's sunny outside. So this is how we can have these dual use spaces and get the most use out of our land. >> Thank you so much. Nothing further. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Councilmember alter. >> Just want to clarify something you just said. So when it's in normal conditions like sunny day like today, this [11:50:16 AM] like sunny day like today, this isn't going to be some big concrete hole, but something that someone could go walk on or enjoy regularly. >> Correct. And the goal, not just the goal, but by code. We have to have it actually drain within a certain amount of time. And so it's important to us for both of the uses and for the functionality of the pond. Additionally, we are paying for park improvements, so there's going to be a lot of new amenities as part of the park. And we are putting those amenities outside as much as we can outside of the area. So those will be open to use immediately after these storms, as long as it's not actively raining. So the total amount that you see being paid here is the actual cash. But there's also a little over 2 million, maybe close to $3 million worth of amenities that are being included to improve the park space as well. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Without objection. Item number 50 is hang on a second, I did technically we did not close the public hearing and and I'll. We didn't do that. But I want to make sure. Is [11:51:18 AM] But I want to make sure. Is there any objection to having closed the public hearing there being none. That public hearing is recognized as closed now, without objection, item number 50 is adopted. Members that will take us. Thank you both very much. That will take us to item number 51. Item number 51 is also a public hearing. And without objection, we will open the public hearing on item number 51. The public hearing is now open on item number 51. And I will turn to our city clerk. >> There are no speakers for 51 members. >> There aren't any speakers on item number 51. So without objection, we will close the public hearing on item number 51. The public hearing is now closed on item number 51. And I will ask, is there a motion to approve item number? The resolution item 51 is made by council member vela, seconded by the mayor pro tem. Discussion on item number 51. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. Without objection, we will adopt item number. The [11:52:19 AM] we will adopt item number. The resolution on item number 50. I thought we did that, but okay. Is there is there any objection to closing the public hearing? No. There. Hearing none. The public hearing is now closed. Now on item number 51 we have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. Without objection. Item number 51 is adopted. Members, we have eight minutes before we go to our two hour 12:00 time. Certain. So what I'm going to do with if there's no objection is we will go to item number 12 and we will call up item number 12. And I will turn to the clerk, because we do have some speakers on item number 12. And we'll go ahead and hear from those speakers and then roll into the public comment at 12:00. So would you start on item number 12? >> Thank you. Mayor Michael curry and Mr. Curry, are you here? >> I don't see him now. >> He had some time donated. [11:53:19 AM] >> He had some time donated. Jenny Grayson, bill bunch, Monica Guzman, Betsy Greenberg, and Chris Paige. >> All right, Mr. Bunch, miss Guzman, miss Greenberg, if you'll please come forward. Item 12. >> Go ahead. >> My name is Betsy Greenberg, and I live in district nine. I think it was implied that you weren't going to hear this until the afternoon, which is why people went to lunch. But anyway, I'm here and I am against item 12 as it fails to add substantial limitations on short term rentals. Short term rentals cut into the housing supply that you all claim to believe Austin requires. When [11:54:19 AM] believe Austin requires. When changes were made to finally enforce short term rental registration and payment of hotel occupancy tax, the decision was made to defer limiting short term rentals until after the legislature and courts acted on short term rental issues. To quote a letter I received yesterday from Texas neighborhood coalition, courts across Texas are increasingly affirming the rights of cities to regulate or restrict short term rentals. Recent wins in Arlington, fort Worth, grapevine and new braunfels confirm that cities can protect residential neighborhoods from str hotels. Plano also serves as a strong example, having implemented its ordinance without a court challenge. In addition, the attempt at the state legislature to provide str immunity failed. Short term rentals do not make good neighbors, and they undermine housing availability. Please [11:55:20 AM] housing availability. Please postpone item 12 and take the time to include more substantial changes to limit the impact of short term rentals. I wrote that before I saw how many amendments were posted this morning, that the public really hasn't had time to consider digest. Please postpone this and get it right. Thank you. >> For the record, the reason we're hearing from people now is to make sure we do efficient use of our time. We're not going to be voting on this. And if people come back, we and for the for everybody's paying attention, what we will probably do is go to our time, certain public comment at noon. And then when we finish with that recess until 110, which is what we've been doing pretty regularly. When we come back, we will take up item number 12 at that point. And if somebody that had signed up to speak is here, before we start talking on that and discussing it, we'll hear from them. Thank you, miss Guzman. [11:56:22 AM] miss Guzman. >> Thank you for that. Mayor Watson. Good afternoon. Well, no, it's still morning. Good morning. I'm Monica Guzman, policy director at Garza. Go, Austin. Vamos. Austin. As we stated at the February 27th council meeting, we oppose permitting a short term rental on every residential lot. Certainly not two on lots that have three or fewer units. Doing so eliminates a home for an Austin family or resident. We agree with and support statements from the other people registered to speak, and may have gone to lunch. The rest of my time is sharing a statement from a district for quail hollow resident leader. When I walk around the block, I pass by four airbnb homes, all owned by out of town people or investment companies. None are mom and pop homeowners trying to earn some extra income. Ironically, the one two doors down responsible for massive disruptions in the neighborhood with traffic, all night, [11:57:23 AM] with traffic, all night, parties, noise, trash, etc. Was thankfully just sold by its Houston area owner. Due to the aforementioned complaints and the interior being trashed, we now have nice neighbors who love our quiet, friendly, and diverse little neighborhood. While platform accountability is more than a worthwhile goal and one that I support, short term rentals, housing, no Austin residents, voters, wage earners, or school children are detrimental to the city of Austin in general, and affordability in particular. They take homes off the sale and rental market and are destructive to neighborhoods by their very existence. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Bunch. >> Good morning mayor. Council bill bunch here with save our springs alliance district five. Also asking that you postpone this item or at least only take [11:58:24 AM] this item or at least only take action on first reading so that there can be further public addressing of this issue and consideration by y'all. The information y'all are putting out is grossly misleading. Talking about oh, more money for the live music fund. Well, a small fraction might do that, but this is we know what this is about. This is grasping for yet more money to pour into the magic hole of your $5 billion boondoggle, the convention center that is, you know, flailing because we're not collecting the funds that you thought we would with our hot tax. The law has been clear that you have more powers than you think you have, than you're being told you have. Those need to be exercised to protect neighborhood, to protect affording affordable housing, to protect housing supply, which every one of you claims is your very top priority. This flies directly in the face of those claims and that posturing. It's known strs are globally a [11:59:28 AM] It's known strs are globally a real problem in cities that have substantial tourism like we do from big cities like Barcelona being the poster child down to small villages where people are displaced in favor of tourism and often unmanaged and poorly managed tourism, as here, you really need to step back from this and think it through and do it right and serve your constituents for a change instead of the big money. Because most of these are investor owned. We're not talking about little mom and pops trying to make a few bucks off a bedroom in the backyard. Seriously. >> Please call any names that people on item number 12. And as I've indicated, when we come back at 110, we'll we'll start with item number 12. And so if anybody is here, we'll take it [12:00:29 PM] anybody is here, we'll take it up. At that time. >> I think we just had Michael curry and Chris Paige that haven't spoken. >> And I don't see either one of them. All right. What we'll do is we'll members here's here's the the way I would suggest we proceed. We will now go to our 12:00 time certain it's 12:00. We'll take up our our public comment. We'll hear from our speakers on public comment. We will then recess until 110. We will have our live music until we come back at 110. We will take up item number 12. And members, for purposes of y'all organizing item number 12, we'll call on any speakers that weren't here on item number 12. And then the way I would propose we go through the amendments would be we would first go to council member Duncan's proposed amendment, then council member alters proposed amendments. Council member Velazquez Velasquez proposed amendment and council member vela proposed amendments. So that's that's how I think we'll proceed at 110. With that being [12:01:31 PM] proceed at 110. With that being said, we're now at our 12:00 time certain, which is our public comment, and I'll turn to the city clerk to help us out with that. >> Thank you. Mayor Kim Wetherbee, Sean Mauser. Excuse me, shayam Patel. No. Elias. >> Yes. Okay. Very good. Yeah. >> Please proceed. Let me just start. Yeah? Yeah. Hello? Can you hear me? Yep. Hello. My name is Kim Wetherbee, and I'm a public information officer with the small business administration's office of disaster recovery and resilience. I am here today to make sure that the city council is aware of the disaster [12:02:31 PM] is aware of the disaster assistance available to the Austin community due to the flooding damages that happened in early July. Businesses in this community are available to apply for up to $2 million to replace or repair their physical damage. Businesses are also able to apply for an economic injury disaster loan, and that is meant to supply them with working capital to meet their financial needs. Those interest rates are as low as 4% and the in times of disaster. The sba also helps homeowners and renters, homeowners, or are eligible to apply for up to $500,000 to replace or repair their physical damage, and renters and homeowners can apply for up to $100,000 to replace their personal property. The eidl loans deadline is not until next year, April 6th, but the deadline is was just extended [12:03:32 PM] deadline is was just extended by the state for 30 days. So that is September 28th. If people would like to go to a disaster outreach center, your closest one to in Travis county is at the round mountain Baptist church. They're there Monday through Saturday, 8 to 7, and they will be open until July 30th. Survivors can also apply online at sba.gov. Disaster, as well as calling one (800) 659-2955. