17 C20-2024-004 - Citywide Density Bonus - Working Group Amendments — original pdf

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Am. Commissioner Proposed Amendment Justification Woods Vote Gannon Vote Bedrosian Vote Hiller Vote Breton Vote Allow fee in lieu payments as an option for rental housing developments. Fee in lieu funds generated shall be a) restricted for use as RDHA or OHDA funding, and b) geographically prioritized to affordable developments within 1.5 mi of the originating density bonus development. If no eligible Rental Housing Development Assistanct (RHDA) or Ownership Housing Development Assistance (OHDA)-funded projects exist to accept the funds within 3 years of fee-in-lieu payment, fee in-lieu funds shall revert to general RHDA/OHDA funding for any citywide project recieving this funding. Exempt projects with 16 or fewer dwelling units, or lots zoned MF-3 or more restrictive, from compatibility standards 1 Woods 2 Gannon 3 Breton Use a scaling factor of +25ft, +50ft, +75ft. 4 Breton / Woods Add +100 and +125 tiers General Recommendation: Create a "ground floor menu", based on the structure of the urban design standards menu in the proposed Downtown Density Bonus update, to offset the 75% ground-floor street frontage requirement and add flexibility for projects without having to pursue a site-specific waiver. Ensure that requirements are right-sized for projects with varying levels of street frontage. For onsite affordable units, allow developers to round down a fractional amount under 1/2, rather than rounding up. Anything 1/2 or above should continue to be rounded up. 5 Breton/Bedrosian 6 Breton/Bedrosian Density bonus affordable units have demonstrated compliance challenges in Austin, including vacancies and units not leased to income-qualifying tenants, limiting actual affordability outcomes. Directing fee in lieu payments to RHDA or OHDA programs instead funds deeply affordable housing structures that carry long-term federal compliance requirements and stronger affordability accountability. These programs also address a critical gap financing need for developments targeting 30% AMI units and with larger affordable unit counts, which the city currently lacks capacity to fund directly. Geographic prioritization ensures reinvestment within the same neighborhoods generating density bonuses, supporting equitable distribution of affordable housing across the city. Temporal prioritization ensures funds are spent in a timely manner to best meet our affordability goals without depreciating significantly. This mirrors existing exemptions for the citywide compatibility regulations and is intended to encourage smaller lot development, and smaller multifamily structures, which would be more impacted by a compatibility setback. This exemption could also be applied to small lots regardless of unit count. This would ensure that the lowest tier would guarantee a two story bump rather than a one story bump, and the bigger jumps increase the likelihood that all tiers end up being used through creating less tiers. 90 ft is the maximum height of a concrete + wood frame building (usually Type III/V construction). 180 ft is the maximum height of a concrete + steel building (usually Type I/II construction). This program should allow for the maximum height within each building type, as incentives that allow heights above 90 but below 180 feet are unlikely to spur developers to switch to a more expensive construction type without the opportunity to build to the full height available within that height. 1. When multiple projects with a 75% street frontage requirement are built in the same geographic area around the same time, it can be very difficult for the market to absorb that level of retail space. We already see issues with vacancy in retail spaces in certain parts of the city, such as North Loop, which has seen an outsized proportion of projects with this requirement. 2. The length of the street frontage matters - designing a project with 75% activation of a 10k sqft lot with 50ft of primary frontage is much more difficult than 75% of a 1 acre lot with 250ft primary frontage. Right sizing the requirements to ensure that projects with large primary (and non-primary) frontages more holistically activate that space, without punishing those with small street frontages, is essential. 3. Items to consider: pedestrian / urban plazas, residential stoops, reconnecting the street grid, primary access through an alley, ensuring retail spaces are F+B ready (ie have appropriate utility access and space for a grease trap), offering "affordable" retail spaces, etc. It seems quite surprising that a tenth of a unit gets rounded up to a full unit under our current affordability requirements. It is more than fair to allow normal rules for rounding. Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 17 C20-2024-004 - Citywide Density Bonus1 of 3Am. Commissioner Proposed Amendment Justification Woods Vote Gannon Vote Bedrosian Vote Hiller Vote Breton Vote Allow a 50% increase in additional height for the highest DBC tier, within 1/4 mile to Project Connect train lines, the Imagine Austin corridor network, and CapMetro high frequency bus network. Allow a 25% increase in additional height for the highest DBC tier, within 1/2 mile to Project Connect train lines, the Imagine Austin corridor network, and CapMetro high frequency bus network. Allow the Citywide Density Bonus on MF-1, MF- 2, MF-3, and MF-4 lots under a half acre, with the following additional requirements waived: ground floor mixed use requirements, subchapter E, minimum lot size General Recommendation re design requirements: Include superior compatibility / design requirements with this program similar to those proposed in the Downtown Density Bonus. General recommendation re community benefits: Consider allowing uses that offer signifcant community benefits to offset or replace other requirements - similar to the proposed language in the Downtown Density Bonus program. General recommendation re parking & transportation: Consider including parking limitations like those in the DDB proposal with a focus ultimately on creating right-sized parking allowances and incentivising / requiring non-car centric transportation options (bike parking, bike charging, ride/car share, decoupled parking, etc) General Recommendation: Consult the development community to calibrate affordability requirements of the program's lower tiers (+30ft and under) to ensure smaller developments are financially feasible. Calculate fee in lieu payment based on some $/sqft of bonus area beyond base zoning, regardless of the use of the bonus area 7 Gannon 8 Gannon 9 Bedrosian 10 Bedrosian 11 Bedrosian 12 Breton 13 Bedrosian 14 Gannon Create a mechanism to buy out additional squarefootage for a limited selection of commercial uses beyond the 35% cap. This bonus to the bonus keeps the city-wide heights identified by staff, which should be sufficient for the majority of midrise projects, to reach that higher tier around our transit, which aligns with what we heard from the community feedback, and from Commissioner Bedrosian as to what would be desirable to developers. There is precedent for a height multiplier in Affordability Unlocked (1.25x height at type 1, 1.5x height at type 2). Targeting only the smaller, lower density sites protects the larger, garden-style apartments, which represent a significant portion of our Naturally Occuring Affordable Housing (2/3 of our NOAH is in MF zones), from redevelopment. These lots should look into more sophisticated tools like PUDs. Allowing the density bonus, and waiving the minimun lot size would greatly open up many of our parcels for the types of missing middle development we are hoping to encourage. Nearly a third of our existing MF lots are non-conforming due to minimum lot size. See sheet two for data. Including superior design and compatibility requirements would encourage projects that are more sensitive to their environments and set a high bar in areas that may not have see substantial development up to this point - specifically in areas directly adjacent to neighborhoods and single family zoning. Could include: signage restrictions, parking garage and mechanical equipment screening, dark sky compliance, bird friendly design, MEP equipment noise limitations, materiality of cladding, inclusion of balconies, and pedestrian and ROW improvements similar to Great Streets. There are some potential non-residential tenants that provide signifcant benefits to the community and aid in the construction of a complete community that may be more risky or difficult for a developer to include in a project. Staff should consider identifing uses that fall into this category, such as: grocery, daycare, pharmacy, education, etc, and identify an appropriate offset - i.e. reducing the number of required menu items from ground floor requirements list. The way we have traditionally built housing in our city has assumed a car-centric lifestyle. Staff should consider including incentives for bike storage, bike maintenance, car-share parking, ride sharing drive aisle access, collaboration with CapMetro on bus/train/bike infrastructure improvements, and other solutions that offer an alternative to automobiles as a primary means of transportation. By ensuring smaller projects are financially feasible, we expand not only the diversity of buildings which are proposed and built, but also increase the amount of affordable units / fee-in-lieu. This is in line with the way the fee in lieu payment is calculated in the Downtown Density Bonus Program Certain high-value commercial uses like hotels neither satisfy the residential requirement nor fit within the 35% commercial cap, effectively excluding some mixed-use project types that could generate significant affordability contributions. A fee-in-lieu mechanism for square footage exceeding the cap, similarly tied to RHDA or OHDA programs, and prioritized to developments within 1.5 miles, would provide the benefit to the community. Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y 17 C20-2024-004 - Citywide Density Bonus2 of 3Zoning All MF MF-1 MF-2 MF-3 MF-4 MF-5 MF-6 MF-1-4 Non-Conforming MF-1-4 under quarter acre MF-1-4 under half acre Number of MF platted lots in the city Acreage of MF platted lots in the city Total Non-conforming % Under 1/4 Acre % Under 1/2 Acre % Total Under 1/4 Acre % Under 1/2 Acre MF Lot Sizes Below 1/2 Acre 4034 225 1448 1461 806 65 28 1259 31.2% 2407 59.7% 103 312 480 342 21 1 45.8% 21.5% 32.9% 42.4% 32.3% 3.6% 1237 30.7% 140 832 921 484 32 1 62.2% 57.5% 63.0% 60.0% 49.2% 3.6% 2377 58.9% 3174 78.7% 174 77.3% 1167 80.6% 1172 80.2% 616 76.4% 42 6 64.6% 21.4% 3129 77.6% 7490.6 725.1 2830.7 2641 1074.9 61.4 62.7 413.5 16.4 153 162.6 76.7 5.4 0.2 5.5% 2.3% 5.4% 6.2% 7.1% 8.8% 0.3% 408.7 5.5% % 8.9% 3.8% 9.3% 9.3% 669.7 27.8 262.3 245.9 123.2 11.5% 8.7 2.5 14.2% 4.0% 659.2 16.3% Backup for Gannon Amendment 817 C20-2024-004 - Citywide Density Bonus3 of 3