Special Called Design Commission August 5, 2021 Special Called Design Commission to be held August 5, 2021 with Social Distancing Modifications Public comment will be allowed via telephone; no in-person input will be allowed. All speakers must register in advance (August 4th by Noon). All public comment will occur at the beginning of the meeting. To speak remotely at the Design Commission Meeting, members of the public must: • Call or email the board liaison at (512) 974-1243 and aaron.jenkins@austintexas.gov no later than noon, (the day before the meeting). The information required is the speaker name, item number(s) they wish to speak on, whether they are for/against/neutral, and a telephone number or email address. • Once a request to speak has been called in or emailed to the board liaison, residents will receive either an email or phone call providing the telephone number to call on the day of the scheduled meeting. • Speakers must call in at least 15 minutes prior to meeting start in order to speak, late callers will not be accepted and will not be able to speak. • Speakers will be placed in a queue until their time to speak. • Handouts or other information may be emailed to aaron.jenkins@austintexas.gov by Noon the day before the scheduled meeting. This information will be provided to Board and Commission members in advance of the meeting. • If this meeting is broadcast live, residents may watch the meeting here: http://www.austintexas.gov/page/watch- atxn-live Reunión del Especial Design Commission FECHA de la reunion (Agosto 5, 2021) La junta se llevará con modificaciones de distanciamiento social Se permitirán comentarios públicos por teléfono; no se permitirá ninguna entrada en persona. Todos los oradores deben registrarse con anticipación (AgostoEsc 4th antes del mediodía). Todos los comentarios públicos se producirán al comienzo de la reunión. Para hablar de forma remota en la reunión, los residentes deben • junta en (512) 974-1243 and Llame o envíe un correo electrónico al enlace de aaron.jenkins@austintexas.gov a más tardar al mediodía (el día antes de la reunión). La información requerida es el nombre del orador, los números de artículo sobre los que desean hablar, si están a favor / en contra / neutrales, y un número de teléfono o dirección de correo electrónico. la • • Una vez que se haya llamado o enviado por correo electrónico una solicitud para hablar al enlace de la junta, los residentes recibirán …
RESOLUTION ON HOW DOWNTOWN DENSITY BONUS FEES-IN-LIEU SHOULD BE USED WHEREAS, currently all Downtown Density Bonus Program fee-in-lieu funds collected by the City are spent solely for the Housing Voucher Program; and WHEREAS, Housing Vouchers are an important component to affordable housing, but they do not help add any affordable housing units; and WHEREAS, the Austin Strategic Housing Blueprint calls for the creation of 60,000 affordable housing units throughout the city; and WHEREAS, the new Downtown Density Bonus fee-in-lieu structure will result in many times more fees that are currently being collected; NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE DESIGN COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF AUSTIN: In order to meet the City’s stated affordable housing goals, we recommend that Council direct the City Manager to allocate Downtown Density Bonus fees-in-lieu to be used for building affordable housing units in Austin. The Housing Voucher Program could continue to receive the same amount of funding that it does today, but the additional fees being collected from the new fee structure should be earmarked for projects that will generate affordable housing units. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: Examples of how this could be accomplished are: distributing these funds to the Austin Economic Development Corporation to help achieve their affordable housing development goals; and distributing to the Austin Housing Finance Corporation to award more funding to affordable housing developers for the construction of affordable housing in Austin. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: The apportionment of the Downtown Density Bonus fees collected should be re-evaluated on a regular basis so that the City is effectively using these funds to meet our affordability goals. ADOPTED: ATTEST: David Carroll Chair, Design Commission Design Commission: DDBP Working Group 07/29/21 RESOLUTION FOR A TIERED DOWNTOWN DENSITY BONUS PROGRAM WHEREAS, currently, if a project stays below the density bonus program’s district FAR cap, it needs approval from city staff and support from the Design Commission; and WHEREAS, if a project exceeds a district’s FAR cap, it requires an additional step of needing council approval; and WHEREAS, exceeding the FAR cap does not require any additional requirements other than applying the same fee-in-lieu formula that was used when under the cap; and WHEREAS this additional administrative step in the process is discretionary, unpredictable, and does not result in any additional community benefit; and WHEREAS in the Rainey Street district, a tiered approach is used to require on site affordable housing in the first …
--- July 19, 2021 The City of Austin Design Commission Jen Weaver, AIA RID LEED AP MRED Density Bonus Fee Calibration Recommendation TO: CC: FROM: RE: DATE: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The City of Austin Land Development Code team engaged ECO Northwest to consult on the fee calibration of the Downtown Density Bonus program. The current program is widely implemented as a requirement to develop projects downtown, but problematic assumptions yield no new actual Affordable housing downtown and increased costs to developers, who must include these fees in their costs. This causes increase rents or sales to end users as developers must meet minimum yields to cover their costs of financing. We recommend slowing down the process, creating two-way conversation with developers delivering product in areas where the City would like to see Affordable housing and market-rate housing, and evaluating the ultimate goal: fees or missing middle housing delivery to the market (although they are not mutually exclusive solutions.