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. >> Thank you, thank you. >> Thank you for being here. Really great information for us to share back with our community. I would ask if you could follow up and share what you just laid out to us in written format so that we can include it in our newsletters to help disseminate it to the community? That'd be really helpful. >> Sure thing. Thank you. >> All right. >> Do I control the slides or. [12:04:33 PM] >> Do I control the slides or. Okay. All right. Thank you. I'm Noah Elias, housing justice director at Beaudet. I'm here to talk about the montopolis mobility, mobility improvements and community solutions to our mobility problems. Next slide. So our problems include inadequate sidewalks, street flooding and of course, traffic. Next slide. There's this dangerous intersection here at fairway and montopolis where drivers coming out of the apartments are coming from. Fairway often take left turns during the crosswalk signal and dangerous to pedestrians here. Next slide. We also have of course traffic from 183 and traffic from Riverside that comes onto montopolis, creating dangerous intersections such as here at Crumley and montopolis where people can't get out of their neighborhood when there's so much traffic, or people have to do illegal u-turns in order to access 183 and the bus stops across from each other are [12:05:33 PM] across from each other are inaccessible to neighbors because they have to run across traffic to access them. And if you see there's a bike Laine here that comes off of 183, I'm not sure why because nobody's biking on 183 and it just dead ends there. And there's actually a there was a fatality there last year. Next slide. So we need to connect our community. We have assets such as the montopolis pedestrian and bike bridge. We have a lot of affordable housing naturally occurring and subsidized. And we have public transportation here at occ Riverside. Next slide. So our community solutions that we're proposing is that we create Ada compliant sidewalks with safety standards from one end to montopolis to the other. Next slide. We also want a traffic signal here at montopolis and fairway, where I showed you how dangerous it is. Next slide. We also need to implement effective drainage solutions. The flooding caused a lot of damage to our our [12:06:34 PM] a lot of damage to our our roads and makes things dangerous. Next slide in this I want to say that the montopolis community opposes the reduction of vehicle lanes on montopolis drive because it will cause traffic, especially if it's reduction for bike lanes. Like you saw the bike Laine that I showed you. It creates dangerous biking conditions. Next slide. So our proposal is actually to run bike lanes and a walkway on Kemp street, which runs parallel to montopolis. And if we use public easements, we can connect it to grove boulevard where there is access to four bus routes. There's access to Roig Guerrero park, acme Riverside, the library, and then a future rail station. So we need to connect our community. We need to connect it to public transit and connect it to other, other parts of the neighborhood. Next slide. So we're asking the community to support us to sign this petition. And we're asking the city of Austin to prioritize community needs when implementing changes to montopolis mobility. Thank you. >> Jj flores. Both Sean and jj [12:07:44 PM] >> Jj flores. Both Sean and jj flores signed up remote, but they have not joined. Paxton Davidson and Donna Hoffman. Paxton Davidson, Donna Hoffman oh, you need to go. Yes, the other way. >> Okay. Yes. >> Please proceed. >> Greetings, mayor. City council members, city manager and police chief Davis, I'm Donna Hoffman. I'm a yoga instructor, and I practice buddhist meditation. Breathe in, breathe out. I'm one of the [12:08:47 PM] breathe out. I'm one of the many and growing number of austinites who are deeply concerned about the current assault on the rule of law, demonstrating in our city by ice and dps raids on our immigrant brothers and sisters, raids without warrants to search or enter, detentions and deportations without habeas corpus and due process of law. There are families with children being separated. I'll highlight this example. A young child recently went to school terrified and weeping to her teacher when her father was taken from her family. When her teacher asked, why did you come to school when your father was just taken out of your family? And she said through sobbing tears, maybe she would be safer at school. This little scholars whole family is impacted by the deep emotional trauma and financial dilemma of losing their dad and their wage earner. [12:09:48 PM] their dad and their wage earner. The man's employer lost a team member, his wife lost her husband, and this daughter lost her daddy. Many austinites are concerned that there could be a surge happen following the supreme court ruling on Monday in the arrival of 50 more ice agents to our city. Those two events this week set the stage, potentially for more horror, and are important reasons why the city council, mayor, city manager and Austin police chief must must take leadership to protect our people, our civil rights and our communities. Peace. What can you, as Austin city council members and the police chief do to prepare in advance to resist assisting or cooperating? I have three requests I've outlined. One is to direct the APD chief to communicate to all APD staff, to not collaborate, and to train new and existing staff in [12:10:49 PM] train new and existing staff in non collaboration and de-escalation to relieve officers who can't do that. The second request is to update the legislative priorities to include funding for shelters, legal, mental health and other services and finally, do not restart any apr program in Austin and communicate to flock to retrieve and return any stolen data. Delete people's private information gathered through those. So we have many friends who are immigrants. I appreciate what the city of Austin and recognize the ways in which the city already helps immigrants, and ask you to take further steps in these requests to assure their civil rights. In our city, war is over if you want it. Thank you. >> Mayor pro tem. All noon speakers have been called. >> Okay. Thank you colleagues. That concludes our public communication. We will now end this portion of our meeting and [12:11:51 PM] this portion of our meeting and stand in recess and stand. I'm sorry. Have you. Has your name been called? >> Yes. >> Okay. Please come to the mic. And if you could state your name, please. >> Hi, my name is shyam shabani. I go by the Patel community. I would consider myself. >> I'm sorry sir, can you repeat your name? >> Yes. Hi. My name is shyam. S H ymca. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Patel and part of the Patel community. So I'm a data analyst. And I put up a whole site on this before and had backed it up with facts and then just decided, you know what? Today is a sad day since it's 911. And my father, you know, we came in here, he was part of the company that was on the 52nd floor of the world trade center center. I came in here over here to just pointed out fingers. You know, baby boomers had the baby boomers had the easiest ride in history or blaming, blaming the APD division, blaming the [12:12:51 PM] division, blaming the politicians, blaming everybody else but myself. But today I'm here, standing my ground because I have aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, two charges. And I've been I've gone through my own, my own mistakes. To be able to be in this position. But I the events that had happened that got me into this place showed me to understand what we're lacking over here in Austin, Texas and Austin, Texas is is is great a population of people from many diverse, diverse cultures that are coming in. And yes, I could point out the gaps between gender, between race, between culture. Yes, I could point out a lot of different gaps, gaps that the APD has in in their own, in their own systems. I can point out faults as I as I audit the trail, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to say over here that I was tortured for 17 hours and I was I was basically doped up, drugged, and and this is happening to other people. You guys passed two laws that came into play, which is for [12:13:51 PM] into play, which is for property or, or homeowner to hold his own ground. And then there's jugging, which is which is where these folks go after financial documentation or in this case, specifically, then that law as a bank, and then they chase down somebody who's, well, well, like somebody, somebody holds an held an ltc license, well established taxpayer, primarily clean record and and firearms insurance. Thank thank you for that. Because I what 0.1% of Americans actually have firearms insurance. And actually in the state of Texas it's even lower. So that's that's covering me to hold this hold this case up in criminal court. So then what my point over here is, is at the end of the day, what I feel that lacked was, was something I was blessed and growing up with in New Jersey. And it's there's not enough community presence. There's not enough community trust. 22% of people in united States believe in the government. The pew research shows that. And we need to close that gap because the five economical changes are coming right now and they're happening [12:14:52 PM] right now and they're happening at one time. Environmental, internal conflict, external conflict, technological supply chain management. And these happening, this the world is changing 20 times faster than we can think. Well, what does it bring me back to the basics of understand separation of church and state, but brings back the issues of we are here and we need to be part of a team and we need to be together. >> Thank you for your comments, colleagues. This ends our public communication. We will stand in recess until 1:10 P.M. We are now in recess until 1:10 P.M. Thank you. >> Trejo parker woodland plays [12:22:14 PM] >> Trejo parker woodland plays was a good MC, plays rock and roll for finding joy in a world on fire. The female majority band is known for infectious melodies, epic guitars and uplifting energy, with singer bassist bassist Aaron Walters physical performance and invitation for audience to let go belt along and even jump on stage to dance with the band. Parker woodland is fresh off a fiery long center drop in performance and heading out on their first multi-state tour in September 2025. Their debut album, there's no such thing as time, hit number 24 on the submodern album chart, with Katy proclaiming major go-go's energy, and now we'll turn it over to the band. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Hi y'all. We're parker woodland or at least two thirds of it. We are so happy to be here with you today right before we head out on tour today. The songs we have for you are acoustic [12:23:15 PM] have for you are acoustic versions of our brand new single get me to the show, which is going on sale on bandcamp on September 19th to benefit haam, the health alliance for Austin musicians, and a little love letter after that to the city of Boston. >> You can dance in the back rooms. No one has to know. No one has to know. I'll be up on the tables. We're doing it for show. Cause when you know, you know. And when you ask me for my number. I honestly, I can't remember. Cause growing up, I don't need it. Just get me to the show. I'll be acting up like I'm mean it. Just get me to the show. You've been playing the long game and it's [12:24:17 PM] playing the long game and it's wearing thin. Yeah, it's wearing thin. Now we're writing our own rules. And we're gonna win. Don't you wanna win? And yes, I got your letter. I tore them up. And I feel better. Cause growing up, I don't need it. Just get me to the show I'll be acting up like I mean it. Just get me to the show. Ba ba da da da da ba ba da da ba da da da da ba ba da da da da ba ba da da ba ba da da da da. You can ask me for my number. [12:25:19 PM] You can ask me for my number. But you're not gonna get an answer. Growing up, I don't need it. Just get me to the show. I'll be acting up like I mean it. Just get me to the show. Why so serious? It's not little. This could be enough. Don't you feel it? Yeah. >> This one's for my hometown. >> If there's a chill in the air, there's a smile on your face. Let's make a fire at home I don't know a better place. So [12:26:20 PM] I don't know a better place. So we're spending our holidays in Austin. Meet me at magnolia cafe. You can have hot cocoa, and we'll share chips and queso. We'll do the holidays in Austin our way. Shopping at the armadillo. Mistletoe at the Driskill, strolling. >> Through the. >> Trailer, the zilker TRE at night. We're spending our holidays in Austin. New year's eve. Let's jump in Barton springs. No, we won't get snow here, but it's a favorite time of year. The holidays in Austin [12:27:21 PM] of year. The holidays in Austin are here. Caroling. Let it snow. At the capital to the holidays in Austin. Not New York or Boston. Let's do the holidays in Austin this year. >> Thanks, y'all. >> All righty. Now we get to extend this proclamation, be it known that whereas the city of Austin, Texas, is blessed with many creative musicians whose talents extend to virtually every musical genre, and whereas our music scene thrives because Austin audiences support good music produced by legends, our local favorites and newcomers alike. And whereas we are pleased to showcase and support our local artists now, therefore, I, council member Jose Velasquez, on behalf of the mayor of the [12:28:23 PM] on behalf of the mayor of the city of Austin and the entire dais, do hereby proclaim September 11th, 2025 as parker