Community Not Commodity

On the Austin City Council’s Agenda for this week are two cases (Items 77  C14-2025-0090 and 78 C14-2025-0093) asking for upzoning to downtown mixed-use (DMU) of property that includes the site of Jack Brown Cleaners on Martin Luther King and Nueces.     The current zoning of the Jack Brown Cleaners site is CS which allows buildings of 60 feet, the DMU zoning would allow 120 feet, but the applicant indicated that it will ask for more density bonuses from the council to take the proposed zoning to 433 feet of mixed use development.   They propose two towers, on 37 stories and the other 34 stories.  That is 44% taller than the private Dobie dorm on the UT campus.

Besides concerns about the appropriateness of the proposed buildings’ heights, there are environmental concerns.   The site is located in the Shoal Creek Watershed of the Colorado River Basin.   A licensed professional engineer and professional geologist issued a January 2026 report (pg4-6) with these conclusions, among others:

• “The Site soil and groundwater are contaminated with high concentrations of the dry cleaning chemical Tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and its degradation by-product chemicals, including Trichloroethylene (TCE) and Vinyl Chloride (VC). The chemicals are present at levels exceeding indoor air human health limits for vapor migration into current and future buildings…
• It is my opinion that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) inappropriately approved JBC’s request to cease Site cleanup and monitoring. The Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP) Certificate of Completion granted to JBC means that they and future property owners have no further obligations to cleanup and protect on-site residents, visitors, and workers from cancer risks despite the potential that indoor and outdoor air quality could exceed human health safe limits.
• Regardless of TCEQ’s previous actions, future development plans for the JBC property should address these potential human health risks that likely will remain for decades unless the Site is properly remediated or building measures incorporated to prevent migration of toxic chemical gases into the buildings…”

Accordingly, questions remain whether the site has been or will be appropriately remediated or development plans required to address any potential human health risks.

The planning commission denied the community’s request to postpone the case for additional environmental review, reasoning that any unresolved environmental contamination was unrelated to the grant of additional zoning entitlements to the developer. Under the city process, environmental contamination issues can be addressed during site plan review after the developer has been granted zoning for the project. However, there is no public notice, hearing, or community input available at this stage.

Write the Council and ask them to postpone the zoning case as necessary to determine whether there is any “ongoing potential risk to human health” posed by the site before the zoning entitlements are granted, or minimally, to require staff to provide their findings and recommendations regarding environmental contamination and remediation to the Council and interested parties thirty days before any site plan approval, so that the community is afforded an opportunity for review and input.

The city of Austin is laying the groundwork for further deregulation of neighborhood communities, which they say will improve “supply” and “affordability”.   However,  a newly published study, “Inequality, Not Regulation, Drives America’s Housing Affordability Crisis” by preeminent academic researchers, dismantles the familiar claims that land‑use deregulation facilitates housing supply and creates affordable housing. In fact, in cities like Austin, these deregulation policies can actually make housing less affordable. The study concludes that the real driver of America’s housing affordability crisis is income disparity in the housing market.

Here are important points the study makes:

1. “[T]he key claim used to sell deregulation to the public, improving affordability, does not hold up to scrutiny”.  In other words, upzoning our neighborhoods (such as H.O.M.E.) does not increase affordability.

2. The claim that housing unaffordability is caused by an insufficient supply of new housing – supposedly constrained by restrictive land‑use regulations, such as zoning – is not supported by the evidence.   “[T]he links between regulation and supply, and between supply and prices, are weak at best.”

3. Housing supply typically increases in response to rising demand and prices, not because of deregulation.

4. “Filtering”—in which market‑rate housing becomes available to lower‑income households after higher‑income households move into more expensive homes —is highly conditional and context‑dependent. In fact, in high‑demand regions such as Austin, the dominant pattern is upward filtering, where lower‑priced homes are taken by higher‑income households, reducing affordability.  In fact, any downward filtering is “unlikely to generate widespread affordability in any meaningful timeframe.”

