BG Reads | 4.20.2022
[HEARINGS]
Wednesday, 4/20
Thursday, 4/21
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
VMU changes not happening anytime soon (Austin Monitor)
Without taking a vote, City Council members decided during Tuesday’s work session that they would postpone Thursday’s vote on the most recent proposals to enhance affordability options within the zoning category known as Vertical Mixed Use, or VMU, and the new category VMU2. Mayor Steve Adler proposed a discussion at Council’s work session on May 17 and a vote at the Council meeting on June 16, right before Council takes its summer break.
Adler suggested that he and his colleagues discuss the proposed changes before that vote, as well as hold public meetings to hear community input.
Last fall, Council Member Ann Kitchen?presented the idea?of allowing increased height, perhaps up to 90 feet, in exchange for additional affordable housing along the city’s corridors. Council approved a resolution in November supporting the changes and asked the Planning Commission to make recommendations…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin-based student housing developer American Campus Communities announces sale to Blackstone in $12.8B deal (Community Impact)
Austin-based American Campus Communities Inc. will sell its student housing real estate development, construction and management company to Blackstone for $12.8 billion, in a deal announced April 19.
Among the campuses with ACC-owned properties are The University of Texas at Austin and Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. In Austin, ACC's portfolio includes more than one dozen housing complexes in the West Campus area home to hundreds of beds and valued together at more than $520 million as of 2022.
According to a press release, the transaction was unanimously approved by ACC’s board of directors and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2022.
On its website, American Campus Communities Inc. states it is the largest owner, manager and developer of high-quality student housing communities in the United States.
According to ACC, they owned 166 student housing properties with approximately 111,900 beds. With its third-party managed properties, ACC had 203 properties with approximately 140,900 beds throughout the United States…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Nonprofit offers free soccer clinics for Austin kids (KXAN)
A nonprofit tied to Austin FC is bringing back free clinics to teach young children soccer skills.?Clinics 4ATX is a series of five soccer clinics?for children ages 5-11?to take place between April and October at schools across Austin.
The clinic kicks off on Tuesday from 4-6 p.m. at Jaime D. Padron Elementary School, 2011 W. Rundberg Ln.?The second clinic is Tuesday, April 26 from 3:30-5:30 p.m. at Gilbert Elementary School, 5412 Gilbert Rd.
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“4ATX Foundation and St. David’s HealthCare believe in the power of soccer to help communities thrive socially, emotionally and physically,” said Austin FC President and 4ATX Board Member Andy Loughnane. “Removing barriers and creating opportunities to enter the sport at a young age is the perfect way to support our shared mission, and we’re excited to offer no-cost opportunities for young people to play soccer throughout Austin.”?…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
The Boring Company is generating excitement in, near Austin (Austin Business Journal)
As headlines swirl over?Elon Musk's efforts to buy Twitter Inc.?or?Tesla Inc.'s "Cyber Rodeo"?grand opening party in Austin, another one of his companies is beginning to ramp up its presence working in Central Texas.
In recent weeks,?details about Musk's Pflugerville-based tunneling startup, The Boring Company, have been popping up in the public sector, including?efforts to build out its site in Bastrop County, east of Austin. The company is also eyeing an?alternative transportation plan in San Antonio?that would yield a series of tunnels that would extend from the San Antonio International Airport and the city center.
Now, the company is getting involved in talks with both the cities of Austin and nearby Kyle, the latter of which will consider entering an agreement for preliminary engineering for a pedestrian tunnel that would connect the Plum Creek subdivision to the $90 million, 39-acre second phase of the Kyle Crossing mixed-use development that is expected to bring destination dining and retail to the suburb south of Austin.
The Kyle City Council was scheduled on April 19 to potentially approve the professional services agreement with Boring,?according to council documents, but officials said that discussion will be delayed. The pedestrian underpass would stretch under the Union Pacific Railroad tracks south of Kyle Parkway/Farm to Market 1626. The company laid out a nine-step plan as part of the engineering process that would total $50,000 in costs and include a site visit, engineering studies and a delivered report.
"The pedestrian underpass will accommodate multimodal transportation options both slow and fast moving, including electric vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians," a preliminary engineering report stated. "The pedestrian underpass will connect people from the region to encourage multimodal movement to leisure and outdoor activities and integrate into the urban environment. The surrounding area will connect to a destination park, adjacent professional offices, dining, and retail options."
Kyle Mayor Travis Mitchell cautioned that the project is still in the early stages and that "there are several hurdles to cross," but that that they're "excited to move forward" with The Boring Company. He said that Boring initiated discussions with various cities around the region shortly after it moved to the Austin area…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Gov. Abbott threatens to shut down border trade with Mexico again (Houston Chronicle)
Gov. Greg Abbott is threatening to reinstate aggressive truck safety inspections at the border that just a week ago nearly halted shipments of goods and supplies from Mexico into Texas. Hours after Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Monday called Abbott’s inspection program “despicable” at a news conference, Abbott warned that he’s prepared to restart the program if López Obrador’s administration doesn’t do more to stop illegal immigration into Texas. “I have the capability at any time to turn those inspections back on that will backlog those trucks that are trying to come across the border that will cause havoc in Mexico,” Abbott told Fox News host Sean Hannity. But it’s not just Mexico that was hurt. Trucking groups, agriculture organizations and businesses in Texas have warned Abbott that the border shutdown hurt disrupted their businesses and their ability to get things such as fresh produce to store shelves.