woodland day in Austin. >> Thank you, council member. >> Oh, gosh. >> Sure. Thank you so much. Thank you. Council member. Velasquez. Mayor and council. I'm Aaron Walter, this is Andrew Solon Kerri, our drummer. I'll just thank you so much for this honor. It really means a lot to be a part of the Austin music community, and we cherish it even more as we are now heading out of state and, you know, seeking to bring our music all over the world. It still means so much to know that we come from this community. So thank you so much for having us. >> Someone took a photo right here. Yeah. It's 1:10 P.M. On Thursday, [1:10:10 PM] It's 1:10 P.M. On Thursday, September 11th, 2025 and I will call back to order the Austin city council at this regular meeting of the Austin city council. After a recess, we are. We were working on item number 12 before we went to our 12:00 time. Certain. So what I'm going to do is turn to the city clerk and see if there are any speakers that are signed up to speak that we have not already heard from on item 12. >> Michael curry Michael curry has time donated by Barbara Macarthur. You're here right? >> Okay. >> Yes. Four minutes and then Jenny Grayson and Chris Paige. >> So four minutes. Okay. Good afternoon. Thanks for holding this open. I, I guess I fell for the head fake the I'm Michael curry. >> Not a head fake. We just started speakers and. [1:11:10 PM] started speakers and. >> Oh okay. Great. >> But we always assume the worst. >> But no, in any event, thank you for letting me speak. My name is Michael curry. I'm here to speak on agenda item 12. It's it's called str but it's really a housing issue. This is really about housing. And because str every str is the city has acknowledged in its findings takes away a home or a house for a long term resident. So strs are about housing. And as the city acknowledged in its findings. Strs are predominantly located in neighborhoods. They reduce the availability of long term housing for residents and and that in doing so, they impact housing affordability, [1:12:11 PM] housing affordability, neighborhood dynamics, and the quiet enjoyment of one's home. So, consistent with our housing policy, we should have no more stress than we need because they're reducing housing. And right now we have over 2000 licensed strs and some estimates are 15,000 unlicensed stars, which I know the city's anxious to get licensed. And that's part of what agenda item 12 is about. So we have plenty of str. We need to limit them. In the interest of housing and but the ordinance you have before you as written does not do that. It it provides no meaningful limitation on the number of strs. It it does limit how how many an individual can can own in proximity to other stars that individual owns. But it doesn't put any limitation on the on [1:13:12 PM] put any limitation on the on the number of stars they could be on, on every property. That's contrary to the the city's housing policy. Now, council member Duncan's amendments will mitigate this. And they're important first step to putting some limitations on the number and locations of of strs. So I hope the council will support that. The back in in in February of this year when when the council took this up last time it passed what was then called agenda item 39, which amended the land development code to make strs an accessory use. And I was concerned at that time. But the effective date isn't until October 1st. I was concerned at that time that we wouldn't have meaningful [1:14:13 PM] wouldn't have meaningful limitations on. Strs in place when this came back up. So what? One thing that needs to be done is to bring back that agenda. Item 39, those amendments to the land development code and extend the effective date, certainly to the dates that conform with council member duchen amendments. And and but I would say until we extend them, until it can be amended to eliminate strs going forward for people who don't own their property. And so that would be my my hope that you would not permit strs for people who do not currently own property. At the time of the effective date of this ordinance. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Curry. >> Thank you. >> Chris Paige, district one I [1:15:28 PM] >> Chris Paige, district one I concur with everything Mr. Curry just said. The current or the proposed policies would allow for 100% of houses on a block to become short term rentals. I don't think that's something that the city should allow. Other cities have had. Distance caps to prohibit over clustering of strs in residential areas. There's no law that stops that. It's proven through multiple other cities regulatory regimes. The city has not partnered with the state comptroller to pursue unpaid hotel occupancy taxes on str operators, and it should. State has lots of resources in that capacity, and there's a shared interest in maximizing the amount of hotel occupancy tax collected, because even though those chunks that can go to arts or other localized improvements. If the whole of [1:16:32 PM] improvements. If the whole of of the hotel occupancy tax gets bigger than those chunks, get bigger with it. The city extracts hotel occupancy taxes from neighborhoods, and it never reinvest them in neighborhoods through strs. I think that's something that we should address. The city blocks, the study of strs, negative externalities, including crime, nuisance, school enrollment, housing costs by not requiring disclosure of str locations, we know that there is a gross excess of operators versus registered seekers, and the state legislature recently refused to protect location data by rejecting house bill 2767. So you should ask for it. City also wastes general fund tax dollars on items that could be funded by hotel occupancy tax. And I know there's been some conversations about the limits on that. But if hotel occupancy tax grows, that goes [1:17:33 PM] occupancy tax grows, that goes up. And also they do disproportionately affect low income neighborhoods. >> Thank you mayor. >> All speakers for item 12 have been called. >> Thank you very much, members. As you just heard, that concludes all the speakers on item number 12. The way I would suggest we proceed is we'll get a motion on item number 12, and then we will go in the order of recognizing councilmember duchen for a proposed amendment, then councilmember alter for proposed amendments, Velasquez for proposed amendment, and councilmember vela for proposed amendments. So I'll entertain a motion on item number 12. Is there a motion motion made by councilmember Ellis to approve item number 12? Is there a second by councilmember vela. Okay with that? Councilmember duchen, you're recognized on your proposed amendment. Number one. >> Thank you. Mayor. Well, first to begin with, I just want to thank staff for all of the work that's gone into [1:18:34 PM] the work that's gone into researching and crafting the str regulation and acknowledge the also the efforts of the tourism and arts and music commissions to improve short term rental licensure and hot collections. I also want to acknowledge the cooperation with the major booking platforms that's resulted in increased collections of hot taxes from the strs, where previously we were leaving millions of dollars on the table, and the str industry here in Austin, it's dependent on our city's thriving creative culture. I'm pleased that our hot fund and music, arts, and historic preservation endeavors are now seeing the proper reinvestment from the strs. But while our creative economies benefit from the hot collection, those industries also require a supply of affordable homes in safe, livable environments. We often state affordable housing and safety are two of our city's most critical needs. Now that we've got this proposed str regulation, it gives us the opportunity to support our city's goals for our residents. We have the ability to mitigate the impact of str proliferation [1:19:35 PM] the impact of str proliferation on our housing supply and the potentially profound effects it has on neighbors and neighborhoods. I'm particularly concerned that parts of Austin are already facing the pressure of gentrification. Are also the same areas most negatively impacted by the unchecked str growth. The regulation that is currently written doesn't include any geographic or spatial based assessment of the appropriate locations, and so regrettably, the density caps only apply to individual ownership without addressing overall str saturation. So the amendment I brought forth calls for true density caps, which would help limit the actual number of str units within neighborhoods. The significant action here helps much needed housing stock and ensures a better balance of homes and str and quality of life. By managing the numbers in this way, my hope is to also lessen the occurrence of str related noise and trash and crime. And I've got some testimony I'll read in just a minute here about the many impacted [1:20:36 PM] about the many impacted residents that have spoken right here in this chamber previously. I want to really emphasize that I'm proud that here in Austin, we do have a lot of owners that operate in good faith with adherence to the rules. I want to support them and acknowledge them. I'm very sensitive to the fact that for many of these owners, the extra income from 1 or 2 strs is what helps them stay here and afford to live here in our increasingly expensive city. So for that reason, my proposed amendment specifically grandfathers, any any properties that are currently licensed before December and I believe council member alter has an amendment to extend that. I believe a couple of months into next year. I'll just close that by saying, while this regulation is going to help manage some of our licensure and compliance issues through delisting with the major str platforms, I do have a lot of concerns. I raised some of them, I think, in the spring about the growing number of smaller booking platforms that are going to make comprehensive enforcement, enforcement, I [1:21:37 PM] enforcement, enforcement, I think, fairly difficult for us. And so as we move forward, I think it's going to be important that we're very attentive and nimble in this space, particularly from a technology standpoint and an enforcement standpoint, monitoring who is maybe gets delisted but finds some other way to get advertising out there for their platforms and thus avoids our regulation. It's going to be important that staff is provided with the support and technology to help find and regulate those bags when they do that. And so finally, I just want to read a couple of testimonials that we've heard here from the last call it 18 months or so. And the reason is that they speak to three different issues. I think that we haven't yet heard at least today. One is saturation, one is fire and one is safety. And so these were from either the str discussions that happened earlier this year, or they were from hearing testimony from home last year. So this is from may of last [1:22:39 PM] So this is from may of last year. Something I want to point out about density and affordability though is our neighborhood. We've been there 40 and 50 years. It was dense and affordable. It had a variety of housing. It's single family homes, apartments, condos, duplexes, old and new, expensive, cheap. But with the advent of short term rentals, we lost so much density and so much affordability. I counted just from our house. There are 15 short term rentals within two blocks of my house. That's 15 households that can't live there. So whatever you do about increasing density, if you don't address that, it will all be for naught. So I ask for your help in looking at that. Here's a second one. I think from the same time in January of this year, I looked at our window to see black smoke coming out of the house next door, a house that frequently has eight or more short term rental occupants in it. I was scared and concerned for the individuals inside, all of whom were low income, many of whom are disabled, five fire trucks, dozens of first responders battling the flames. My neighbors and I later found out this wasn't the first time this house caught on fire. This summer, another short term [1:23:40 PM] summer, another short term rental house is also caught on fire in our neighborhood. At that fire, resident and several firefighters were injured and had to go to the hospital. The home measure to remove the limit on unrelated adults per dwelling unit is extremely dangerous proposition. Given how hazardous many of these homes are with the current limit of unrelated individuals per unit. The bottom line is, does that sound safe to you? One wealthy individual family owns 20 of these short term rental homes in north Austin. The last one and I'll wrap up is from, I believe, this spring. Hi, everybody. I'm rose Ballard from here in district one on the east side, where we are overrun with strs in