With new faces, will Austin City Council shift policies on housing, homelessness?

Austin Mayor-elect Kirk Watson
Mikala Compton/American-Statesman

Austin American-Statesman
Luz Moreno-Lozano
Austin American-Statesman
December 19, 2022

The key issues facing the Austin City Council in the coming year aren't new ones: Housing affordability, public transit and homelessness have been problems for the city for years

But 2023 will bring a very different council and a new mayor — and it remains to be seen what path the new council will take to tackle some of the city's thorniest problems.

Austin voters just selected Kirk Watson as Austin's next mayor, and they also elected three new council members in José Velásquez, Ryan Alter and Zohaib “Zo” Qadri, who will represent Districts 3, 5 and 9, respectively.

All four of those new city officials campaigned on promises to invest in a variety of affordable housing solutions, improve transportation and address homelessness.  

The new trio of council members in some ways differ from their predecessors — potentially shifting the council in a more progressive direction on some issues.

In particular, the council could attempt to enact more density-focused housing policies that stress access to transportation resources likes buses, bike lanes and a proposed rail line.  

Sherri Greenberg, a professor of practice for the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs, said housing affordability, transportation and homelessness are interrelated issues. 

“Will there be differences? Will we see pushes for changes in Project Connect and the I-35 expansion?" Greenberg said. "Affordable housing was a big issue for all the candidates. I think there will be a lot of discussion around what could be done to increase the supply for affordable housing in Austin and building those houses in places where people have access to public transportation.” 

Greenberg said that the rising cost of living pushes people to the outskirts of Austin, which then contributes to homelessness and further cost burdens.  

“So, if you move out of Austin to rising (housing costs) and you don’t have reliable transportation and then you don't have access to bus routes or rail lines, you could end up in a situation where you could be more cost burden than you were before,” Greenberg said. “So, there are interrelationships between affordable housing, transportation and those experiencing homelessness.”

Addressing affordability 

Most of the current and new City Council members have expressed to some degree that the city needs to update and modernize its land development code to allow for more housing. The current code rules were adopted in 1984 with few changes made since.  

In the past decade, city leaders have tried to rewrite the city's land use plans. A major revision, dubbed CodeNext, was in the works for several years before it was scrapped in 2018. In 2020, the council also put forward a plan that would have relaxed upzoning restrictions and promoted density in traditional neighborhoods. 

In 2020, Council Members Leslie Pool, Kathie Tovo, Ann Kitchen and Alison Alter opposed changes to the land development rules. With Tovo and Kitchen no longer on the council, their successors could attempt to tip the scales back in the direction of seeking more housing density.  

Velásquez, Qadri and Ryan Alter have all said they favor more dense housing, and have said they want to expedite the city's permitting processes and reform zoning rules while preserving what affordable housing already exists.  

Ryan Alter told the American-Statesman that he was “ready to get to work on actually making Austin affordable for people.” Qadri, who is believed to be the first Muslim and person of South Asian descent on the council, also said he was ready “to be a voice and resource for his district, and would push good housing policy.”  

But Watson, who previously served as mayor from 1997 to 2001, has taken a more moderate approach that supports preserving single-family neighborhoods. He said that it is going to take a team effort to find a middle ground.

“I don't think it benefits anybody to start off that discussion by saying you're of one group or another because what that does is immediately divides people up,” Watson said. “I want to see if we can't get to a better place on what we agree on, as opposed to starting off on what we disagree on.” 

Bill Aleshire, an Austin attorney and former Travis County judge, said he believes the new council will have a better shot at implementing a lot of what density advocates intended with CodeNext.

“Overall, we have had a divided council on the big issues of development,” Aleshire said. “I think there is a better chance with the new council to (support density housing) despite Kirk’s (Watson) rather moderate view of trying to preserve residential neighborhoods. Surprisingly, a large sentiment that will be reflected by a new council that has little respect for residential neighborhoods and deprioritizes home ownership.”  

The common ground 

Where the new council could find the most common ground is on addressing homelessness.  

In 2021, Austin voters reinstated a ban on public camping that made it illegal to sit or lie down in the downtown area and near the UT campus, and also cut down the hours during which panhandling is allowed. But Austin police and city officials have said enforcement of the ban has been complicated, and local homeless advocates have criticized enforcement action as uneven.

The city created the HEAL initiative, or Housing-Focused Encampment Assistance Link, a program that gets some people who are experiencing homelessness into a hotel that functions as shelter, with a goal of moving them to more permanent housing. But there is not nearly enough shelter space for all of the city's homeless people.

Watson could have some success in pulling the council together to find an interim solution that bans camping but offers resources for those who are unhoused, Aleshire said

Ryan Alter said these issues will be among his top priorities.  

“We need to immediately look at our homelessness crisis and look at what we can do better and take real action,” he told the Statesman. “Because, right now, no one is being served with the city’s current policies, whether they are individuals on the street every day or neighborhoods dealing with the consequences to that.”  

Aleshire said there are a number of steps Watson and the council could pursue, including building and creating more permanent, supportive housing, but it could depend on how long Watson decides he will serve as mayor.  

Watson's new mayoral term is for two years, not the usual four, after Austin voters approved a change last year to align mayoral elections with presidential elections.

If Watson decides he will only be a one-term mayor, Aleshire said, he might want to delay or avoid some of those big decisions.

“I think Kirk has got his work cut out for him,” Aleshire said. “But we will just have to see how this new council will differ from the current council.”