5.. Housing unaffordability has been driven by rising regional incomes that intensified housing demand and drove up prices, leaving non-high-wage workers unable to keep pace—particularly in rapidly growing, highly educated, high‑income metros. As a result, the affordability crisis is most severe for lower‑income households.

6.  “Upzoning and deregulation likely have immediate positive impacts on land values and increase wealth inequality between landowners and renters” In other words, those who obtain new entitlements through upzoning and deregulation stand to profit, while the likelihood of affordability is negatively affected.

7. “The idea that today’s housing affordability crisis can be addressed by a simple swing of the pendulum back to a mythical free market for construction – through overriding local authority over zoning and regulation – could well be another “great planning disaster,” along the lines of other great historical mistakes in urban policy for which we have paid dearly afterwards.”

8. “It is unrealistic to think that we can deregulate and build our way out of the affordability crisis with market-rate housing… in any reasonable time frame”.

Long-time readers know that the myth that the land development code is the cause of unaffordable housing has been repeatedly busted in CNC reports here, here, and here. But almost two years into H.O.M.E. phase 1 and a year and a half into H.O.M.E. phase 2, and with the city gearing up to further deregulate land use, this 2026 paper by four planning experts is particularly timely.

Stay tuned for further discussions of H.O.M.E. and the City’s deregulation plans. Facts matter.

On Thursday, January 22, Council is proposing dramatic deregulation of the Austin’s off-premise signs that would allow off‑premise electronic advertising and information boards—each roughly 86 inches diagonally, more than seven feet across—with illuminated displays placed in the public right‑of‑way (the strip on the home-side of the curb that the city controls) at bus stops (even on residential streets) and bike‑share kiosks. The proposal would also authorize 50 electronic “wayfinding” kiosks throughout “downtown.” The City of Austin’s transportation and Public Works Departments will determine a contractor and the placement of digital advertising for bus stops and bike kiosks. There are 2500 bus stops in CAP METRO’s area.

In addition, Council is proposing to remove existing limits on relocating billboards that are threatened by condemnation due to “transportation improvements along core transit corridors and future core transit corridors.” Among the restrictions being eliminated is the rule that prohibits moving a billboard to a location within 500 feet of a residential dwelling unit.

At the January 13 Planning Commission Meeting, Planning Commission Chair Alice Woods described the digital sign proposal as a “seismic change to what is allowed in our city in terms of digital advertising.” Another commissioner warned that adopting such a “massive” change could make it “difficult to put the rabbit back in the hat.” The digital sign proposal did not receive enough votes to pass the proposed ordinance, and the Commission postponed a decision on the billboard-relocation provision.

The Planning Commission had no working group evaluating this proposed ordinance, and no members of the public spoke at the January 13 meeting when the item was introduced. There has been no public outreach from the Mayor or any Council members. At this point, there is effectively no public awareness and no public engagement on the issue.

The lack of public engagement shows. It is hard to imagine that allowing electronic advertising screens in front yards at neighborhood bus stops and permitting billboards within 500 feet of homes reflects public sentiment.

This Thursday, January 22, the Council will consider the digital‑sign ordinance and related findings amending City Code Chapter 25‑10 (Sign Regulations) (Agenda # 64). The billboard‑deregulation proposal is also on the agenda, even though the Planning Commission postponed action on that item (Agenda # 86).

As we start a New Year, we thank you for your steadfast support of our mission to be a credible, referenced source of information on the actions of our city government.  We share your commitment to strong, stable neighborhoods and stewardship of a protected natural environment. To keep that commitment, we need an open and honest local government whose actions are informed by the public, grounded in facts, and in compliance with the law.  Achieving these goals starts with holding our local and state governments accountable through consistent, transparent communication and actions.

In 2025, we kept you informed of local land-use policy changes, zoning decisions, and the impact of Texas State Law revisions, and provided actionable information so your voice could be heard.  And, we went to court and defeated the city’s attempt to modify the hard-won Acuna injunctions.