November. On November 22nd, there was a shooting in front of my home from an str. There were 7 to 8 shots fired at 6 A.M. In the morning, which stemmed from an argument that was in the street, and to this day the str is now they've been granted their license renewal. So if a shooting is in the street doesn't constitute a revokable offense, then I don't really know what will, you know a year prior. So I'm really nervous. [1:24:40 PM] prior. So I'm really nervous. Year prior, there was a murder which we had mentioned just a couple of blocks away at another str, and our neighborhood on the east side is overrun by unstaffed hotels. They're not compatible with our neighborhood. They bring safety issues, violence, potential sex offenders into the neighborhood, noise, traffic and school enrollment issues. They're a burden on 911 APD and the fire department. City of Austin officials three on one. And our neighbors. Most importantly, our quality of life is diminished when we have shots fired in the street run in front of our house. So I'm hoping that we can come to some consensus around what an appropriate way to try and strike the right balance between short term rentals, and trying to also preserve quality of life in neighborhoods. Thank you. >> Councilmember duchen moves to amend item number 12 with duchen amendment number one. And at the top of the page, members, just for reference purposes, it says motion sheet str license cap. Is there a second to the motion? Second by council member alter discussion with regard to the motion. [1:25:40 PM] with regard to the motion. Councilmember vela. >> Thank you, mayor. I have some questions for law. >> Okay. >> Good afternoon, miss link. There's been just so many kind of different decisions around this area. Under current law, are we allowed to limit strs to specific areas of of the city. >> Especially with the law department? In 2015 or 2012 and 2013, council imposed census cap census tract caps on non-owner occupied and also multi-family. The non-owner occupied str is known as the type two fast forward, and I think believe it was the 3% in the census tracts at the time as well. So fast forward to the changes in 2015 and 16. Council [1:26:42 PM] changes in 2015 and 16. Council decided to essentially phase out existing type twos and then also prohibit new type twos. And so subsequent to that is when we were sued over essentially both of those propositions, one being a phase out of type twos, and the court did not allow us to do that. And then the second piece is the no new type twos, because our regulations treated non-owner occupied and owner occupied differently. And so we can't do anything around that. I there. So that is kind of the universe in terms of the census tract caps that we've had historically. There's a lot of issues from a practical standpoint, and mister can speak a little bit more to those about the experience that code has had with them. So while it's not. It's not necessarily unlawful, but it is [1:27:42 PM] necessarily unlawful, but it is very challenging to do and to do correctly because we would have to have a justification for treating different areas of town differently if we were to go to even a geography based approach. So the the challenge really is how do you kind of have a cap under the the cases that we've had and the 3% at the census tract cap is a concern, kind of based on our own experience and also from a practical experience. >> And thinking back to those cases, this is an equal protection, basically. Where is that? Is that what the basis of the decision was, equal protection clause or. >> No, it was much more. It was a dormant commerce clause and treating out of state and in-state folks differently and, and things in that realm. >> Great. And then I guess this would be more and again, I'm asking going to ask you to speculate a little bit, but assuming that we were to adopt the amendment and adopt the [1:28:43 PM] the amendment and adopt the limits, how would you see a legal challenge kind of playing out or, you know, kind of, again, looking into your crystal ball a little bit, do you think a legal challenge would be likely? How would you see it playing out? >> So in terms of what could happen, we wouldn't have the dormant commerce clause issue because we no longer have that owner occupied versus non-owner occupied distinction. But we could have a you know, obviously, equal protection is one of the issues that come up in the short term rental space in terms of treating long term people, having long term tenants versus short term tenants. That's a kind of a constant claim that str cities that regulate strs deal with. There is also, I guess, some concern, you know, under our own Texas constitution, the due course of law and how we justify having the limitation so that the the way that we have approached version two in [1:29:43 PM] have approached version two in the backup, which is from the cap standpoint, matches what was proposed back in February, is to try to kind of avoid as many of those kind of pitfalls as possible. And we really are focusing now on the folks who are operating versus the actual land use itself. >> Okay. Got it. And so again, just to try to summarize, nothing on point, but some concern that there may be a challenge with regard to a census tract based approach. >> There's at risk. Yes. >> Okay. Got it. And thank you very much, Mr. Ward. I have a couple of more practical regulatory questions. Miss link mentioned that that the geographical approach had produced some regulatory challenges. Could could you [1:30:44 PM] challenges. Could could you discuss that a bit or what are your thoughts on that? >> Sure. By applying a census tract cap that doesn't it, you have the effect of potentially shutting people out of the market that would want to participate in the market. And so take a situation where maybe someone is owns their home right now, does not desire to operate as a short term rental now, but maybe is part of their desire to age in place at some point in the future. They want to retire and rely on short term rental income to help support that. If there's a cap in place based on census tract, if someone has beat them to the punch, so to speak, to get a license, then they are shut out from participating in that market. The other risk we encounter is something I think we've seen play out over the last decade or so, is that when you shut people out of the market, if the financial incentive is there, they're going to try to participate in [1:31:45 PM] going to try to participate in the market, whether they are doing it legally or not. And so we end up with high levels of noncompliance that we experience today. >> Yeah. And that's I know that's one of our principal concerns moving forward is that we want people to comply instead of of of not complying the census tracts. I'm honestly I'm not really familiar with what those look like. I'm probably more familiar with the voting precinct boundaries than than census tract boundaries, but I'm not. How big is the census tract? You know, how are they kind of cohesive to a neighborhood or to a community? I'm what do you think about that in terms of a as a, as a basis for a regulatory approach? >> I think the geography varies a lot depending on how dense the area is. So I think central city areas, you're going to see smaller geographic areas of census tracts as you move away into less dense areas. They grow in size. I mean, I think the problem is whether you're [1:32:49 PM] the problem is whether you're using census tracts or some other geographic boundary, I think the same kind of problematic principles still apply. >> Yeah, I would tend to agree. I'll leave it there. Just a closing comment. I appreciate the approach. Again, I know that we we get there's more. There's parts of town that are more attractive for strs than other parts of town. And that's a very difficult regulatory approach where we're trying to kind of, you know, adopt a rule that that works for the whole city. And my concern, again, would be that I'd rather have a regulated market where they are licensed, they're paying their taxes rather than push people into, you know, a kind of a black market, you know, away from the major platforms where [1:33:49 PM] from the major platforms where there's a little bit more incentive to comply and to run a good business as opposed to kind of like, you know, your, your, your, your less regulated markets where there's more fraud, there's more problematic operators in those kinds of things. So again, I appreciate where he's coming from. I'm not going to be supporting the amendment. But thank you both for your clarifications. >> Further discussion. Councilmember. >> I agree with a lot of what councilmember Velo's points were, and so I won't repeat them because I think he did a great job of explaining it. But I think because I've seen this conversation around census tracts come to us before, and honestly, we have revisited str regulations so many times, I'm starting to lose track of what we've tried changing and what hasn't worked. We know that the state legislature has made a number of different amendments over the years. I know that this particular effort right now is about getting us into the business license space so we can better regulate who is and is not a responsible operator, as opposed to a [1:34:50 PM] operator, as opposed to a zoning district or some sort of other geographic boundary that people are beholden to. I also have concerns with just the the legality of saying, you know, this person is allowed to utilize this tool and the person next door to them is not able to utilize that tool. And I think that could get us into a pretty tough place. I think it also can pit neighbors against each other, depending on who's got those licenses and who's willing to give them up, as other people want to take on strs for themselves. And so I appreciate the sentiment, because there's obviously a lot of work to be done with regulation and things like that about noise complaints and and whatnot for neighbors nearby. But just looking at the process of this and how we're moving into a business license, I think sticking with a way that has been presented by staff so far is a really good thing for us to do, so that we don't have to keep revisiting as tr regulations again and again and again like we have in the past. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Any further discussion hearing [1:35:50 PM] Any further discussion hearing none. All those in what we're voting on folks, is duchen amendment number one to item number 12, those in favor of duchen amendment number one to item number 12, please raise your hand. All those opposed, please raise your hand. There being three eyes that being duchen alter and the mayor pro tem and eight noes the motion to amend duchen a motion to amend number one fails. That will take us now to council member alter alter motion to amend item number 12. Number one members, this is alter motion to amend number one. [1:36:52 PM] motion to amend number one. Version two alter motion to amend number one. Version two councilmember alter, you're recognized on your motion. >> Thank you very much. What this motion is all about, it's direction. Really looking at what has been a huge trouble of ours in getting people licensed. You know, right now if someone decides they want to be licensed, they go online. It's a very cumbersome process. They might have to print out forms. They have to pay a huge fee. And it's there's a lot of disincentive to do it right. And what I am hoping through this direction is to create an experience for users where they can go online, pay a nominal fee and get a provisional license number that they can then go use right then and there on airbnb or vrbo to be in compliance and follow our rules. And so that's what this is all about. It's one looking [1:37:52 PM] is all about. It's one looking at the fee element, trying to make sure we don't have such a high upfront fee that people decide they're not going to participate, as well as exploring that provisional license so that someone can utilize this. Basically be regulated and do it properly. And so that's what this motion or this direction is all about. And I would move adoption of alter motion one. Version two. >> Councilmember alter moves to amend item number 12 with alter motion one. Version two is there a second second by councilmember Velazquez? Is there discussion with regard to the motion? Councilmember Siegel. >> Thank you, mayor. I wanted to ask a couple questions of staff on this one, please. Oh, great to see y'all there. I guess the first question is for the fee schedule that we just adopted as part of the budget cycle. If you could explain a little bit what went into the cost recovery analysis for the [1:38:52 PM] cost recovery analysis for the str license fee? >> Sure. So the license costs for short term rental is based on the cost of service. So that includes the cost of the staff that process those licenses, along with all the support that comes along with an employee down to, you know, the the office space cost, the, you know, the cost of keeping the electricity on in the building. All of that gets passed on onto that license cost. And we calculate that cost of service. So that's based on, you know, the staff, the staff that's required to process process those and the amount of time it takes to process an application, along with factoring in how much that employee costs. >> Okay. Thank you. But it doesn't include, for example, code personnel who monitor str properties. >> So the short term rental program is essentially split into two different buckets. We have a licensing team. They are fully supported through the license fees that we charge to str operators. We have an str [1:39:54 PM] str operators. We have an str enforcement team that is supported through the clean community fee. >> Great. Got it. Thank you. And then a separate question because I guess kind of the middle part of this motion looks at a provisional license or, you know, looking at whether that's feasible. And I'm wondering if if you've thought about the feasibility of a provisional license and any pros or cons to such a program. >> I mean, it's certainly something that we are happy to take a look at and try to figure out how that process would work it. It's not something that was contemplated in the staff recommendation, but it's certainly something that we're happy to take a look at and work through the challenges and hopefully find some other cities that do this already so we can learn from places that have already gone through that. