Because of the relentless truth-telling by you and countless Austinites all over the city, we finally broke through at City Hall in our fight to save the 290 affordable apartments for low-income tenants at Acacia Cliffs and reform the city’s flawed and misused DB90 ordinance. However, the outcome still hangs in the balance, so an urgent action item is included below.

At the May 22nd Council meeting, the Mayor acknowledged the community’s “extremely unhappy experience” with DB90, which he likened to “an axe,” resulting in “significant unintended consequences” causing “pain” for Austin residents. This revelation is welcomed, even though the ordinance went into effect on March 11, 2024.  Watson and other council members will offer a draft resolution calling for changes to the DB90 Combining District at the June 5 council meeting. With the admission that DB90 does not work as intended, the council cannot properly apply it to Acacia Cliffs.

But crucially, no decision was made on the tenants’ fate, and the case was only postponed until June 5th. The tenants remain in jeopardy of displacement.

 Please call or email the Council  and make these points:

  1. Since we all agree that DB90 is fundamentally flawed, it cannot in good conscience be applied to Acacia Cliffs.
  2. Postpone this rezoning case for at least 6 months or until a plan to preserve Acacia Cliffs is finalized. A two-week postponement is inadequate to develop an affordable housing preservation strategy and marshal the resources necessary for its implementation.
  3.  Reform DB90 to limit it to pre-existing commercially zoned property, and require a one-to-one replacement of any affordable units if they cannot be preserved.

Thank you for caring enough to take action.

 

Individual emails for Mayor and Council

Mayor         kirk.watson@austintexas.gov,

District 1 natasha.madison@austintexas.gov

District 2  vanessa.fuentes@austintexas.gov

District 3  jose.velasquez@austintexas.gov

District 4 chito.vela@austintexas.gov

District 5  ryan.alter@austintexas.gov,

District 6  krista.laine@austintexas.gov

District 7   mike.siegel@austintexas.gov

District 8  paige.ellis@austintexas.gov

District 9  zohaib.qadri@austintexas.gov,

District 10 marc.duchen@austintexas.gov

Read more about Acacia Cliffs in the Austin Independent (Neighbors Seek to Avoid Destruction of NW Austin Apartment Complex – After Council Removes a Key Tenant Protection).     The tenant’s narratives are reported in the Austin Free Press ( “Net loss”, “Raising Acacia”), and the American Statesman  covers the protest against the upzoning and a reflection on the many years of the debate between redevelopment and the loss of affordable housing.