BG Reads | News - September 19, 2022
[HEARINGS AND MEETINGS]
TODAY
Tuesday (9.20)
Wednesday (9.21)
On the horizon
[AUSTIN METRO]
Why bringing more affordable housing to Austin Is a block-by-block battle (Texas Monthly)
Despite nearly everyone agreeing that Austin needs much more housing, no one can agree on where it should be built. That question should, in theory, be answered by a comprehensive land development code, which would dictate through zoning categories what can be built and where it can go. Austin last updated its code in 1984, when the city was home to fewer than half as many residents. The city has attempted to rewrite those regulations, but that effort?failed earlier this year , after homeowners responded with fierce resistance and eventually a lawsuit.
That leaves neighborhood fights such as the one that played out on E.M. Franklin to determine Austin’s future—namely, whether it will provide enough housing for a growing, diverse population—as homeowners negotiate with developers over what they will permit in their backyards…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Impartial examiner report backs up Austin Energy base rate proposal, but critics aren’t giving up (Austin Monitor)
As the November deadline to update utility rates approaches, the pressure is on for Austin Energy and its stakeholders to make their final arguments before city policymakers.
Following the release of the impartial hearing examiner’s report earlier this month, participants in the?base rate review process ?stopped by the Electric Utility Commission to break down its conclusions. While the hearing examiner largely sided with Austin Energy’s controversial?$35.7 million rate increase proposal , it will ultimately fall upon City Council and its Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee to settle the case.
“We are disappointed in the impartial hearing examiner’s report,” John Coffman, the city-appointed independent consumer advocate, said. “We think that if followed it would lead to a rate impact that would be pretty dramatic, particularly for those who use less than the average consumer.”
Among Austin Energy’s?proposals ?are a 150 percent increase in its fixed residential charge from $10 to $25 per month, as well as a restructuring of the five-tiered system currently used to incentivize conservation through premiums for high consumption. The publicly owned utility says such changes are needed to stabilize its deteriorating finances, arguing that the present model is too volatile for it to reliably recover costs to provide service.
“Since Austin Energy’s last ratemaking test year, prices measured monthly by the consumer price index for urban consumers, fuels and utilities have increased 16.5 percent while rates have remained unchanged,” Austin Energy attorney Thomas Brocato said. “This year alone, overall inflation has been above 8 percent within the city, and Austin Energy is not immune to these impacts.”…? (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin OKs an automated license plate reader program (KUT)
City Council approved a revival of a police department program to use license plate scanners on police cruisers and at fixed points throughout the city.
Council agreed Thursday on a one-year pilot program to reinstate the readers, which passively scan license plates in the hopes of assisting police in tracking down stolen vehicles, missing children and people who have felony warrants. The approval, in a 8-3 vote, capped off weeks of negotiations over the program, which opponents argued presents privacy issues.
Plate readers take millions of snapshots of license plates and store those scans in a database. If law enforcement is looking for a specific vehicle – if a car is stolen or if a plate has been ID’d in an Amber Alert – it can be tracked through a so-called hot list of suspected vehicles, and ideally, stopped.
Privacy advocates worry that database could be compromised or misused. They argued the readers could be used to track families seeking gender-affirming care for their kids or people seeking an abortion, or to track down undocumented immigrants. The readers are used by other law enforcement agencies in the Austin area, including the Austin Regional Intelligence Center, a Department of Homeland Security center that serves as a data hub for Central Texas law enforcement…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
领英推荐
Supportive housing institute to push 550 new units toward city goal of 1,300 (Austin Monitor)
The city’s goal to build its way out of its homelessness crisis will get a boost next year from six local organizations going through training from one of the national leaders in creating supportive housing for the homeless.
Last week, the Corporation for Supportive Housing announced it is teaming up with the Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation, J.P. Morgan Chase and Texas Capital Bank to open the new Texas Supportive Housing Institute based in Austin. The new organization, which will be housed out of TSAHC’s local offices, will train local homelessness groups as well as developers and property managers in best practices to build new units for the homeless and provide the services needed to help residents find stability and thrive.
The six organizations receiving training – Austin Area Urban League, the Cady Lofts development team, Caritas of Austin, Family Eldercare, Integral Care, and SAFE Alliance – will participate in classes through December, with each presenting their plans in January to create hundreds of deeply affordable new homes to help the local homeless population.
