You could argue that Zo Qadri is the most prominent urbanist on City Council. Part of that is due to the district he represents. District 9 is the most urban of the city’s 10 districts, covering the majority of Downtown, many of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, and the headquarters of the Chronicle. It includes the future convention center and what will be the heart of the Project Connect light rail line, once it’s built.
In a recent endorsement meeting, Qadri reminded us that he ran in 2022 on a platform of increasing housing affordability, investing in mobility, and helping our homeless community. He said these issues are still top of mind.
“We’ve seen rent go down in the city, but we still see evictions, unfortunately, at a high level,” Qadri said. “We’ve seen investments in mobility, but we still often see many folks, especially on the Eastside, being left behind. And then we’ve seen homelessness go to a five-year low, but we still have about 4,000 to 5,000 unhoused folks in the city. So with all the good that’s happened, there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
Qadri said his proudest accomplishment on Council thus far has been his work to eliminate “parking minimums,” city rules requiring new developments to include spaces for parking. Urbanists support abolishing these rules as a way to decrease housing costs and discourage car culture. “We became the largest city in the country to do that,” Qadri said. “A parking spot costs anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000, and that cost often falls on the renter or the homeowner.”
The incumbent also strongly supported the accompanying urbanist measures passed by Council in recent years and said he believes some of the housing decisions the dais made over the last four years are “one piece of the puzzle” that will lower housing costs.
Rich Heyman disagrees. Heyman is a neighborhood organizer who has taught urban studies, geography, American studies, and community and regional planning at a variety of universities for three decades. He taught at UT for 18 years before being fired for participating in the 2024 pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Heyman argues that the urbanist reforms are doing nothing to drive down housing costs and have actually increased the risk of displacement. He told us he decided to enter the D9 race after Council’s controversial decision over the Acacia Cliffs development in West Austin last year.
Acacia Cliffs is an apartment complex off Far West Boulevard that provides what is called naturally occurring affordable housing. It offers 290 one- and two-bedroom units averaging around $1,000 per month – affordable to renters at about 30-40% of the median family income. The complex is also within walking distance of a grocery store, doctor’s offices, and public schools.
However, Council agreed last June to the owner’s request to rezone Acacia Cliffs under the city’s DB90 density bonus program. That will allow it to be replaced with a seven-story, 700-unit development, with 80 units set aside for people making 50-60% MFI. Supporters of the deal argue that the owner was going to redevelop the property with or without Council’s zoning approval. Critics said the vote helped to replace 290 units of affordable housing with 80 less-affordable units.
“That was such a shocking miscarriage of justice,” Heyman said. “There were a lot of veterans and disabled folks and workers in the service industry in that neighborhood that were put out of their homes. And the argument was that there’ll be more units in the future, and by some logic of the market that will make things more affordable. But meanwhile, these people were put out of their homes.”
Heyman argues that the recent reductions in housing prices in Austin are the result of macroeconomic forces – a building surge that began in 2015, reduced in-migration, and tech layoffs – and have nothing to do with Council’s urbanist reforms. He said Austin’s high cost of housing is partly the result of its leaders’ economic policies, which have prioritized bringing tech companies to town. On his website, he presents data showing that the percentage of Austinites making a “high income,” meaning $105,000 or more a year in 2024, has increased from 12% in 2001 to 16.5% in 2024. But the percentage of those making a “low income,” meaning $42,000 or less a year in 2024, has also increased, while the number of people making middle incomes has declined, according to Heyman’s findings.
“Our policies need to support the working people of Austin, not cater to the wealthy with some vague theory that that kind of economic development will trickle down,” Heyman said. “We need new policies that rethink economic development from the bottom up, that support local businesses who pay their employees well, give them benefits, paid sick leave, and predictable schedules.”
With this economic critique, it’s unsurprising that Heyman is a strong critic of the Dog’s Head development, which, as it currently stands, will provide over a billion dollars of public taxpayer support for a development including an Amazon robotics factory. On the campaign trail, Heyman emphasizes that Qadri voted for the Dog’s Head development deal when it was first presented to Council in May. However, in July, Qadri was one of three Council members who voted against sending taxpayer money to the Dog’s Head’s developers.
Katie Kam, a civil engineer and former AISD teacher who has lived in Austin since 1983, also opposes the Dog’s Head deal. She said Council made a mistake when they bypassed the usual development process and hurriedly approved Dog’s Head. “They don’t have to throw something on the agenda, completely avoid boards and commissions and public feedback,” Kam said. “That is a massive amount of land near an environmentally sensitive area. That was worth much more public engagement and board and commission review before it went to Council. If I was on that City Council, I’d be like, ‘Nope, you’re going to go through the process.’”
Kam would also like Council to abandon Project Connect and improve transit through the construction of a monorail and the use of small electric vehicles in dedicated driving lanes, especially Downtown. She criticizes Council’s decision to rebuild the convention center, saying she’d like to cancel the project, sell off two of the six Downtown blocks it is to be built upon, and instead construct a cultural venue showcasing the history of Austin’s creative culture – its music, literature, film, and visual arts.
“There are cities that are desperate to have what Austin has, which is this natural gravitational pull of creatives coming into the city,” Kam said. “And we’re just not supporting it. We have the talent that came here before us, in the 1950s for writing, in the Sixties and Seventies for music, and it just continued from there. We need to honor that and we need to build upon that, because that’s a gift to Austin.”
Dave Thadani and Kai Huang are also running to represent D9. We were unable to speak with the candidates after repeated attempts.
This article appears in October 9 • 2026.