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Councilmember vela. >> Mr. Ward, are we zo? We're using the clean community fee to essentially enforce our short term rental. Any problems that we have with short term [1:40:55 PM] that we have with short term rentals is that's the case? >> Yes. That's correct. >> Are we allowed to use the hotel occupancy tax that short term rentals pay to assist with enforcement and problems that are created by short term rentals? >> Not to my knowledge. I believe that is not allowed. But I will look at my colleague to my left. >> Councilmember. No, that's not an allowable use. >> Okay, I had a and I'm going to I have a amendment with more direction. I'm going to withdraw the that item and I'll just mention this on the dais. But when we're looking at our future legislative. Agenda, I really do think that the hotel occupancy tax is collected from the short term rentals. We should be able to tap into that money to help, basically kind of look after and clean up any problems that are caused by [1:41:55 PM] problems that are caused by those short term rentals and not have to use the clean community fee, which we have, again, plenty of other uses for that very limited pot of money. So I just wanted to to mention that to the dais, you know, when, if and when we're looking at that agenda, I'll, I'll resurface the issue. And I'd like to put that on the legislative agenda. I'll withdraw the amendment that that has that for now. But I just wanted to put that on everybody's radar. >> Members. Councilmember vela had offered up a proposed second amendment, and it was labeled councilmember vela motion sheet number two, council direction for legislative agenda for hot tax money for str enforcement. And that's what he's making a specific reference to. So I will not call that up when we get to councilmember vela any other discussion with regard to. Yes, councilmember Ellis. >> I have a question on the line of the the clean community fee is your reading of this amendment that if there were fees lowered for these permit licenses, that you would bring [1:42:56 PM] licenses, that you would bring back a fee update to increase the clean community fee to pay for it? I'd hate to dig into the services already being allocated through clean community fee to help cover abatement issues for strs, is what I'm saying. >> So the way that we understand the amendment council member is is related to the licensing fee. So in order to the direction is essentially that a proposal could come back with a lower fee, but also in the process remove some of the requirements that you're adopting today, and it would not impact the clean community fee and the enforcement side of of things, just the actual licensing piece. >> Okay. And so what it appears we were covering is how is the fee assessed at the level that it's currently approved at. And if we lower it, what are we losing out on financially as far as the departmental processes? >> If if it was to come down, [1:43:57 PM] >> If if it was to come down, it would be things that probably would need to come out of the program itself. So for example, one of the items that Mr. Ward's team will look at is potentially who owns the property and processing applications and ensuring that the local contact and things like that. So those some of those things may have to go away in order to reduce the fee. And the way we read the motion is that it authorizes us to bring back something that contemplates potentially removing some of those requirements, if needed, to get the fee down. >> Okay, so it would still end up being a wash financially. We would be not providing certain aspects of the service for that processing in in exchange for lowering the cost on the person applying. >> Correct. >> Okay. I look forward to seeing what comes back. I'm not sure how we're going to strike that balance, but I'll support the amendment today just knowing there will be a further conversation about exactly [1:44:59 PM] conversation about exactly where that fee will land. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Further discussion. Without objection, let me ask, does anybody wish to be shown voting no? Without objection, alter motion to sure. You can alter motion to amend number one to amend item number 12. Number one, version two is adopted with council member duchen being shown abstaining. Members that will take us to council member alter motion to amend item number 12, as amended. Number two. Councilmember alter. >> Thank you very much. This is just a changing the effective date of article two to July 1st and conversation with staff and stakeholders to make sure we have all the. All the tools that we're contemplating here in place so that this regulatory regime can be [1:45:59 PM] regulatory regime can be successful. >> The second motions made by councilmember alter, seconded by councilmember vela. This is alter motion to amend item number 12 as amended. Number two. And it's by the way, it's version two, changing the effective date from may 1st, 2026 to July 1st, 2026. Is there discussion? Hearing none without objection. Alter motion to amend item number 12, as amended of motion number two is adopted. That will take us to council member alter motion to amend item number 12 as amended. Number three this is alter motion to amend number three. Councilmember alter you're recognized. >> This is changing our cap per site. Right now. The thousand feet is 1000ft between each unit. And this is saying 1000ft between each site each lot. And so it would allow for if you had two homes on the lot to [1:46:59 PM] had two homes on the lot to have two strs, or if you had three still only up to two. So it's raising that cap from 1 to 2 on a site, but then having the 1000 foot rule be site to site, not unit to unit. >> Councilmember alter moves to amend item number 12, as amended with alter motion to amend number three. Is there a second seconded by council member Velasquez. Is there discussion with regard to this motion to amend councilmember Siegel. >> Thank you, mayor, and thank you to my colleagues for presenting this. I am going to be voting no on this amendment. My concern is that at least in district seven, a lot of the objections I've heard to the home initiative was that it wouldn't actually produce housing. And I'm concerned that this amendment supports that, that view that the benefits of allowing three houses per lot will not be felt by Austin residents, but instead the benefit would go towards tourists who are visiting our [1:48:00 PM] tourists who are visiting our community. So that's all I'll be voting against. >> Thank you, councilmember Siegel. Councilmember harper-madison, did you wish to be recognized? >> No, sir, Mr. Mayor. Okay. >> Thank you. Any further discussion with regard to alter motion to amend number three? It's the it's to amend item number 12, as amended. Hearing none. Without objection. The motion number three by alter. I've got you abstaining voting no okay. So that's a head fake. Councilmember duchen will be voting no, along with councilmember Siegel. And without objection, the motion to amend is adopted, with those two being shown voting no. That will now take us to item number four, alter motion number four, which is a motion to amend item number 12 as amended. Members. This is alter motion to amend number four. Version two. [1:49:02 PM] number four. Version two. Councilmember alter. >> This is it was going to be an amendment to councilmember duchen amendment. But I decided not to pursue it. >> So council member alter withdraws motion to amend number four to item number 12. Members that will now take us back. Take us to council member Velasquez. Motion to amend item number 12, as amended. It is labeled motion sherry. Councilmember Velasquez. Motion number one. Councilmember Velasquez. You're recognized. >> Yeah. Colleagues, as I mentioned earlier, district three is 70% renters. And when we talk about housing, we have to ensure that they are part of the conversation and participate in the programs we offer. This amendment allows for renters to be eligible to apply for short-term rental license if it is allowable in the terms of their lease, and they are responsible for the utility services. Thank you. >> Thank you. Councilmember Velasquez moves to adopt Velasquez. Motion to amend number one to item number 12, as amended. Is there a second? Seconded by council member vela [1:50:02 PM] Seconded by council member vela councilmember vela, you are recognized for a motion to amend Velasquez. Motion number one. >> Thank you. Mayor. My amendment to the amendment would require authorization from the owner in a form to be prescribed by the director to allow a tenant to lease their property as a short-term rental. I completely agree and support the idea that if we're going to be allowing this in my district is very similar majority tenant district, and it should be a decision between really the a lease decision of whether the owner wants to allow a subletting as part of the lease. So this would just require that if for an str license for a tenant based str license, they must have the permission of the owner of the property. [1:51:03 PM] owner of the property. >> Councilmember vela moves to amend Velasquez motion. Motion to amend for item number 12, as amended. Is there a second? Second by councilmember Velasquez? Is there councilmember harper- madison, you're recognized. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I actually just have one question. Councilmember. Councilmember Velasquez, to your point about renters having more sort of autonomy over the space of like myself or I'll use myself anecdotally, I'm in this place for seven years, in which case I'm a super long term winter, but my landlord won't allow using any of the city's rebate programs any. She won't let me do anything in here, so I know she wouldn't let me have an str in here. And that said, that just got me thinking. This amendment, while I can appreciate the spirit, the other thing I was thinking is I just wonder if there's some way that we can also get landlords to be incentivized to allow renters to take advantage of some of our other programs, that they have to have their landlord's permission for. That [1:52:04 PM] landlord's permission for. That just occurred to me. It's neither here nor there. It's just it just occurred to me and something I wanted to register. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Further discussion with regard to this is vela motion to amend Velasquez. Motion to amend number one. Yes. Councilmember Laine. >> I just have a question. So with these amendments, how would enforcement then work? Would it be tracked against the tenant, the owner? Can you explain how we would handle that with these amendments? >> Sure. So from an enforcement standpoint, you may end up in situations where there's some some split enforcement depending on what the specific violation is. So if it's a violation related to the license itself, that will go against the license holder, which could be the tenant in this situation, if there's a property condition that's in violation, maybe a garage have been converted to a bedroom without a permit that will still track to the property owner. So and that can come up [1:53:04 PM] owner. So and that can come up quite often when we do these inspections on short term rentals, where we notice other things are going on beyond just the short term rental aspect. And so there may be some splits depending on what specifically the issue is. But, but license violations or violations related to the licensing itself would go to the tenant. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Any further discussion? We're voting on vela. Motion to amend Velasquez. Motion to amend number one. Without objection, the motion to amend is adopted. We are now going back to the Velasquez motion to amend motion number one, as amended. And this is to amend item number 12, as amended. Is there any discussion with regard to Velasquez motion to amend number one, as amended? Without objection, the Velasquez motion to amend item number 12, as amended, as it was amended by the vela motion, is adopted. [1:54:04 PM] the vela motion, is adopted. That will take us to. Council member vela's motion number one to amend item number 12, as amended. Council member vela, you're recognized. >> Thank you, mayor. And I just want to clarify, because we've got a version two of it that incorporates the leases that that the owner or and I just want to make sure that we're all on the same version. >> I'm pleased you did that. Council member vela. They've handed out a yellow sheet that is indicated. Motion sheet, str regulations. Council member vela motion one, version two. And that's the one we're operating from. And as he's pointed out, if you look at the numbered paragraphs, for example, in paragraph one, the last line is redlined says person owns or leases in. The same is true in item number two. Council member vela you want to speak on the motion? [1:55:05 PM] speak on the motion? >> I do, thank you very much, mayor. So the the ordinance as presented has a a limit for multifamily. Properties of 25%. It's essentially saying that up to 25% of the multifamily property can be used as an str. When we looked at it, I think that's a a high percentage. It does give me some pause in terms of changing the the kind of the character of the multifamily community. And there is undeniably a tension between uses in terms of short term rentals and long term housing. So what my amendment would do, it would lower that percentage to a 10% of the multifamily property, unless there was a commercial use as part of the property. If there is a commercial use as part of the property, then the limit would be 25%. And what we're [1:56:06 PM] would be 25%. And what we're trying to get at there is there are parts of town and certain properties that, first of all, are already being used in this manner and lend themselves to this type of use. I think about, you know, downtown, I think about, you know, a Rainey street type of arrangement and again, trying to avoid any of the pitfalls of, of of picking out census tracts or, you know, differentiating in that way. The, the suggestion was made to say, if you have commercial use within the property, then that would bump up the multifamily percentage. And I think that also lends itself, you know, again, if there's a lot of these are going to be used by travelers, visitors who would appreciate, you know, a corner store, a coffee shop, something like that in the building that they're staying in. And finally, I would just say it's another way that I want to try and and incentivize multi use, mixed [1:57:08 PM] incentivize multi use, mixed use type of development. I think that's just the way that we should be going as a community. So I would offer the amendment mayor. >> Council. >> Council member. >> Council member. Vela moves adoption of vela motion to amend it's motion one. Version two. It's a motion to amend item number 12 as amended. Is there a second second by council member Siegel discussion. Council member alter. >> I have a question for legal staff and that is what if, let's say a prior zoning case had a conditional overlay that dealt with stars in a percentage? I assume the conditional overlay would trump this code. Is that correct? >> The way that we actually the way council approved the changes to the zoning ordinance or the zoning code in 20th February? Sorry, actually makes it an allowable accessory use for all properties. So the limitations around that aren't [1:58:11 PM] limitations around that aren't the same as they were under the old set of regulations. So beginning on October 1st, stars are an accessory use for all residential uses, and they cannot be limited through the zoning regulations. You're limiting them here through the the ownership. Regulatory framework rather than the land use framework. >> And if somebody let's just say someone owned a multifamily property and and obtained licenses for more than 25 or more than 10% of the units, are they grandfathered, or would they just have to choose which ones and reduce down to 10%? >> If you had an existing license at the time that this ordinance goes into effect, you get to maintain that, provided we don't have any problems with your unit, if you fail to renew, or if we declare you a nuisance, [1:59:12 PM] or if we declare you a nuisance, or we have some other sort of legal action, then they would not get to keep it. But the way, the way that we have, we have to implement in a post zaatari world is we cannot take it away unless essentially there is a nuisance situation or they fail to renew. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Any further discussion, members? We're voting on the vela motion to amend item number 12, as amended. Number one, it's his vela motion. Number one, it's version two. Is there no further discussion? Without objection, vela motion to amend item number 12, as amended, is adopted. >> Wish to vote shown voting no. >> And council member duchen is shown voting no. Members. I believe that's all the proposed amendments that I have with regard to item number 12. Unless somebody cries out, [2:00:15 PM] Unless somebody cries out, we're going to move on to the main motion. >> Mayor, before you take up the main motion. >> Yeah. >> I just would like to confirm that we have the council's approval to make any conforming amendments that are needed because of the one particular section was amended several times just to ensure that there is consistency in the code going forward. >> I can't I can't imagine there's any objection to that with all those amendments, but I'll ask if anybody has any objection to allowing professional staff to make conforming amendments so that it achieves the desired results? I hear no objection. With that being said, I will ask if there's any discussion on the main motion, which is item number 12, as amended. Council member vela. >> I just want to thank staff and the dais. This has been a thorny and difficult issue, has been through many different lawsuits and permutations, and I feel like we're finally getting to a point where we [2:01:16 PM] getting to a point where we have a workable, enforceable str ordinance that will be able to stand up to legal challenge and also generate the hotel occupancy tax that, that, that we've been trying to get into the city coffers. So just again, a thank you to to all of the staff, in particular Daniel and Trish, who have worked really hard on, on on this. And thank you to the mayor and to to all my colleagues. >> Thank you. Council member. With that being said, there being no further discussion without objection, item number 12, as amended, is adopted. >> Can I be shown voting abstaining on this? >> You can. Council member duchen will be abstaining and he'll be shown abstaining on the vote. All right, members, that concludes item number 12. What I would suggest is that while it's 2:00, what I would suggest that we do is we have a brief executive session and get that taken care of and out of the way. Members of the public, [2:02:18 PM] the way. Members of the public, what we're going to do is go into executive session. Unless somebody objects to that other than miss harden and and and what, what what we'll do is we'll go into executive session. I don't anticipate that this will take until 230. I think we ought to be out by no later than 230. But and without objection, we will go into executive session and we will take up one item in that executive session. And that'll be pursuant to section 551071 and 551087 of the Texas government code. The city council will discuss legal issues and economic development matters related to item number 52. Discuss commercial or financial information received from a business prospect that the city seeks to have, locate, stay, or expand in or near the territory of the city of Austin and with which the city is conducting economic development negotiations. Deliberate the offer of a financial or other incentive to the business prospect, and discuss legal matters related to such [2:03:19 PM] matters related to such economic development negotiations, deliberation regarding economic development negotiations falls under section 551087 of the government code, and private consultation with legal counsel falls under section 55107, one of the government code members. Is there any objection to going into executive session on the item announced? Hearing none. The council will now go into executive session at everybody. We're out of closed [2:41:47 PM] everybody. We're out of closed session and closed session. We discussed economic development matters and legal issues related to item 52. It is 241. And we will now go to our time certain although it wasn't that certain, was it on on zoning matters. And I will recognize miss harden. >> Thank you mayor and council. I am joy harden with the planning department. Your zoning agenda begins with item number 53 c1484022 rca. This item is offered as an applicant postponement request to your October 9th council meeting. Item 54 is NPR 2025 0020.03. This item is offered for consent on all three readings. The related rezoning is item number 55. C14 2025 0040. Again, this item software for consent on all three readings. The next five cases are related related items starting with item number 56. NPR 2024 0019.02. This is offered for consent on all [2:42:48 PM] offered for consent on all three readings. Item number 57 is the related zoning, and that's the one for 2025 0006. This item is offered for consent on all three readings. The next related rezoning is item 50 8c1 for 2025 0007. This time is offered for consent on all three readings. The next related rezoning is item number 50 nine, C one for 2025 0008. This item is offered for consent on all three readings, and the last related item is item number 60 C one for 2025 0009. And again this item is offered for consent on all three readings. Item 61 is c1 for 2025 0058. This item is offered as an applicant postponement request to your September 25th council meeting. Item 62 is c14940167001. This item is offered as an applicant. Indefinite postponement. Item 63 is c81 for 2024 0001. This is the 500 south congress put. [2:43:51 PM] is the 500 south congress put. This item is offered for consent on all three readings. This is version two of the ordinance, which is posted in backup and has been disseminated to you. That's item number 63. Again consent on all three readings. Item 64 c14 2025 0045. This item is offered for consent on all three readings. Item 65 is c14 2024 0006. This item is offered for consent on all three readings. Item 66 is c14 2025 0048. This item is offered for consent on all three readings. Item 67 is c14 2024 0179. This item is offered for consent on all three readings with the following motion sheet, which I will read with the following motion which I will read into the record. It's a tad long, so bear with me. It states amend the caption of the draft ordinance and part one to include a conditional overlay combining district co at a new part two and part three as follows and renumbered the [2:44:53 PM] follows and renumbered the remaining sections accordingly. Part two the property within the boundaries of the conditional overlay combining district established by this ordinance is subject to the following conditions a the following are prohibited uses of tract one. Bed and breakfast. Group one communication services. Facilities, communication, recreation, public maintenance and service facilities. Private primary education facilities. Safety services. Bed and breakfast. Group two community recreation. Private hospital services. Limited plant nursery. Private secondary educational facilities and urban farm B the following are conditional uses of track one. Hotel. Motel. Pawnshop services. Theater, outdoor sports and recreation, pedicab storage and dispatch, and C. The following are prohibited uses of track two bed and breakfast. Group one communication. Service facilities. Communication. Community recreation. Public private primary education facility. Safety services. Bed [2:45:53 PM] facility. Safety services. Bed