We did our best to keep you apprised of Prop Q, a significant measure that would have indirectly impacted land use. The City’s Prop Q would have increased taxes and, therefore, rents for the city’s residents, especially impacting our most vulnerable neighbors.  Prop Q was defeated by a wide margin, sending a message to City Hall that it needs to be more thoughtful about its spending and tighten its belt, as many ordinary people have to do in more challenging economic times.

Our priorities for the coming year include:

•   Tracking land‑use proposals expected this spring and their impact on our communities.

• Studying and revealing the impact of the council’s actions.

•  Insisting on good government that is transparent, honest, inclusive, and reflects community values.

We move forward together in 2026 with a resolve to strengthen our communities and reform our local government.

The City returned to court seeking to take advantage of recent legislation to limit property owners’ rights to notice and protest in some cases when land-use regulations affecting their property change. We are glad to report that the trial court dismissed the City’s motion.

Keep reading to get the whole story.

Background

Readers will recall that on March 18, 2020, Hon. Jan Soifer entered a historic final judgment declaring that the City of Austin violated state law by failing to give individual notice and to afford property owners the right to protest before initiating comprehensive zoning changes on their property. (Acuna v. City of Austin). The City’s actions were voided, and they were ordered not to do it again. The City appealed, but the trial court’s judgment was affirmed. Despite being ordered not to do so, the City again failed to give proper notice of its VMU II, Residential on Commercial, and Compatibility ordinances. The Acuna plaintiffs brought a motion to enforce the original judgment and injunction. On November 8, 2023, the Hon. Jessica Mangrum held that the City violated both state law and the injunction by “failing to provide the required notice to property owners of changes in zoning regulations or zoning district boundaries,” among other things. Those ordinances were voided, and the City was assessed attorney’s fees. Attorney Doug Becker represented the plaintiffs.

Legislature to the “Rescue”

Prodded (and financially “supported”) by many of the same people and interests who opposed the notice and protest rights upheld in the Acuna case, the last Legislature passed a bad bill, H.B. 24 (effective September 1, 2025), which limited the right to individual notice and restricted the right to protest in some zoning cases. The intent was to undo the Acuna judgment completely, but the notice and protest rights defenders, against near impossible odds, were able to deny them a complete victory, as will be discussed below.

City’s Attempt to Capitalize on H.B. 24

On August 8, 2025, the City filed a motion to modify the Acuna judgment, contending that H.B. 24 changed the conditions on which the judgment was based and that the relaxed requirements of H.B. 24 should be incorporated into the judgment. In response, the Acuna plaintiffs pointed out that courts have no authority to act in the absence of an actual contested matter or, in legal terms, in the absence of a “case or controversy.”  The Hon Jan Soifer agreed and denied the City’s motion. This was the expected result. The case should never have been brought.

What the latest case reaffirmed, however, is the City’s antipathy to giving individual notice when more than a single property is being rezoned – even though an area-wide rezoning is potentially much more impactful. H.B. 24 excuses individual notification and allows the City to decide the type of notification it wants to provide when it undertakes uniform zoning changes that involve multiple properties (like H.O.M.E.) or when it deploys overlay zoning along a corridor. The City came to court seeking confirmation that it did not have to give individual notice in these instances. It left empty-handed.

What the City has never been able to answer is why, regardless of legality, it believes it is fair to change land-use regulations on and around a person’s property in comprehensive or area-wide zoning cases without giving them notice.

City’s Attempted Overreach (or Misreading of H.B.24)

In the City’s proposed order (which the judge did not accept), the City sought to narrow notice by limiting it to changes in zoning “classifications” and excluding changes to “regulations.” There is nothing in H.B. 24 that authorizes this.

Regarding protest rights, the City’s proposed order would remove the requirement to inform property owners of their protest rights.  There is nothing in H.B. 24 that authorizes this.

Conclusion

Opponents of notice and protest rights succeeded in getting the Legislature to limit them. But with regard to notice, the Legislature did not prohibit the City from giving individual notice to property owners of zoning changes—the fair thing to do. It is disappointing that the City would take the Acuna plaintiffs to court to cement its right to avoid individual notice in cases that can have a significant impact on individual property owners and neighborhoods.