3 - Memorandum - Permitting for House Relocation — original pdf

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M E M O R A N D U M TO: Mayor and Council Members THROUGH: Veronica Briseño, Assistant City Manager Stephanie Hayden-Howard, Assistant City Manager FROM: José G. Roig, Development Services Director Richard McHale, Austin Resource Recovery Director DATE: July 16, 2024 SUBJECT: Response to Council Resolution 20231102-024 - Permitting for House Relocation We want to share with you an update on Resolution 20231102-024, relating to the permitting process for house relocation within Austin. The resolution directs the City Manager to develop a strategy to build awareness and minimize barriers in partnership with community stakeholders and groups. increase house relocation, to The Development Services Department (DSD), in partnership with Austin Resource Recovery (ARR), the Planning Department, and key stakeholder groups, has developed recommendations for action. On March 26, 2024, DSD met with stakeholders to discuss solutions, potential challenges, and competing factors to incentivize relocation within Austin. Attendees identified potential solutions that fell into the following themes: streamlining the relocation permitting process, reducing costs, integrating relocation with the HOME Initiative, workforce training and development, and revising the recycling ordinance. Recommendations The Department will continue to analyze the proposed solutions for possible integration. The recommendations, which will be implemented immediately, include creating general public and contractor training on relocation permitting, prioritizing relocation application submittals for faster processing, and developing a fee waiver or voucher to cover relocation permit review costs. Related to this last solution, the funding source would need to be determined by the Council. To ensure a complete and accurate permit review, a new application will be required for each submitted project. Demolitions and relocations have specific requirements for a complete review and, as such, would require new applications when switching between project types. The DSD application intake teams have greatly improved their processing time for new submittals, and the permit fees for these two project types are identical. To ensure auditing and reporting integrity, fees cannot be transferred between projects. Page 1 of 2 DSD will seek to build awareness of the relocation process as a viable alternative to demolition in the Austin community and create training for the general public and contractors. DSD will also work to: Improve the clarification and promotion of the relocation permitting process by updating its website about the process and other community resources required for house relocation and related services. The updated website is expected to be completed by Fall 2024. Disseminate relocation information across DSD demolition resources, including the demolition webpage and application. These efforts are expected to be completed by Fall 2024. interactive tool, Development Tracker, to allow Increase promotion of the online greater public visibility into active demolition and relocation projects throughout the city. With this tool, the public can view the age of any structure proposed for demolition. Promotion of the Development Tracker will be incorporated into demolition notices and the relocation and demolition webpages. Diversion Threshold Staff does not recommend expanding the threshold for the Construction & Demolition Recycling Ordinance because doing so would not increase the deconstruction of structures or the recycling of demolition debris and could increase the costs of new single-family home construction. The expansion of the current ordinance to include projects with less than 5,000 square feet would only require projects to recycle construction and demolition debris. This change would not impact historic home relocation or deconstruction. The current ordinance requires all building permits over 5,000 square feet to recycle debris. All commercial and multifamily demolition permits are required to recycle regardless of the project size. Removing the 5,000 square feet threshold would result in all building permits --including new residential projects -- being subject to the 50% recycling requirement. A negative impact would likely put an additional cost on new construction of single-family homes. Additionally, projects under 5,000 square feet represent a very large number of permits but a very small percentage of the waste stream coming from construction and demolition. Lowering the threshold would greatly increase the administrative workload of enforcement without resulting in a significant increase in waste diversion. The comprehensive plan does not directly address building materials that are salvageable for reuse. Staff has a long-term research and development goal to identify salvaged materials with reuse potential. With ARR’s assistance, DSD can include some information about historic preservation, house moving, de-construction and salvaged building materials for reuse on the relocation webpage. If you have any questions, please contact Brenda de la Garza, Assistant Director at Development Services, at 512-487-9815 or via email at Brenda.Delagarza@austintexas.gov. cc: T.C. Broadnax, City Manager CMO Executive Team Page 2 of 2