and breakfast. Group two community recreation. Private hospital services limited. Private secondary educational facilities and urban farm. Part three. Except as specifically restricted under this ordinance, the property may be developed and used in accordance with the regulations established for the general commercial services. Cs based district and mixed use combining district on track one. The multifamily residence highest density in six based district on track two and other applicable requirements of the city code. And with that sheet read. We are offering this item for consent on all three readings. Item 68 is c14, 20, 25, 20 2025 0062. This item is offered for consent on all three readings. Item 69 is EPA 2024 0019.01. This item is offered as a postponement to your September 25th council meeting by council member qadri. The related rezoning is item [2:46:55 PM] The related rezoning is item number 70 c14 2024 0121. Again, postpone request by council member zo qadri to your September 25th council meeting. Item 71 is c14 2024 0163. There are two neighborhood postponement requests of this item. The request dates of October 9th and November 6th. Council member qadri would like to support the neighborhood postponement, but to the date of September 20th to the date of the September 25th council meeting. So this item is being offered as a neighborhood postponement request to your September 25th council meeting. And lastly, item 72 c14 2025 0069. This item is offered for consent on all three readings. This concludes the reading of the zoning and neighborhood plan amendment agenda. And of course, this is at your discretion. Thank you. >> Members, let me ask if anybody has any questions of miss Harding at this time. Okay. What I'm going to do is get a motion out on the floor and and get us started with this. I [2:47:56 PM] get us started with this. I will read the consent agenda, item number three, a postponement to October 9th, items 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 and 60. All three readings 61. A postponement to September 25th 62 and indefinite postponement 63. It will be on consent, with version two being what miss Hardin called out and I'm calling it out again. Version two, which is in your backup, 64, 65, 66. On all three readings, 67 will be on all three readings. Subject to it will be the motion that miss Hardin read into the record 68. All three readings, 69, 70 and 71. A postponement to September 25th, 72. All three readings. Is there a motion? I'm looking to my right. Council member [2:48:57 PM] to my right. Council member vela I've been doing that all day. And they they just sit there. Yeah, yeah. So so I mean I'm about done. I'm about done. Seconded by council member Ellis. Councilmember vela makes a motion second by council member Ellis. All right. Let me turn to the city clerk with regard to the consent agenda. >> Thank you, mayor, for item 55, Brad Massingill. Item 56 bessy Greenberg. >> Hi, y'all. Brad Massingill, district three. I'm also on the south congress combined contact team, and we've been following this, this this project. I'm encouraging you all to just if you're going to do anything, just pass this on first reading and do a little bit of homework [2:49:59 PM] and do a little bit of homework on the provenance of this property. There's a lot of outstanding issues. The neighborhoods are concerned about concerning how these properties have been brought in line to be shepherded into this project. There's also the overarching concern of the south section of this property. It's on a steep incline that goes right into the where the s-bend on Williamson creek there at south congress. It's a really abused and sensitive part of Williamson creek, and the property is on a steep incline, probably about 2 or 3 acres of it. And the potential for runoff and erosion and affecting this whole ecosystem downstream from there is pretty extreme. So I'd encourage you all to one look, look into that. The watershed implications of this. But two, to do a little bit of homework on who owns [2:51:00 PM] bit of homework on who owns this property, why this property is where it's at and why it's in the in the queue right now. That's all I have to say. Thanks. >> You can go ahead. >> Okay. My name is Betsy Greenberg and I live in the heritage neighborhood near the site for the proposed neighborhood plan amendment in item 56. I'm not opposed to changing mixed use office to mixed use general. In fact, I think this could be a good change in which vacant medical offices will have the potential to include lively neighborhood amenities like stores and restaurants, that the part of the plan amendment that I wish had been more closely examined was the change to mixed use of lots that were identified as single family on the future land use map. While these vacant parking lots are currently zoned for office, the sf designation was included to [2:52:01 PM] sf designation was included to provide a buffer between commercial and residential uses, with the D.B. Todd height bonus available on this property, that buffer is actually needed more now than it was in 2004, when the plan was recommended by the staff, supported by the neighborhood, and approved by the city council. Although I frequently ask this council to do things that I can't realistically, realistically expect you to do, I'm not going to ask you to deny the requested plan amendment. I do ask that going forward, instead of routinely rubber stamping applicant requests for future land use changes, you and the staff actually consider the reasoning that was included when the plans were developed. I also ask that plan amendment meetings no longer be restricted to only virtual participation. Thank you. >> Item 57 Jennifer Carlson. >> She's on the phone. [2:53:06 PM] >> She's on the phone. >> Mr. Mayor, members of the city council and other members of city government. I live within 500ft of the tracks under discussion for rezoning and agenda item 57 through 60. And on behalf of the heritage neighborhood association, I worked with our president and the. Sorry, can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Excellent. And the attorney for our applicant, for the applicant to negotiate an agreement that is mutually beneficial to our community and the applicant. I'd like to share a few insights from that process. The heritage neighborhood is a close knit community that has long been home to diverse austinites, working in industries that make our city strong and with an even distribution of rented and owner occupied homes. We've historically represented what some now call Austin's missing middle. In recent years, we've watched fellow neighbors compelled to leave because rising costs made it prohibitive to put down roots here. And when the tracks in question came up for rezoning, some in heritage feared that with the possibility of fee in lieu and existing density bonuses, large office towers would come to dominate our neighborhood with minimal housing to preserve the [2:54:06 PM] housing to preserve the diversity of our community. And given Austin's affordability crisis, we were keen to ensure that if height came to our neighborhood, it came with concrete prospects of housing and through many hours of research, as well as spirited negotiation with the applicant's attorney, we arrived at an agreement with a list of mutually agreeable uses, with excluded uses reflected in the ordinances before you today. This agreement gives us hope for preserving our neighborhood while making room for future growth. We're confident that the proposed zoning designation of gr with height limit of 45ft for non residential buildings will enable mixed use development, bringing us more neighbors while allowing community supportive businesses to flourish. We're proud of the agreement we've reached and grateful that all involved showed good faith and respect for our community. Grateful to city staff whose commitment and insight were invaluable through this process. But I want to say we are keenly aware that, unlike others, other neighborhoods facing zoning changes in Austin, we had the privilege of time that allowed us to learn the lay of the land and then bring that knowledge to the negotiating table. In addition to sharing my support for these items on your agenda, [2:55:07 PM] for these items on your agenda, I implore you to continue your efforts to overhaul existing density bonuses. >> Thank you. Time has expired. >> Impacts are equitable and environmentally sustainable. >> Item 57 Betsy Greenberg, followed by item 58 Betsy Greenberg. >> My name is Betsy Greenberg and I live in the heritage neighborhood, about two blocks from 34th and west site. Although these cases are on consent and likely nobody will ask, I'd like to explain the rationale behind the conditional overlay limiting the height to 45ft. This may seem counterintuitive on properties in the etod, where a density bonus of 60 or 30ft above the base height is allowed. When housing and affordable housing are included. However, during discussions about use limitations, it became apparent that the applicant was planning for commercial uses like hotels and surgery centers instead of the housing. That makes sense in the etod, especially in the middle of the neighborhood. I am very grateful that the [2:56:08 PM] am very grateful that the planning staff understood the neighborhood concerns, and recommended the 45 foot height limit to encourage the use of the density bonus program, along with the planning staff. I'm grateful that the applicant has not opposed the conditional overlay. Thank you in advance for your support as well. Although I have 56 seconds left, so I gotta say, I'm really still not happy with the D.B. Todd being applied on my entire neighborhood without station area planning. Thank you. >> Did you want to speak on item 58? >> Not 58 or 50 9 or 60. >> Thank you. Thank you. Item 63 Cameron Cassidy. Bill. Oliver. Bill bunch, Bobby. Levinsky. >> Are. [2:57:09 PM] >> Are. >> Mayor and council. Bobby Levinsky, save our springs alliance. The item 63 is the pud. That's on south congress. You know, we object to the use of pud to bypass the planning initiatives that are established for the south central vision framework, but I want to focus my time on something that I think could actually bring some value to the discussion. So the affordable housing provisions in there right now, it would be locking in a fee in lieu of $9 per square foot in perpetuity, forever. No index. Over time. It's the zoning lasts forever. You could use the pud codes 2.5.5 provisions that allow a developer to do a fee in lieu on a 36 month rotating basis, so they get approval for the fee in lieu, and then they have up to 36 months to start their project. And then you that that fee gets evaluated again. [2:58:09 PM] fee gets evaluated again. That's how the pud codes constructed. But right now with this ordinance, it's locking in $9 per square foot forever. And then if you want to do on site housing for this site, which does have naturally occurring affordable housing on site, you would have to buy it back at $591 per square foot. So for you get a $9 a square foot for fee in lieu, and then you can combine those fees together to buy it back at $591 per square foot, which is higher than most market values, that for an 800 unit, 800 square foot unit, that would be $552,800 right now. Over time, with a $9 per square foot fee in lieu, that is going to have a diminishing marginal return. So in ten years from now that $9 is not going to stretch as far. So please at least index that, maybe lock it in for 36 months, require it to be just. All you'd have to do is do a reference to the code to the [2:59:10 PM] reference to the code to the annual budget, because that's where that fee in lieu is set, and just have it indexed over time with the budget. Thank you. >> Good afternoon council bill bunch save our springs alliance speaking against 63. This is 500 south congress pud Riverside and south congress. This is six and a half acres. It's under the ten acre minimum for puds which I've been ignoring your own ordinance consistently here. They even say, though, that there's no special circumstances apply. So this should not be a pud. There is no way this can be determined to be superior to development under the standard code. Backing up though, you have a open meetings act notice problem. Once again, the the notice tells the community nothing about what they would [3:00:10 PM] nothing about what they would really be concerned about on this site. It's very misleading in talking about modifications to city regulations. When we're talking about wholesale exemptions from multiple parts of the land development code that go way beyond zoning, it's also extremely misleading because it's under the zoning section of the agenda. Y'all need to start telling the truth and and at least alerting people with minimum compliance with the open meetings act. You do not have that here. You're talking about getting rid of the critical water quality zone. It talks about a variance. They're more or less. But then it turns around and says they can build almost anything they want in the critical water quality zone. This is a development that's, for all intents and purposes, forever. You're not going to fix it again. You need to fix it. Now, my last point there is no [3:01:12 PM] my last point there is no height limit on this. You've completely gotten rid of no height limit. This is not only not downtown, it's not north of Barton springs road. You're now into the neighborhoods of south Austin, and you're saying no height limit and there's no notice of that. Thank you. Sorry, you can't do that. >> Thank you for your comments. >> The next group of speakers for 63 requested to be called in a certain order, so I'm going to call their names in that order. Please come on down and state your name for the record. Michael Lang cronk Lang Chacon. Sorry about that. David Rubin, Richard subtle, Amanda Mario. Kelly Wright. Did you want to speak? Oh, they're waiving the right to speak. Okay. 66 Brad Massingill. 