Travis County Commissioners Court

July 10, 2012 - Item 26
Agenda

26 is to consider and take appropriate action on a resolution in support of the shared values, geographic framework and policies as common ground guide collaboration with the city of Austin as it begins to implement its newly adopted imagine Austin comprehensive plan.
From Commissioner Davis we have a request to delay action on this at least one week.

>> I need to get some clarification on several things I saw when I looked at that resolution.
And I need to get with city staff, but directed through our county staff exactly precisely in several things and see what the financial impact would be with the county, if any.
But I need to talk with city folks and I need y'all's assistance to help me get the answers that I need before I support any type of resolution that may be fiscal impact, because the way I'm understanding this, this resolution -- if I'm understanding it correctly, you can correct me if I am wrong, that it really addresses the concerns within the corporate limits of the city of Austin, but also the e.t.j.
And this is a city of Austin plan, per se.
So I'm going to need -- an example, there's an area in there that refers to affordable housing.
And, of course, that is a big -- big item.
As we have gone through an extensive overview, door to door type campaigning, we heard a lot of things from our residents in this last campaign initiative that I was involved in.
One was and is and still is affordable housing.
How can we make affordable housing available.
It's kind of generic here and it doesn't go into specifics and I know a resolution is basically a vehicle, but it's the Austin plan, per se.
We have affordable housing, of course issues that we address through our cdbg issues.
I need to get more information from city persons so that's the charge that I'm looking at.
Now, if you can answer this question for me with this particular resolution, is this resolution-i'm asking staff this.
Is this resolution within and also within the corporate limits of the city of Austin and also the e.t.j.?

>> We recognize that their plan does involve the e.t.j.

>> Right.
And also in their corporate limits.

>> Right.

>> So we have some serious challenges, and as I've extensively went through an exhaustive campaign, I mean exhaustive, there are a lot of things that were brought up during that campaign from persons that live in precinct 1 that I need to get a better handle on as far as what the city is doing, for an example, affordable housing, what does that mean.
What kind of affordable housing?
Right now what I'm hearing from the community is that there's a lot of gentrification that's being spearheaded by the city of Austin where affordability of homes is not there and forced out of areas where they used to traditionally be able to live in.
That's no longer -- is available as it used to be.
So there are some things that I want to make sure of before I support anything resolutionwise on their plan, not Travis County's plan, on the city of Austin's plan, vehicle, resolution, that I need to be very sure that I have the answers I need.
Hopefully I can get those answers within a week, judge.
I'm going to try.
I'm going to work hard with staff so I can get something in writing from city to help clarify and make plain to me so I can make it plain to my persons I represent in precinct 1 that this is what they are suggesting t there's plan, there's been other plans, the Austin plan, the Austin tomorrow plan and plan, plan, plan.
But we need to make sure that we're on board and on the same page with that as far as I'm concerned.
So I want to work with you individually and I think you see where I'm coming from.
We'll go through this together and we'll get some answers from the city of Austin since it is the city of Austin plan.
Okie-doke?
I appreciate that.

>> Commissioner that is correct was a thought that ran across my mind last week.
Yeah, we've had a lot of plans in the city of Austin and have involved a lot of folks and have always talked about affordable housing, and yet I don't think we can say that we have affordable housing in Austin.
I really don't think we can.
Especially when people -- you keep hearing not only stories in precinct 1 but precinct 2 people having to move to other counties because it's not affordable here.
And so -- so yeah, that was a concern that ran through my mind last time.
And so and I mentioned it to several people who were in the audience and they were in agreement, you know, we've been down this road before and we still don't have affordable housing.
Sorry, but we just don't.
And a lot of efforts have been made and still we don't have it, y'all.
We might as well -- we have to admit we have this issue or we're not going to resolve it.
And so I think that an extra week would be really good to get some of those answers and I'd be interested in the outcome of those questions as well.

>> Perhaps we could work on a specific agenda item or perhaps a work session to look at how the county could participate in affordable housing because we haven't been a huge participant in affordable housing previously.
We do have rental and utility assistance under emergency circumstances.
We have done home buyer assistance through the corporations.
But perhaps we could look at ways that we could be a more robust participant in the creation or preservation of affordable housing, particularly in the extraterritorial jurisdictions where we see possibly policies having an unintended consequence, city policies having an unintended consequence.

>> Well, as I stated earlier, and you know, sometimes you feel that when you run for re-election, sometimes you think it's a bad thing.
Let me tell you one thing, it can really bring some things to your attention that you may not have brought on the table because you get right out there in the people's face and they tell you what's on their mind.
They will let you know in a hurry.
And one thing -- another thing they did bring up with these mcmansions in east Austin, it is killing the residents over there.
It's making it where they can't afford to live because of the gentrification efforts that's being conducted by who, the city of Austin.
So we need to step back, I think, look at what we're doing here, bring affordability to this community and not force long-time taxpayers, residents, out of east Austin.
This is exactly what's happening right now.
And those are the things that were brought to my attention over and over again.
I think I've said them before, though, but really it is on people's minds.
They are afraid.
They don't know who is going next.
They don't.
But we're going to look at that and I wanted to get some specific answers.
It may take longer than a week, I don't know, but it's going to be predicated on what we must do as far as county staff, my office and anybody else's office that want to get involved to see what direction we need and to bring affordability of homes to this area.
So I'm just telling you that's where I'm coming from.
You all line us up with the proper city folk, we'll have a big meeting, whatever we need to do.
But I'm looking for individual answers and collect get all together, I don't really know, but I need some answers so that's why I'm suggesting that we kind of hold back on this resolution because it's kind of a broad brush approach to some things that we really haven't resolved on several issues within the resolution.
So we'll go through that later.
I'm putting you on alert.

>> You will get with county staff on that.

>> Yes, sir.

>> Mr. Reeferseed.

>> I want to echo everything that's been said by all the Commissioners on this issue.
Because we need to -- as Commissioner Davis was pointing out, we need to have these things really spelled out.
I mean, the phrase shared value.
That's such a loaded phrase that could mean anything from -- anything at all.
Like Commissioner Davis, I'd like to see something where it's spelled out.
One of these vague -- could be anything shared values that are never voted or or have they, have we had a chance to say these are the shared values in Travis County or the city or any, no, we never had that kind of thing.
They squeeze this in and I'm so glad that -- I mean, it's kind of a talking shop that we've been -- Commissioner Gomez has been talking about that we've been carrying on for so many years, it's a talking shop without any real specifics.
So again, I'm agreeing with you, Commissioner Davis, that we just need some facts.
I'm just a citizen throwing in my two cents on that.

>> We do have time on this item.
Let me know whether to have it back next week or two weeks from today.
Mindful we are running into Tuesdays where we will not have a full complement of court members.
We can share that with you.
Thank you all very much.
We'll have it back on.

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