City Council won’t vote on the Home Options for Middle-Income Empowerment ordinance until next week. Most of Council’s work session on Tuesday, Nov. 28, was devoted to flagging questions and concerns for staff ahead of the Dec. 7 meeting, where HOME is expected to be adopted.
If approved, HOME will allow up to three units on all single-family lots in the SF-1, -2, or -3 zoning categories; reduce the minimum lot size for duplexes; and limit the applicability of the city’s “McMansion Ordinance” to lots with only one home. Council is hoping the Land Development Code changes will incentivize the development of smaller housing units on smaller lots, which will likely reduce their costs.
But what about people who still want to build one really big house on their lot – i.e., a McMansion? The initial version of HOME did not do anything to prevent that possibility in the city’s urban core where the McMansion Ordinance applies (though in practice the ordinance has not really done much to prevent development of McMansions). That has changed, thanks to recommendations to HOME adopted by the Planning Commission two weeks ago, which will impose floor-to-area ratio (FAR) limitations on single-unit developments. Basically, developers who build two- or three-unit properties on a single-family lot will be allowed to use more of the land for actual housing.
At the work session, staff indicated that they liked the FAR limitations proposed by PC, although the recommendations are still under development. Staff is much less enthusiastic about the PC-approved recommendations on a “preservation” and “sustainability” bonus. These programs are designed to preserve older housing stock preferable to new builds because of design or cost and to reduce landfill waste.
Andrea Bates, assistant director of the Planning Department, said the bonuses could “impact review processes in the Development Services Department,” which is already struggling to improve the rate at which residential development permits are reviewed. Interim City Manager Jesús Garza quickly followed up to clarify that Bates’ characterization of the staff concerns were “more subtle than I would have liked.” Garza said staff’s full analysis of the PC recommendations should be available by Friday, Dec. 1, but he warned Council Members that “you may find us saying they are not consistent or compatible with the goals and objectives set by Council.”
Council Member Alison Alter, who represents West Austin’s District 10, raised concerns about “stealth McMansions” – basically, property owners exploiting the new land use rules to build large homes where they were previously prohibited. If a property owner built a small “guest home” on their lot, they could build a much bigger main house – even connecting the two units – and call it a duplex. Staff indicated that HOME does not currently have any regulations in place to prevent this kind of exploitation of the rules by bad actors, but it’s something they could explore in the future.
Mayor Pro Tem Paige Ellis suggested that focusing on how bad actors may exploit the new rules may be beside the point. “None of these regulations are going to stop rich people from doing rich people things,” Ellis said. “But we can make sure that the average person has the ability to build a life here in Austin … and I think that’s the focus of the HOME initiative.”
Council does meet this week, Nov. 30, too. It’s a fairly light agenda despite its 117-item length. One of the items we’ll be watching is approval of a rezoning request for the old Genie Car wash on Burnet Road, which would be redeveloped into 300 new apartments, 10% of which would be reserved for people earning 60% of Austin’s median family income ($49,080 for a single person).
This article appears in December 1 • 2023.