On Compatibility, Staff Tells Adler, Thanks, but No Thanks

Under Mayor Steve Adler and CM Alison Alter's proposed changes to compatibility rules, restrictions would be reduced along three classes of transportation corridors: medium, large, and light rail (Courtesy of city of Austin)

While most City Hall observers are looking beyond Election Day, Nov. 8, to figure out how the next City Council will approach land use policy, city staff have reminded the current Council that there are still proposals on the table that need attention now.

One of them is changing the city's compatibility standards, the set of rules controlling the size and height of buildings near single-family homes. City staff say Austin's rules are among the most restrictive in the country, and builders trying to remedy Aus­tin's housing shortage point to compatibility as a major obstacle. In June, Mayor Steve Adler and Mayor Pro Tem Alison Alter co-authored a resolution, adopted unanimously by their colleagues, that would "modify compatibility standards as applied to certain projects on certain corridors."

Five months later, in a memo to Adler and Council, Housing and Planning staff have opined that the plan would have "minimal impact" on housing supply but would create "additional complexity" in Austin's already byzantine land use rules and isn't worth the administrative trouble. Staff would rather slow down "to undertake a broader process to evaluate options for refining compatibility standards in the context of the wide array of development tradeoffs, including affordability, mobility, environment, and equity."

Current compatibility standards cover a distance of 540 feet and gradually reduce allowable heights as one gets closer to single­-family property. The Adler/Alter proposal would reduce that distance to 300 feet – roughly one city block – and make the rules only triggered by SF zoning (reducing the number of properties affected) near developments along a defined set of transportation corridors: medium, large, and light rail.

Projects with affordable housing could have their rules further relaxed, in different ways on each corridor type. (You can start to see why staff thinks this is too complicated.) For projects along light rail lines, height limitations would end at 100 feet from a triggering property. On large corridors, developers would be allowed 65 feet (about six stories) at 100 feet from a triggering property, and 90 feet (about eight stories) at 200 feet; on medium corridors, those heights would kick in at 150 feet and 250 feet. Parking minimums would be reduced to 25% of current requirements on light rail and large corridors, and 50% on medium corridors.

Still: Thanks, but no thanks, staff says. "HPD staff generally supports revising compatibility standards," the memo reads, but the amendments would provide "a fairly small benefit in terms of additional housing units and affordability." Right now, compatibility standards apply to nearly 19,000 properties in Austin, according to the memo; only 2,830 of these would be relaxed by the Adler/Alter rules.

Adler and Alter both told the Chronicle they reject the staff's conclusion. "I would personally prefer we just say 'no compatibility beyond 100 feet,'" the mayor told us. "But the courts have shown us that great changes adopted by a razor-thin majority don't necessarily hold up. It's important for us to see what [can] stand up in court so we can actually impact things on the ground."

But, hey, staff gently reminds Council, all that work we did two years ago while revising the Land Development Code "considerably simplified the application of compatibility" and set its reach at 100 feet as the mayor prefers, because the "extremely conservative" current standards limit "the number of households who can live in proximity to transit, goods, and services."

In an email, Alter remembers that LDC Revision effort less fondly. "The LDC rewrite process ... cost millions of dollars and years of wasted time before [Adler] publicly asked for a pause and a restart, which further delayed the process." Now, staff wants Council to delay yet more, which Alter rejects. "I disagree with the premise of the staff recommendation and I don't believe the Council majority will follow the recommendation," Alter said.

Public hearings on the compatibility amendments are scheduled at the Planning Commission Tue., Nov. 8, and City Council on Dec. 1.