Downtown Austin leaders are increasingly focused on residential development as a way to stabilize the city’s core, as office vacancy rates remain stubbornly high and some buildings struggle to find tenants at all. With more than one-fifth of downtown office…
The Housing Department is pushing City Council to continue to provide funding for land acquisition and development subsidies to preserve long-term housing affordability. In a recent memo responding to a Council resolution from last year, housing officials describe land banking…
City housing staff say a publicly-funded program to help homeowners build accessory dwelling units would likely see limited uptake and may fall short of the city’s affordability goals, particularly for households most at risk of displacement. In a recent memo…
In talking about the possibility of establishing a city fund specifically for preserving existing affordable housing stock, Council Member Marc Duchen said part of the motivation is to give the city more tools to step in before property owners decide…
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The zoning reforms that have come to define our City Council are having a moment in the spotlight, earning shout outs from Vice President J.D. Vance and New York Times bestseller Ezra Klein, whose recent book Abundance presents an approach…
A city program meant to ensure affordable housing is built into new developments is facing criticism for its potential to displace more than 200 residents already living in affordable units in a West Austin complex. Now, they’re asking the city…
City housing leaders have found that efforts to expand and improve access to Austin’s HOME initiative are progressing on multiple fronts, with program refinements, interdepartmental coordination and new support strategies underway. A recent memo from the Housing Department outlines these…
A city incentive program intended to produce “Safe, Mixed-use, Accessible, Reasonably-priced and Transit-oriented” housing may be getting a little smarter with changes working their way towards City Council. The Housing Department is proposing four amendments to improve the “operation and…
Just over 3,200 people in Austin and Travis County slept in tents, shelters or cars on one night in January. That’s about 800 more people, or a 36% increase, compared to 2023, the last time a homeless count was done.…
City staff members are evaluating the idea of investing more in housing as well as other strategies to address shortfalls in key areas of the Strategic Housing Blueprint, including deeply affordable housing and permanent supportive housing. A memo released this…
Plans to redevelop an apartment complex in Northwest Austin are off to a rocky start, drawing a crowd to City Hall last week with demands for more concessions to displaced tenants. Acacia Cliffs residents and their neighbors took to the…
Standing at a pulpit on a Sunday morning in March, the Rev. Daryl Horton of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in East Austin prayed for a swift approval of building permits. An ask that, as anyone familiar with municipal bureaucracy knows,…
