It’s a rematch in Northeast Austin, as Monica Guzmán once again challenges incumbent Chito Vela for the District 4 City Council seat.
Vela won the seat in a crowded special election in 2022 to replace Greg Casar, Council’s inaugural D4 representative who had just stepped down to run for the U.S. House of Representatives. Vela pulled off an impressive feat in that January election – drawing nearly 60% of the vote in a race with six challengers. With 14% of the vote, Guzmán finished second in that race – although just narrowly. Jade Lovera, who appointed a campaign treasurer to run again this time but never launched a real effort, finished with 11% of the votes.
Given the lopsided result in 2022, and the fact that Vela is in a head-to-head matchup against an opponent he bested by such a wide margin, the incumbent stands a strong chance of reelection. Beyond that, in the special election, Vela ran on a platform championing the “Yes in My Backyard” approach to addressing the city’s housing crisis – that is, an emphasis on enabling the private market to produce more housing by reducing zoning restrictions, reducing red tape that slows down housing development, and enabling builders to build smaller-scale housing on smaller lots.
It appears that was a winning message with D4 voters in 2022. In the two years since being elected, Vela has delivered. By any reasonable measure, the 2022 Council has made significant progress on reforming Austin housing policy. Parking minimums have been eliminated, lot sizes have been reduced, and compatibility restrictions have been weakened – together, these are three of the policy challenges most sought-after by pro-housing policymakers locally and across the nation.
Vela tells the Chronicle he has thoughts on other housing-related policies to work on – improvements to the city’s subdivision process, for example, so that property owners of middle and lower incomes can better take advantage of the small-lot reforms Council passed with the Home Options for Mobility and Equity (HOME) package. But, by and large, Council may spend the foreseeable future monitoring the policies they’ve already enacted and fine-tuning them.
“We correctly identified the barriers to housing in Austin and have attacked those barriers,” Vela said. “Now we need to let them simmer and watch them to understand the outcomes and move from there.”
“We correctly identified the barriers to housing in Austin and have attacked those barriers.” – Council Member Chito Vela
In 2022, Guzmán ran a campaign urging caution around changing the city’s housing policies, and she’s continuing to do that in 2024. Pointing to some of the changes described above, Guzmán says Council has done too much too quickly, and the voters she’s talking with are not comfortable with it. If elected, she would move to insert “guardrails to minimize speculation” stemming from HOME changes (one of the fears of HOME opponents was that wealthy buyers might snatch up lots with one home on them, demolish the house and replace it with more expensive multifamily housing).
Guzmán said some of the guardrails she would pursue include withholding developer incentives unless they agree to provide higher levels of income-restricted housing, or requiring builders to rezone a parcel to access more development entitlements. She said zoning hearings offer residents an opportunity to provide input on a proposed development. More generally, Guzmán said, she would focus on engaging community members – especially those at risk of displacement – on proposed changes. “Taking the time to engage with the community and raising guardrails to protect against real estate speculation does not equate to stopping progress,” Guzmán said. “Maybe it’s slowing [progress] down, but that’s how you slow down gentrification. You need an inclusive process.”
Though the two candidates diverge greatly on housing policy, they are more aligned when it comes to efforts at improving policing in Austin. Vela has not been a champion of the criminal justice reform movement in the way that his predecessor was, but he has been a vocal proponent of the Austin Police Oversight Act and pushed back against an automated license plate reader program sought by the Austin Police Department that opponents warn could lead to privacy violations.
Vela worries about how APD’s ever-increasing budget might affect provision of other city services – especially as the Austin Police Association continues to demand significant raises in labor contract negotiations. He agrees with the APA and APD position that the city is facing a patrol shortage but not that offering substantial pay increases every year is the way to address that problem. “Raises are needed, but I don’t think just throwing money at the department in hopes of filling patrol vacancies is the way we’re going to solve that problem,” Vela said.
He also hinted that the city would likely need to pursue a tax rate election to generate more revenue to support even current levels of service and that devoting more money to APD would make that issue more urgent. Instead, Vela wants to explore ways the city can ease APD’s call burden to “help strained police resources.” A couple of ways to do that, he said, are increasing funding for mental health crisis response teams and expanding the reach of groups that can respond to homelessness-related 911 calls.
Guzmán also agrees that APD has an officer shortage, but that they are already sucking up too much of the city’s budget and that Council should be wary of devoting more funds to it. “APD has issues, but not funding issues,” Guzmán said. “They have internal issues that no amount of money is going to fix.” She wants city leaders to focus on improving the department’s “broken culture” that is rooted in racism and misogyny, she said, and devote more money to social services and programs that help lift people out of poverty and prevent people from falling into it.
Three other candidates are also running for the D4 seat. Louis Herrin III is a perennial Republican candidate who dutifully challenged Casar in each of his three Council election bids, losing badly each time. Jim Rabuck, who works for the U.S. Department of Defense, and Eduardo “Lalito” Romero, who listed “university staff” as his occupation when he filed to run, are also running. Neither have much experience in Austin politics.
This article appears in September 20 • 2024.