One estimate from the border city of Pharr pegged daily economic losses at $202 million per day. Another from Ray Perryman, president of the economic research firm Perryman Group, pegged the losses at $477 million a day in an interview with the Dallas Morning News. On April 8, Abbott ordered all incoming trucks to undergo the safety inspections. Normally, the state selects trucks that have obvious violations for the inspections. But Abbott’s order forced every truck to be inspected for up to an hour after going through U.S. Customs. The results were waits of up to eight hours for trucks that normally get into the United States within 30 minutes and condemnations from shipping interests including the American Trucking Associations. At some bridges, all trade was halted as Mexican truck drivers protested the extra inspections and set up blockades. A week later, Abbott announced that he was easing the inspections at all bridges after receiving signed agreements from all four of the Mexican governors whose states share borders with Texas to do more immigration patrols south of the Rio Grande. Those agreements are nonbinding, but Abbott warned last week when he signed the fourth that if those governors don’t live up to the deals, he’s not afraid to shut down commercial traffic again…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Mexico’s López Obrador says Abbott’s costly border checks that snarled traffic were ‘despicable’ (Dallas Morning News)
Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador on Monday slammed Texas Governor Greg Abbott over his stepped up inspections of commercial trucks at the border, which for 10 days disrupted trade and the supply chain between both countries. “Legally they can do it, but it’s a very despicable way to act,” López Obrador said at his regular daily news conference, known as the ma?anera. “I would say it’s chicanadas (half-baked) antics from the state government.” López Obrador’s remarks were his first since the inspections began on April 6. Last Friday, Abbott, who is up for reelection in November, agreed to end the additional inspections on commercial vehicles after the governors of four Mexican states — Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas — announced they had reached security agreements with Texas. López Obrador said the Mexican governors and Abbott did not have the authority to do so.
“With all due respect, states have no legal authority to do agreements with a foreign country,” the president said. “Instead of thinking — and I say this respectfully — ‘How will I fix the problem of inflation?’ He is politicizing and even violating international rights.” Except for the state of Nuevo León, which said it was implementing new security checks inside its narrow border with Texas, none of the Mexican governors offered up any new security guarantees with Texas. Instead, they detailed their ongoing efforts to secure the border. Abbott ordered the additional safety inspections after declaring that the Biden administration had failed the country when it comes to border safety. He has said DPS workers inspecting the commercial vehicles, limited to tire or light checks, would disrupt efforts to smuggle people and drugs across the border. “What’s despicable is the ongoing crisis on our southern border, with millions of illegal immigrants from over 150 countries overrunning our border communities and overwhelming our law enforcement, that neither President Biden nor President López Obrador have stepped up to stop,” Abbott press secretary Renae Eze responded in a statement Monday…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
DeSantis proposes dissolving special tax status for Disney World (Washington Post)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is following through on his promise to try and cancel a 1967 deal between the state and the Walt Disney Co. that could leave the company on the hook for millions of dollars a year in local taxes — and with less autonomy over its property. On Tuesday, DeSantis announced that lawmakers in Tallahassee for a special legislative session would take up the issue. The proposal follows weeks of public attacks on Disney by the governor, who has criticized the company for opposing a new Florida law that limits how educators discuss LGBTQ issues in the classroom. Legislators “will be considering the Congressional map, but they also will be considering termination of all special districts that were enacted in Florida prior to 1968, and that includes the Reedy Creek Improvement District,” DeSantis said at a news conference in The Villages, a retirement community north of Disney.
A proclamation signed by DeSantis states that “it is necessary to review such independent special districts to ensure that they are appropriately serving the public interest.” It is unclear what impact the proposal would have on Disney World’s operations. The company did not respond to requests for comment. The bill to eliminate the special district passed GOP-majority state Senate and House committees Tuesday afternoon. Democrats called it an act of retaliation by a powerful governor that could have unintended consequences. “If this isn’t the grandest form of bullying that I’ve ever seen, I don’t know what is,” state Sen. Janet Cruz (D) said. “I have this vision of a mousetrap that we’ve created, and I see us leaning on the neck of the mouse for 12 months, just to step on Mickey’s neck.” But the bill’s supporters pushed back. Sen. Jennifer Bradley said the legislation, which specifies Disney without naming it, “is not an attempt to villainize” the company but to reassess its legal authority after more than a half-century. “They are not governed by a different set of rules as everyone else. They make their own rules,” said Bradley, the bill’s sponsor in the Senate. “Those are incredibly broad powers that have been brought to light.” Bill sponsor Rep. Randy Fine (R) tweeted soon after DeSantis’s announcement that “Disney is a guest in Florida. Today, we remind them.”…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
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