The Texas Supreme Court will not order the Austin City Council to change the language it approved for two November ballot issues, regarding a city-government-wide independent audit and the fate of a new land development code.
The court late Monday notified attorney Bill Aleshire, representing the parties on both issues, that it declined to issue writs of mandamus that would have obliged the council to reconsider language that citizen groups contend was misleading to voters.
The city clerk has until Sept. 4 to finalize the language that will appear on the Nov. 6 ballot. If approved, the first proposition would authorize the council to hire an outside company to do an efficiency review of all city departments, including the utilities. The other would give voters the authority to approve Austin’s first new land development code since 1985.
The court ruled 6-3 to reject Aleshire’s request, made on behalf of Ed English, an unpaid advisor for Citizens for an Accountable Austin, the political action committee organized to promote the audit.
The justices unanimously rejected the plea of Allan McMurtry, a signer of a petition asking that voters be given final approval for whatever land development code the city creates.
Bottom Line: Never, ever, ever forget that most of the time the highly overrated Texas Supreme Court lets the government do whatever it wants....
Obviously, the primary reason to oppose this contract is that the $10 to $12 million annual cost will be passed along to ratepayers. That means higher electric bills. Then there's also the fact that this contract will run for 15 years.
But what makes this particularly galling is the "climate change" hypocrisy we're likely to see from several NIMBY council members. We'd expect Kathie Tovo, Alison Alter, and Leslie Pool to use this vote to bolster their environmentalist street cred. But, when the subject returns to Code Next, those three council members will lead the charge for land use policies that lead to higher carbon emissions.
The same restrictive land-use policies that drive up housing costs and produce traffic also lead to higher carbon emissions.
Bottom Line: Tovo, Alter, and Pool will support for a meaningless mandate that will drive up everyone's electric bills without achieving their stated goals, but then they fight the only policy that can actually accomplish their stated goals...and all for the low, low cost of $150 million (in other people's money).
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Addendum: It's also worth pondering whose cronies are getting paid on this contract.
We apologize for the blurry picture, but that's actually a good metaphor for the revival of this bill.
"Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?!?" Matthew 20:15
[Note: The hearing can be viewed here, our testimony is just after the one hour mark.]
It's not often we testify in a committee hearing on the same side of an issue as Greg Fenves and the Texas Exes, but such is the nature of an obscure land dispute in West Austin in which the legislature has inexplicably chosen to involve itself. We had thought this one was dead. But late yesterday afternoon, the House Land and Resource management committee announced a hearing on short notice.
We outlined the reasons for our opposition to SB 822 when it was heard in the Senate back in March. The short version is that UT is sitting on an extraordinarily valuable tract of land in West Austin, which UT has occasionally considered selling to residential/mixed use developers. In a city with a chronic housing shortage, keeping this option on the table seems prudent; unfortunately, that prudence exists alongside some dirty local Austin politics.
At this morning's hearing, UT and their representatives (led by Fenves) testified that it was in the interest of everyone involved to respect the wishes of the original donor. Furthermore, they testified that this could lead to remittance clauses being inserted into all future gifts, but not just gifts to them. Thus, there could be unintended consequences in any number of areas where a future legislature might invent a future jurisdictional claim. But here's the thing [Note: we can't believe we're about to say this]: UT's argument isn't entirely crazy. Who's to say how a future legislature in 10 or 20 years would interpret this action?!? Does the legislature really want to create this precedent?!? Tread carefully....
As to our personal testimony: we gave the same schpiel we give any time the "Save MUNY" issue comes up. In a city with a chronic housing shortage, it strikes us as absurd to place artificial restrictions on prime real estate that presently hosts a golf course. If UT wants to sell this particular tract of land to developers...that would be a good thing!
Rep. Ernest Bailes attempted to obfuscate by asking a straw-man question about whether we would apply the same logic to Central Park in New York City. While Bailes question was a curveball we didn't expect, we replied that midtown Manhattan doesn't have the 6000-square foot lot size requirements that Central Austin has, and that his question was irrelevant as long as that distinction applies. That being said, having had a few hours to digest Rep. Bailes question, if we were offered the deal of leaving the Muny tract alone in exchange for upzoning the surrounding neighborhood...we would take it.
Making matters worse: Lyle Larson (who's carrying the bill in the House), used his closing argument as an opportunity to throw Wallace Hall under the bus. Rather than addressing the issues, Larson reminded the committee of his role in the Wallace Hall impeachment and reminded the room "I have been sued by a UT regent." If there weren't already enough reasons to shoot this bill down on the merits, hearing the bill sponsor cite his role in that disgraceful fiasco makes us oppose it all the more.
Bottom Line: We hope this bill dies....
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Note: During the Senate hearing, we criticized the Texas Exes for their lack of attention to this issue; giving credit where it's due, they had a significant presence at today's hearing.
"Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?" Matthew 20:15
[Author's Note: The Statesman has a good write up this morning's hearing here.]
There's a bill we've been keeping an eye on for several weeks about which we have yet to comment, but considering that it got a hearing this morning, now is a good time.
SB 822 is a weird attempt to get the legislature involved in a West Austin land dispute that's been simmering for at least a decade. To be honest, we have no idea why the legislature chose to but in this session. While we have no specific knowledge, considering the neighborhood involved, we suspect there's a lobbyist who's also a participant in the land dispute.