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Context: The City of Austin Land Development Code team engaged ECO Northwest, an independent consulting firm based in Oregon to advise on the fee calibration of the existing affordable housing density bonus program. The existing LDC-related affordable housing density bonus programs (areas) are the Downtown Density Bonus Program (including Rainey and the University Neighborhood Overlay.) The analysis was of in-lieu fees that capture a portion of the upside without discouraging developers from delivering product and is focused on calibrating in-lieu fees only. The stated exclusions are: recalibration of the affordable housing bonus incentives, or affordable housing performance requirements in the bonus areas which could change the target incomes or set aside requirements. This developer additionally notes that feedback from the developers responsible for financing these fees was not assessed. Critical feedback from two-way communication could include: 1) the challenges in the developer’s business model to cover fees and projected increases in fees, 2) effects on land acquisition 3) challenges in implementing on-site affordability 4) hurdles for market-rate (rather than luxury) housing. Problems in Assessing Success: The City of Austin Land Development Code department cites the current program as a success noting that many developers participate in the program. Currently, the City of Austin requires more fees up front, encouraging developers to develop luxury product with a higher margin of safety to covers fees and the cost to finance fees a successful project. In short, increasing costs by various fees causes the …
DESIGN COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION 20210805-1A August 06, 2021 Honorable Mayor Adler Honorable City Council Members City Manager Spencer Cronk Re: Downtown Density Bonus Program Dear Mayor and City Council Members, Given that the Design Commission is the Gatekeeper of the Downtown Density Bonus Program (DDBP), we believe our input is valuable to the work that is currently underway to revise the fees for this program. To this end, we have attached two resolutions recently passed by the Design Commission related to this work. The first resolution speaks to how the fees-in-lieu should be spent, while the second resolution is more comprehensive and recommends additional changes to the structure of the DDBP. As the Design Commission reviews all of the DDBP projects, we believe we have a great understanding of the program’s successes and failures and it is in this vein that we offer our resolutions to improve the program for your consideration so that it may provide more benefit to our community. Sincerely, David Carroll Chair City of Austin Design Commission RESOLUTION ON HOW DOWNTOWN DENSITY BONUS FEES-IN-LIEU SHOULD BE USED WHEREAS, currently all Downtown Density Bonus Program fee-in-lieu funds collected by the City are spent solely for the Housing Voucher Program; and WHEREAS, Housing Vouchers are an important component to affordable housing, but they do not help add any affordable housing units; and WHEREAS, the Austin Strategic Housing Blueprint calls for the creation of 60,000 affordable housing units throughout the city; and WHEREAS, the new Downtown Density Bonus fee-in-lieu structure will result in more fees than are currently being collected; NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE DESIGN COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF AUSTIN: In order to meet the City’s stated affordable housing goals, we recommend that Council direct the City Manager to allocate Downtown Density Bonus fees-in-lieu to be used for building affordable housing units in Austin. The Housing Voucher Program could continue to receive the same amount of funding that it does today, but the additional fees being collected from the new fee structure should be earmarked for projects that will generate affordable housing units. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: Examples of how this could be accomplished are: distributing these funds to the Austin Economic Development Corporation to help achieve their affordable housing development goals; and distributing to the Austin Housing Finance Corporation to award more funding to affordable housing developers for the construction of affordable housing in Austin. …
DESIGN COMMISSION MONDAY, August 5, 2021 5:30 PM VIA REMOTE WebEx Meeting Minutes Call to order by: Chair D. Carroll at 5: 33 p.m. Member List David Carroll – Chair (District 1) Jessica Rollason – Vice-Chair (District 7) X X X Martha Gonzalez (District 2) X Samuel Franco (District 3) Josue Meiners (District 4) Evan Taniguchi (Mayor) “X” Denote Commission Members who were in attendance X Jorge E. Rousselin, Executive Liaison X Aaron D. Jenkins, Staff Liaison X Art Zamorano, Staff Liaison CITIZEN COMMUNICATION: None. 1. NEW BUSINESS (Discussion and Possible Action): CITY OF AUSTIN HOUSING AND PLANNING STAFF X Melissa Hanao-Robledo (District 5) X X X Jen Weaver (District 6) Aan Coleman (District 8) Bart Whatley (District 9) Ben Luckens (District 10) a. Discussion and possible action to evaluate and make recommendations related to the Downtown Density Bonus Program. • Chair D. Carroll informed the committee that the Working Group has provided three recommended resolutions for the Downtown Density Bonus program o Resolution on how Downtown Density Bonus Fees-In-Lieu Should be used o Resolution for the Tiered Downtown Density Bonus Program o Resolution on Downtown Density Bonus Fees-In-Lieu Calibration. Page 1 of 2 • Commissioner B. Luckens made a motion to adopt the Resolution on how Downtown Density Bonus Fees-In-Lieu Should be used, seconded by Commissioner E. Taniguchi. o The motion was approved [ 7 ayes, 0 nays, 1 Abstain] • Commissioner B. Whatley made a motion to adopt the Resolution for the Tiered Downtown Density Bonus Program, seconded by Commissioner E. Taniguchi. o The motion was approved [ 7 ayes, 0 nays, 1 Abstain] • The resolution on Downtown Density Bonus Fees-In-Lieu Calibration has been tabled for the next regular Design Commission August 23rd meeting, with no objection. ADJOURNMENT by consensus at: 6:31 PM. Page 2 of 2