Those new units – 550 total is the expectation for the six participants – will figure into the city’s goal of building 1,300 new units for the homeless, with vouchers intended to help find housing for another 1,700 individuals. Last year, the city announced a $550 million plan to house 3,000 homeless people using a mix of federal, county and city funds along with contributions from philanthropic groups.?As of last week that plan had reached 90 percent of its funding goal…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Homes to rise near Circuit of The Americas (Austin Business Journal)
The Austin Planning Commission unanimously approved the final plat for the second phase of a development that will add 155 homes to Southeast Austin.
Located on 55 acres along Kellam Road, the small-lot subdivision from WKH Communities marks another step toward the development of Austin’s widely untouched "eastern crescent."
The project was approved on consent during the commission's Sept. 13 meeting,
City documents name the project’s owner as?Michael Slack , the vice president of land resources at homebuilder Taylor Morrison. Listed as the project’s agent is?Justin Lange , an associate at Peloton Land Solutions, an Austin-based land development firm…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
New York City considers legal action against Texas over migrant buses (Politico)
New York City is eyeing legal action to stop Texas Gov. Greg Abbott from sending more buses full of asylum seekers to the city, Mayor Eric Adams said Sunday. As at least six more buses from Texas arrived in the city Sunday morning, Adams also floated the idea of using cruise ships to house migrants who have been entering city homeless shelters by the thousands. “Our legal team is looking at legal challenges we could do with Texas,” Adams said in an appearance on CBS 2. “We believe there are some options we have, because when you involuntarily place someone on a bus, we believe that actually skates the law … We’re not leaving any stones unturned to make sure that New Yorkers are [not] being treated in an unfair way.” At least 11,000 migrants have entered the city’s homeless shelters since May, including 2,500 who arrived on buses chartered by Abbott — leading Adams to declare the shelters at their “breaking point.”
The city has opened 23 emergency shelters and expects to open 38 more, the mayor said. City Hall is now looking at the possibility of bringing in cruise ships as temporary housing, something Adams said the administration of former Mayor Mike Bloomberg considered to address a surge in homelessness, but never followed through on. “We’re looking at that as a temporary measure, not a permanent measure. A permanent measure is get people into housing,” he said in the CBS interview. “We have to find temporary measures to address this issue.” In a series of TV appearances Sunday, Adams pleaded with Abbott for at least a heads up about buses being sent to the city but said he has been rebuffed. “This is an American crisis that we need to face — a humanitarian crisis that was made by human hands, by some of the governors in the southern states,” Adams said on ABC’s “This Week.” The Democratic mayor accused Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — who last week flew planes full of asylum seekers to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts — of using the moves to distract attention from political controversies harmful to Republicans ahead of the midterm election. Texas also dropped off a bus full of people outside the home of Vice President Kamala Harris this weekend…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Maternal health advocates in the dark as Texas stalls on new mortality data (Houston Chronicle)
Nakeenya Wilson knows firsthand the trauma of a complicated pregnancy. All three of her children were born after she developed preeclampsia, a potentially fatal condition that causes high blood pressure and kidney damage, and that disproportionately endangers Black women like herself. That experience is partly what has led Wilson to serve on the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee, examining the causes of pregnancy-related deaths and finding ways to stop them. And it’s why she was heartbroken this month to learn that Texas health officials are pushing off the release of the state’s first major count of those deaths in nine years. “For people whose lives are at stake in a state that has very significant reproductive justice shifts, every day, every month, matters,” Wilson said, adding that she and others have been “at the edge of our seats to get this data.”
Health officials say they need more time to finish the work, and now expect to release the findings next year, after the approaching midterms and likely after the Texas Legislature meets for its biennial session. Under state law, the Department of State Health Services was required to publish a report on the review on Sept. 1, covering pregnancy-related deaths in 2019. Instead, lawmakers will convene in January with the same outdated data it has had for nearly a decade, from 2013. Texas has one of the ten highest maternal mortality rates according to national estimates that track outcomes while pregnant or within a year of giving birth. The last-minute delay has infuriated maternal health experts who have spent years pressing the state to update its sluggish data review process. Members of the committee, some of whom meet more than a dozen times each year, said they were not given advance warning about the announcement, which is unusual since the reports take months to draft…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
[BG PODCAST]
Today's episode (165) features Taylor O'Neil, CEO of Richard's Rainwater.
Headquartered in Austin, Richard's Rainwater is the U.S. leader in capturing and bottling pure rainwater, and is the nation’s first FDA approved cloud-to-bottle company.
He and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss Richard's history, the rain harvesting process, water supply and conservation, and regulatory hurdles in the industry.
Taylor is also a fellow Wake Forest University alum (Go Deacs!). ->?EPISODE LINK
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Enjoyed this episode? Please like, share, and comment!?Follow?Bingham Group on LinkedIn !