Public Notice: Public Land for Public Good, Act 3

After months of toil, Council Member Kathie Tovo finally succeeded in passing most of her omnibus resolution to create a consistent, reliable, transparent process to ensure that the future use of city-owned property supports Council's policy priorities on issues such as affordable housing, transportation, living wages, day care, space for creatives, and more (see "Public Notice: Public Land for Public Good?" Oct. 28). Tovo broke the logjam by carving her original document into five separate resolutions, four of which were adopted at last week's Council meeting, with the other left pending.

These included directives to: formalize a partnership with the Austin Economic Develop­ment Corporation to evaluate city-owned land for city priorities; develop a parking management policy for city facilities consistent with approved plans for strategic mobility and climate equity; dramatically improve the leasing process for city-owned facilities to address failures identified in a 2019 City Auditor's report; and establish a consistent, transparent process for the development or redevelopment of city-owned properties, with an early opportunity for Council to weigh in on priorities and potential partners, and receive community input.

Tovo's remaining resolution addresses a variety of related issues including requirements for construction projects, living wages, minority- and women-owned businesses, and other Council priorities. It's slated for the Dec. 8 Council meeting (Item 58), which also happens to be Tovo's last – a fitting coda to her years as one of the hardest-working Council members ever to grace the dais.

What Housing Crisis? Council Can't Say No to STRs

The proposal to loosen compatibility standards on transit corridors came to Council last week with a provision recommended by the Planning Commission (and included in Council's own initiating resolution) to prohibit Type 2 and Type 3 short-term rentals in new projects taking advantage of the increased entitlements. Unlike owner-occupied Type 1s, these STRs are investor-owned units rented out full-time to tourists, meaning they're not available as homes for Austin residents. So prohibiting them made perfect sense, given that the whole point of the changes was to produce more housing.

That's why it was more than a bit bewildering when CM Paige Ellis presented an amendment to reinstate current rules that allow up to 25% of units in multifamily structures in commercial zones to operate as full-time STRs. Mayor Pro Tem Alison Alter suggested a compromise to cap STRs at no more than 15% under the new regs, which the dais supported with only CM Tovo voting no. For a Council that can't stop talking about Austin's housing crisis, they sure have a hard time walking the walk when it counts.

Not So Progressive: Zo's Republican Past and NDAs

Not a great week for D9 City Council candidate Zo Qadri. After months of touting his progressive bona fides, a background check revealed that he voted in the 2016 Republican primary and that his work history reportedly includes past stints for Texans for Greg Abbott, the Republican Party of Texas, Republican Congressman Blake Farenthold, and a couple of Libertarian campaigns (also that he's had 14 jobs since 2012, the longest lasting 10 months). On the heels of that disclosure, we learned that he's asking campaign volunteers to sign nondisclosure agreements, an unheard-of precaution in local races that can't help but make you wonder what he's worried about getting out, not to mention how committed he'd be to openness and transparency as a Council member. Unfortunately, a number of prominent local Dems had already jumped on the Zo bandwagon before this latest info came to light. Awkward – but at least you don't have to vote for the name on your yard sign.

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As I reported a few weeks back, PARD has released the draft Zilker Metropolitan Park Vision Plan for public comment and will hold an in-person open house this coming Saturday. They've gotten one notable comment thus far: Rewilding Zilker, a coalition of environmental and neighborhood advocates, issued a statement calling the plan "a fail" and slamming the three planned parking garages, the emphasis on privatization, the move of sports facilities to the MoPac side of the park, and the lack of cost estimates. You can see their comments here, view and comment on the plan at austintexas.gov/zilkervision, and attend the open house Saturday, Dec. 10, 10am-2pm at McBeth Rec Center, 2401 Columbus, on the MoPac side of Zilker.