67 bill bunch. >> Howdy. I'm going to surprise [3:02:16 PM] >> Howdy. I'm going to surprise y'all. I'm actually in favor of this. These these this is local builders, small builders. They talk to us, we communicate. We're working on neighborhood plan together. This is the kind of the kind of thing that we want in our neighborhoods that human beings on our scale, not lobbyists and huge projects coming into our neighborhoods. So I just wanted to to one show that our neighborhood is working with, with at least one applicant, but some other applicants don't want to work with the neighborhoods in in a on an equal footing. So that's all I have to say. Thanks. >> Good afternoon, bill bunch, [3:03:17 PM] >> Good afternoon, bill bunch, districtfive I'm just speaking for myself on this one. This is a rezoning of sixth in Lamar, the longtime home of Waterloo records. Thankfully, they found a great spot a couple of blocks down. Almost a miracle. This is allowing development to go up 90ft or higher. It wasn't clear to me on that. Again, this is a this is a whole new ballgame for this side. We're talking about the west side of Lamar, the northwest corner. You know you're right up against neighborhoods. And there's nothing even close to being more than I think two or maximum three stories in this area. There's not any real plan for this. This area I understand it's you know, it's [3:04:18 PM] understand it's you know, it's a corridor. It's going to be densified, but there needs to be more careful planning for this particular area. And so I hope you would take a pause there and look at it closer. >> Speaking on the merits of postponement for 69 Charles d'harcourt. Also signed up on the merits of postponement for 70 Charles to Harcourt. Merits of postponement for 71. Bill bunch and Yasmine Marrero. >> Mr. Bunch waived his rights to speak on that item. >> Mayor pro tem then. Oh my apologies. Please go ahead. >> Hi. Thank you for having me. I think we all remember the last meeting that I attended where I had literally just noted that this building was going up next to us, as well as [3:05:18 PM] going up next to us, as well as all of our neighbors. Today I got notice from at least 13 of our residents that they never received notice either, and we would really like a postponement in order to try to get this verified by the post office service, because I believe that this is a main reason why we're in a very big disadvantage of not being able to have time to negotiate and time to talk to the builder correctly about our concerns. Our privacy concerns have not been correctly addressed as of yet. You know, we have we have had one zoom meeting in a couple of emails gone through binding, nothing contractual, nothing that gives us any comfort that anything can be enforced. We're not opposed to projects. We're happy that things are changing and we understand we're downtown. We're not opposed to, you know, beautiful buildings being put next to us, but we are opposed to the, the, the [3:06:18 PM] are opposed to the, the, the things that are negatively impacting us, such as the value of our homes that are dropping. Our views are now being completely depleted. And now potentially our privacy is going to be completely gone. So, you know, we are just asking for a postponement in order to be able to get some correct counsel involved. And for us to be able to have a fighting chance at to, you know, see what we can do for ourselves as a community because half of our community is directly impacted and all of us are going to lose a lot of value in the mix. So this is all we're asking of of you guys today, please. We also had requested earlier meetings to be given to us. I personally asked for it and it was denied. So we have made that effort. >> Thank you very much, mayor. >> That concludes all speakers [3:07:20 PM] >> That concludes all speakers for zoning. >> Thank you, miss harden. >> I'm sorry. I have a clarification on the motion sheet for item 67, pawnshop services and pedicab storage and dispatch are prohibited. Uses on track one not conditional. I want to read that into the record and we'll update the ordinance. >> Please read that again. >> Absolutely. >> We have clarity in the record. >> Yeah, absolutely. For item 67, pawnshop services and pedicab storage and dispatch are prohibited. Uses on track one not conditional. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Now we've concluded all the speakers. >> Yes. >> Mayor members, we have a motion in a second. Let me ask if there's discussion. Councilmember Velasquez. >> Thank you. Mayor, I just wanted to to highlight on item 54 and 55, there is a a letter of support from the south congress neighborhood plan. Contact team in your backup. And our office has worked very closely with the with the [3:08:22 PM] closely with the with the developer and the south congress combined neighborhood plan contact team to come to this agreement. >> Thank you. Councilmember. Any further discussion with regard to the consent agenda? Yes. Councilmember duchen. >> Thank you. Mayor. I've actually got a question for staff about item 63, the pud. Is there somebody that might be able to help me with that? It's in relation to some of the testimony heard about the fee in lieu. >> Yes. Council member. >> So I'm just curious. We heard that it may be possible to index the fee in lieu rather than being on. It sounds like $9 per square foot in perpetuity, and that the pod code allows us to do this. Is there a reason? I mean, when I read the language on the item, it does say with conditions. I would assume that could be a condition that could be applied to this pod. Can you expand on the rules behind that or the [3:09:23 PM] the rules behind that or the prohibition behind that? >> Sure, absolutely. Thank you. Council member Brendan Kennedy, housing department program manager. So one of our considerations when we're evaluating the pud negotiation was the fee in lieu rate, as well as the exchange rate was based on current factors, including a current market study based on market rents that was done as part of the south central waterfront planning process. So as a result, there were several fixed assumptions that we wanted to tie related to that calculation to arrive at a value that was agreeable both to staff based on our market studies as well as the applicant. With regards to the possibility of indexing, there is a provision in code related to the approval of alternative affordable housing proposals for development bonus, which is the affordable housing provisions that are being written into ordinance. That section of code does state that the council approval of any alternative affordable housing project shall expire 36 months [3:10:24 PM] project shall expire 36 months after the date of approval. If the project has not been initiated, it may be a question for law about the applicability of that provision, regardless of whether it's written into ordinance. However, that is reflected in code, it does not stipulate any sort of escalation. Staff do have the opportunity each year to reevaluate the pod fee and lieu rate as part of the budget process. However, again, we arrived at the fixed $9 per square foot fee in lieu because of the fact that this other calculation was based on certain fixed factors in the area. >> Okay, so just to make sure I understand, you could still reevaluate that in subsequent years, reflected in the budget. And then also what I'm also hearing you say is that it's if there's no action taken, the sort of shot clock resets after 36 months regardless, because that's baked into the code. Is that correct, or am I misinterpreting what you said. >> For your for your second statement? I believe that would require confirmation from the [3:11:24 PM] require confirmation from the law department. My understanding is that provision of code does not need to be reflected in the ordinance to apply that 36 month shot clock, if the project is not initiated, would apply as a provision of code. Regarding the first question, the annual update of the pod fee and lieu rate that would not change the pod fee in lieu rate that is established here in ordinance that would update the fee in lieu rate that would apply to new pods that were applying in subsequent budget years. However, the $9 fee in lieu rate rate would remain as currently written in the ordinance at $9. >> Okay, so again, I apologize. Just making sure I understand this part is the $9. Then in perpetuity. What you're referring to then is for subsequent pods that would be passed, it would be changed for whatever would be set in the budget. Is that correct? >> That is correct. This $9 fee in lieu rate would be fixed in pod ordinance, again with the potential 36 month expiration of council's approval. [3:12:25 PM] of council's approval. >> Okay, but outside that expiration of approval, that's $9 in perpetuity. Is there a reason that this wasn't other than whatever you guys came up with your analysis? Is there a specific reason that in terms of that analysis, you chose not to index that those dollars for that value? >> The reason, again, is a pod escalation in fee is not unheard of, but is unusual. The typical approach is to agree upon a fixed fee in lieu rate. And one of the reasons we did that in this case is again, our calculation is based on the current difference between market rents in the submarket and affordable rents. That is fixed. And while we could potentially consider an escalation of fee in lieu rate, we have no way of also knowing if that separate calculation would escalate with market changes at the same rate. So as a result, our preference was to remain with a fixed calculation based upon assumptions that we all understand as as currently fixed. [3:13:27 PM] fixed. >> Okay, last question is how long would it take law to validate whether or not that 36 month provision would apply here? I'm sure. >> That's. Good afternoon, mayor and council, Steve Maxwell, the assistant city attorney. So the provisions within the within the code apply to all puds unless modified. So in this case it is the $9 set rate. And the and the provision for the 36 months does continue. >> Does. Okay. Thank you. >> So it took less than 36 seconds. >> Maybe a new record. >> That's right. Thank you. Thank you. Any other discussion. All right. Is there anyone wishing to be shown abstaining from a vote on the consent agenda as it's been read? Anyone wishing. Yes. >> I wish to be shown abstaining on 63, please. >> Okay. Anyone wishing to be shown recusing themselves from any vote on the consent agenda. Anyone wishing to be shown voting no on any item on the [3:14:27 PM] voting no on any item on the consent agenda. In that case, there being no further discussion. Without objection, the consent agenda is a consent agenda is adopted with councilmember duchen being shown abstaining on item number 63 members. That concludes everything that's on our agenda, with one exception. And that is for us to recognize that daddy zo doesn't look tired at all. >> I just want to say I've gotten so many texts about how tired I do look and how I need a doctor. >> Pepper oh, I don't think you ought to. Those texts are just wrong. You look. You look like a million bucks, man. >> No, I look, I look the word that I can't say in front of the I am exhausted. I realize my schedule is not my schedule anymore. And there's a new constituent in district nine that kind of dictates my life. So I'm probably going to take a nap after this meeting. >> Well, we it's good to see you. Congratulations. Yes, sir. Members. That's all the business to come before the Austin city council at this [3:15:28 PM] Austin city council at this meeting of the Austin city council. So, without objection, we are adjourned. It is 3:15 P.M. On September 11th. Thanks, everybody.