At the heart of the issue is a tract of land (sidenote: What else is new in Texas?!?) on which is currently situated the Lions Golf Course. The golf course is operated by the city of Austin while the land is owned by the University of Texas system. That being said, given its proximity to downtown and various other popular locations, this tract is a prime candidate for residential construction in a city that needs to build 150,000 units of new housing over the next decade.
Because it's such a prime location for housing construction, from time to time UT has looked into selling (or long term ground leasing) the property to various developers...which of course doesn't sit well with the anti-growthers at the Austin Neighborhoods Council. This has led to the disingenuous and tiresome "Save Muny" campaign in West Austin. With UT's lease with the city set to expire in 2019, ANC is clearly trying to pre-empt a public discussion of the property.
Which brings us to Estes' bill. SB 822 would transfer the property from the UT system (who might eventually allow hosing (in our city that needs to build 150,000 new units)) to the state of Texas' Parks and Wildlife department. The P&W department could be expected to keep the property as a municipally run golf course for the indefinite future.
And, of course, keeping the property as a municipally run golf course will permanently remove almost a 150 acres of prime real estate from the housing stock.
Bottom Line: For this website to come down on the same side as UT on an issue before the legislature should tell you a lot about the unusual nature of this situation, but leaving the status quo in place is the best possible outcome for everyone except a few vocal anti-growthers in West Austin.
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Note I: We didn't want to dilute the arguments on the merits above with an ideological tangent, but it's also worth pointing out that no city has any business running any golf course at any time.
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Note II: Where the heck are the Texas Exes on this one?!? For as much as they loved to play the "the legislature shouldn't micromanage universities" card during discussions of any attempts to hold Bill Powers accountable for all his misdeeds over the years, this actual attempt to micromanage the university's real estate doesn't seem to elicit a peep. They're the one group that could probably kill this thing if they got involved...so we hope they do.
A proposal from Austin City Council Member Ora Houston could dramatically affect the redevelopment of East Austin by imposing new height restrictions on future projects to protect certain views of the state Capitol.
Houston’s proposal for five new Capitol view corridors comes as developers increasingly eye East Austin for high-rise development, fueling fears about further change in this once-working class part of town.
“This whole conversation, this whole wanting to have some visual history of the relationship between black East Austin and the Capitol started back in 2015,” said Houston, who was inspired by the fight over the once-proposed One Two East development, which would have built a pair of apartment towers on the east side of Interstate I-35 at 12th Street. Those towers, she said, would have been a “vertical barrier, just like some people see I-35 as a horizontal barrier.”
“People in different parts of East Austin need the same kind of views of our Capitol as other people have,” she added.
[Author's Note: Emphasis added.]
No council member, "people in different parts of East Austin" (like everyone citywide) need 150,000 units of new housing to reverse the trend of ever increasing housing costs we've seen over the past decade; it's economics 101, as supply goes up, price goes down.
'Views of the Capitol' are irrelevant to this discussion.
Still, it's interesting to see who's supportive:
Her bid is co-sponsored by Mayor Steve Adler and Council Members Leslie Pool, Kathie Tovo and Alison Alter.
It's not difficult to understand why Tovo, Pool, and Alter [sidenote: Where's Ann Kitchen?!?] support this: This is a typical Austin Neighborhood Council initiative to use any excuse in the book to maintain high housing prices for existing homeowners. Likewise, Adler's motivation is easy to discern: complicated regulations on the front end grease the skids for shady subsidies on the back end. Still, Houston's support for this bullsh...nonsense...is disappointing.
Here's the thing: The reason the East Side is gentrifying at such a rapid pace is because the affluent NIMBY's at the Austin Neighborhoods Council have made it impossible to build anything in Central Austin. That impossibility pushes housing demand out to the East Side, which prices existing residents out of their homes. Once again, Economics 101: if demand goes up, and supply is artificially held constant, price goes up.
This isn't rocket surgery.
Bottom Line: Council member Houston's proposal can only make gentrification on the east side worse...and it's straight up depressing that someone who should know better fails to grasp this obvious point.
This is the Grove exported statewide, and that's a threat to property rights that should make every Texan shudder.
For those who don't follow the ins and outs of City of Austin land use battles, the Grove was a (recently concluded) two-year saga to build new housing on a gigantic empty lot one block away from a major highway. In a city that needs to build 150,000 new housing units, existing homeowners colluded with anti-growth politicians to use every disingenuous excuse in the book to prevent residential construction on a gigantic empty lot. As we detailed last fall, welcome to 'neighborhood association' politics: "existing residents buy homes in destination cities, and then utilize land-use regulations and anti-growth public officials to prevent new construction."
And creating new land use regulations at the state level threatens the property rights of every Texan.
The Austin Neighborhoods Council is a protectionist anti-property rights organization that unfortunately dominates politics in this town. While they attempt to obfuscate with vague rhetoric, their primary function is to keep Central Austin 'safe' for rich white liberals by making it prohibitively expensive for Black or Hispanic families (or anyone under age 50) to live there. On a semi-related note, ANC's actions to make it impossible to build in central Austin also plays a big role in why Austin traffic has become such a nightmare.
And, apparently, Gina Hinojosa is ANC's lady in the Texas Legislature.
And this bill, if it passes, will give your neighbors a veto over anything you want to build on your property...unless you can get three quarters of the relevant city council to support your position (which is impossible).
Bottom Line: If you want to make the rest of Texas more like Austin, HB 1175 would be a good place to start.
