Across three lengthy public hearings at Austin’s City Council, tenant after tenant of the Acacia Cliffs apartment complex, either in person or through a written or video statement read or played into the record, pleaded with the City Council not to rezone their apartments to the DB90 zoning category as part of the property owner’s plan to demolish and redevelop their apartment complex. No tenant, in fact, no one at all, testified in favor of the rezoning. On June 5th, the Council over the tenants’ and the public’s objections unanimously granted the property’s owner’s rezoning request. Several members unselfconsciously stated that they were doing so to ensure the tenants received the financial relocation assistance required by DB90 as part of their displacement, instead of saying “no” to the destruction of their affordable housing. The Council misapplied a ‘housing affordability’ ordinance, which was never intended for residentially zoned properties like this. The Council’s action will incentivize, through entitlements, a redevelopment that will result in a net loss of 210 affordable housing units. This is the city’s existing affordable housing policy. This is how the city puts its tenants and affordability “first.”
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In the face of an onslaught of public outrage, the Mayor, at the outset of the hearing on May 22, joined in the criticism of DB90, describing it as an “axe,” conceded that it could have unintended consequences, and acknowledged that it needed to be revised. On June 5th, the Council passed a resolution calling for a review and revision of DB 90. Without waiting for the impending revision, that same day the Council lowered the axe and granted the applicants’ DB90 rezoning request, embracing the unintended consequences.
Council Member Duchen had proposed a fund that could be used to preserve existing affordable housing, the type of funding source called for in a city report 8 years ago, and that should have already existed. At the hearing on June 5th, not a single member of the council seconded Duchen’s motion to postpone action on Acacia Cliffs, each staring straight ahead in stony silence. A postponement would have allowed time for revising the ordinance to mitigate affordable housing loss and establishing a fund. When the delay was not granted, every council member fell in line and passed the rezoning.
In addition to the displacement of individuals and families who rely on this housing, the applicant’s redevelopment will replace 290 units of deeply affordable housing with approximately 80 units of mildly affordable housing—a net loss of 210 more affordable units. The applicant pulled out all the stops to secure the DB90 entitlements, even threatening to develop the property without DB90 under its existing lower-density zoning without provision for any affordable housing, despite current and projected market conditions making that proposition less than certain. Councilmembers wilted in the face of that threat, choosing to avoid the possibility of losing the projected 80 less-affordable units over the certainty of losing at least 210 existing more-affordable units if the property was redeveloped as planned.
DB90 should never have been granted in this case because, by its terms, DB90 is only allowed on commercial property to increase housing in commercial areas. Acacia Cliffs is residential property. The Council allowed the applicant to bypass this requirement by artificially rezoning the property to commercial zoning and then slapping DB90 on it. This also allowed the Council and the developer to ignore another existing affordable housing ordinance, which grants the developer roughly the same entitlements but requires four times more affordable units than under DB90. Affordability first!
This case pulled back the curtain on a large part of the city’s affordable housing program, which the Mayor claims is at the “vanguard” of housing policy in the nation. Behind the curtain is a developer who almost always gets a “yes” even when, as here, the application of an “affordable housing” ordinance results in less affordable housing.
To the tenants, activists, and the public, including all those who wrote and called the Council, the community owes you a deep debt of gratitude for your efforts. It You forced a review of DB90, although the Council’s action in this case raises questions about how productive that will be. Perhaps more promising is the development of funds to preserve, where possible, deeply affordable housing threatened by redevelopment.
This city council has shown scant commitment to preserving affordable housing, ignoring the pleas of countless residents who have asked the council to “please save my home,” while prioritizing the demands of developers seeking lucrative entitlements.
The Council’s actions show that we need to continue working together to reform City Hall so that it serves the needs of everyone.