The first City Council meeting of 2016 isn’t until next Thursday, Jan. 28, but the posted draft agenda suggests there will be plenty of contentious business: health care contracts, EMS staffing, transportation projects, PUD regs, neighborhood plan contact teams, short-term rentals, and … transportation network companies. The TNCs hadn’t formally made the list earlier this week, but Council sources confirmed that some version of the updated regs will appear on the final agenda (generally finalized on the Friday preceding the meeting).
Not a moment too soon, it seems, since the backstage process has been proceeding at high speed. The petition campaign to blow up the new ordinance – underwritten by ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft, and local Microsoft sub TechNet – this week submitted more than 65,000 signatures to the city clerk, delivering the petitioners’ “options” to Council – either write the regs to TNC order or schedule a May election to impose them. Meanwhile, Mayor Steve Adler is scrambling to find some middle ground that will accommodate the companies while satisfying a Council majority that voted to include fingerprinting for drivers – under rules still to be written. Council members have thus far been reluctant to sign on to the mayor’s compromises – we’ll see if that changes by next week.
In a Tuesday email and a follow-up press conference, Adler described his latest wrinkle as a “Thumbs Up” app, or cyber-“badge,” that would let riders know if the driver they’ve summoned has completed a full background check (presumably including fingerprinting), and drivers would be additionally “incentivized” – perhaps with favored pickup locations – to have those checks done (see “Safety for Some,” Jan. 22). Whether this will satisfy the TNCs (who seem to prefer writing their own laws) and their enthusiastic supporters – not to mention address the structural inequity of having professional cabbies under one set of rules and amateur part-timers under another – is right now anybody’s guess.
Thus far, council members have shown little enthusiasm for the mayor’s earnest efforts, with Mobility Committee Chair Ann Kitchen responding that Adler’s “badge” is “no substitute” for “very reasonable” regs tentatively adopted in December. CM Delia Garza echoed Kitchen’s remarks, and in a Facebook post responded sharply to the corporate-sponsored petition campaign: “As someone who was deeply involved in the petition drive for 10-1, a truly citizen-led effort for better representation on our City Council, I am deeply disappointed in the perversion of the petition process essentially led by a billion dollar company fighting fair safety regulations by disseminating false information to get signatures.” Reportedly, petitioners were telling potential signers that Council is forcing “ride-sharing” companies to leave town, or else outlawing them altogether – when in fact Uber and Lyft have delivered an ultimatum to the city, either to let them operate at will or they will shut down Austin operations.
Unless the mayor manages to pull a miracle compromise out of his high-tech hat in the meantime, the apps will hit the fan next Thursday.
In addition to the pending TNCs, the draft agenda doesn’t yet include most Council-sponsored items, but even without them it’s a burgeoning 87-item list, suggesting the total might break 100 once again when the official agenda is posted. A couple of other proposals said to be in the pipeline – for example, a new procedure reducing and streamlining the council’s own committee process, being proposed by CM Greg Casar – haven’t hit the agenda yet, and the existing schedule is already daunting.
Selected Highlights:
• EMS staffing: Discussion of adjustments to administrative ranks is continued from an earlier meeting, with the hope that management and the staff union (ATCEMSEA) have come to a consensus about the changes.
• Transportation projects: Council members have submitted their project priorities for the remaining $21.8 million in Capital Metro “Quarter Cent” sales tax funding – staff is expected to bring the full list to the dais for final approval. (See “Holistic or Hiccup?” Jan. 15).
• PUD zoning: Previously unzoned lands (e.g., the state land underlying the proposed Grove PUD) need only a Council majority to approve a PUD plan rejected by the Planning Commission; Grove neighbors and others are pushing for a supermajority, the standard for land that’s already zoned. (See “Supermajority Rules,” Jan. 22)
• NPCT rules: Neighborhood plan contact teams – with official authority to speak to the city on behalf of neighborhoods – are embattled in some areas over transparency and representation, with few established procedures to allow oversight or enforcement. Council is attempting to draft some enforceable rules.
If they get through all that (and plenty more), short-term rentals are currently Item 87 (that could change). On tap are revised regs – limiting especially non-owner-occupied Type 2 STRs, and giving the Code Department more enforcement authority – that seem to carry a working Council consensus. We shall see.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story referred to the Zoning and Platting Commission as the land-use commission in charge of recommending PUDs to Council, when it is actually the Planning Commission. We regret the error.
This article appears in January 22 • 2016.
