Developers appeal to the city for additional height and density variances to offset, they say, affordable-housing requirements. When the Spring tower came before City Council in 2005 (at the same meeting the 360 project was approved), developer Robert Barnstone pleaded that unless the project got a 50-foot boost in height – beyond the 350-foot limit recommended by the Zoning and Platting commission – affordability would suffer. “At 400 feet, that represents an 8 percent decrease in the overall cost of the fixed cost of the Spring units,” said Barnstone. “So it’s just simple math – we can add more units and spread our costs.” But the Spring pricing range described in 2005 – from $200,000 to $400,000 – is now decidedly quaint – the official bottom is $235,000, shooting quickly upward to $800,000.
Instead of doling out height variances piecemeal for promises of affordability, the council has since moved toward to implementing some rules and guidelines. In February, the city’s Affordable Housing Incentives Task Force released its report. It covers affordable housing all over the city but specifically addresses affordability Downtown, with the density-for-affordability trade-off at the heart of the task force recommendations.
If a developer hopes to expand beyond an 8-to-1 limit on floor-to-area ratio (that’s eight times the total area of the base lot, going vertically), then 10% of the additional space must go toward affordable housing. (For example, Spring received a 12-to-1 FAR waiver.) For rentals, those units will be affordable for those making 80% of the median family income; for sale properties, that 10% is reserved for those making more than 120% of MFI (see chart at right).
Especially at 120%, “affordability” isn’t exactly affordable for everyone, but it’s decidedly less than Downtown market rents; as City Council Member Jennifer Kim noted when discussing the city’s affordability plans at the Seaholm redevelopment, 80 or 120% MFI doesn’t mean much in Round Rock, but it’s “a huge buy-down in cost in Downtown.” Seaholm is unique in that it’s a public-private partnership; since it’s city land, they’re taking a portion of the increased property taxes to help buy down prices.
But is it enough? As the city weighs expensive Downtown projects like streetcars, rail, and the Waller Creek tunnel, there’s an almost Darwinian mean streak in some Downtown boosters’ agendas – that the CBD’s rich tax base has subsidized suburban sprawl for too long, and, like it or not, they’re taking back what’s theirs. “Virtually every other neighborhood in the city, at best, the city breaks even [or] in a substantial manner, loses money,” Barnstone told the council – except for Downtown. So if the city’s investing $18 million at Seaholm for, at best, a handful of quasi-affordable units, are we advancing this agenda? At a November council meeting, Brewster McCracken touched on the subject. In reference to a proposed street-car system, he said, “We are talking about spending tax dollars for a transportation system that will serve folks from out-of-town and folks who are spending an average of $700,000. … Are we having a rich person’s transportation system?”
This article appears in March 23 • 2007.