Item 5_PODER_RECOMMENDATION_TO_COUNCIL_4_14_26 — original pdf

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RECOMMENDATION TO COUNCIL Community Development Commission WHEREAS, The Austin Community Development Commission is tasked with reviewing programs designed to serve the poor and the community at large, and providing recommendations to the Austin City Council; WHEREAS, the Community Development Commission has discussed the need for deeply affordable housing with the Austin Housing Department, the Austin Planning Department, additional city departments, and community organizations, that coordinate with community development programs; and WHEREAS, one of those community organizations, People Organized in Defense of Earth and her Resources (PODER), has brought forward a recommendation to city council to purchase the property at Montopolis and Fairway to secure the property for future low-income single-family housing; and WHEREAS, In 2001 the Austin City Council adopted the Montopolis Neighborhood Plan, which called for sustaining its single-family zoning in the heart of Montopolis; and WHEREAS, the 2018 report, “Uprooted: Residential Displacement in Austin’s Gentrifying Neighborhood and What Can be Done About It,” commissioned by the Austin City Council and completed by University of Texas experts recommended that the city make strategic, anti- displacement investments in Montopolis to protect it from further gentrification; and WHEREAS, for years, the Montopolis Neighborhood Plan Contact Team, along with other supporters, have been fighting to sustain its single-family zoning; and WHEREAS, Montopolis already has the highest concentration of multifamily, commercial, and industrial zoning of any planning area in the city; and WHEREAS, The 1.9 acres, known as the Montopolis-Fairway Zoning case, is currently zoned for single-family housing and includes properties at 6202, 6204 Caddie Street; 6205, 6211, 6215 Fairway Street; 1600, 1604, 1606, 1608, 1612, and 1614 Montopolis; and WHEREAS, while the zoning request from the developer to change the zoning from Single- Family (SF-3-NP) and Community Commercial (GR-NP) to Community Commercial Vertical mixed use (GR-V-NP) was denied, the property remains vulnerable to future gentrifying developments; and NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Community Development Commission recommends that the city of Austin purchase the property included in the Montopolis-Fairway zoning case to be used to build low-income single-family housing and protect the neighborhood from future gentrification.