A city is not a museum.
A city is really kind of
almost a living, breathing organism.
Austin’s the greatest city on earth.
Unfortunately, the secret is out.
Our existential challenge is affordability issues.
The American dream of owning a home is harder than ever.
It’s especially out of reach for Austinites,
who are facing every issue imaginable.
We traveled to Texas to learn
more about their housing crisis
and possible solutions.
Austin population growth has been growing at a very high clip
for almost 150 years.
What changed in the 1980s
is that many different types
of housing were limited
or even banned to a certain extent.
Think of a land development code
as having zoning tools.
So you look at a piece of land.
You look at the needs of a community
and then you can figure out
what you can craft to fit on this land
that fits within that zoning tool.
We rewrote our land development code
and there was a big downzoning for much of Austin.
And housing supply didn’t keep pace.
The housing crisis has just reached a level
where even upper, middle- class folks are struggling
to find housing in Austin.
We saw a slow and steady
appreciation of housing prices,
really since the Great Recession.
And then in the last couple of years,
we’ve gone from 6% to
we’re looking at 20% a year appreciation in home prices.
So Austin was a big benefactor of these pandemic moves.
People who are newly able to work remotely
moved their families and their high salaries to Austin.
These low interest rates allowed them to buy
single-family homes, buy property,
and that has driven up costs
for a lot of the existing Austin residents.
We’ve got two sets of problems
in a place like Austin:
low-income people having a hard time affording housing.
And then there’s another set of problems:
our zoning laws are making it too expensive
to build new housing that even
the middle class could afford.
So back in 2012,
in an effort to get ahead of the coming wave,
the city council adopted a plan called Imagine Austin
to recommend a new zoning framework.
In Imagine Austin,
it calls for a new land development code
that promotes a compact and connected city.
We had this process, we dubbed it Code Next.
A small group of homeowners then filed suit
and unfortunately blocked that new code from being passed.
Code Next is stuck in the courts right now;
unclear what’s going to happen.
You run into the culture wars and NIMBYism
as soon as you try to do that.
Folks that are in these legacy neighborhoods
that are within a few minutes of being downtown
that are there because they like the big yard,
they like the space that they have.
Part of the problem, advocates say,
are restrictive zoning codes
that have existed in Austin for decades.
It restricts what kind of dense housing can be built where
and it gives property owners a lot of say in
what kinds of developments
can come into their neighborhoods.
One of the most problematic
aspects of Austin’s zoning regulations
are the minimum lot size for a single-family home.
We have a minimum 5,700 square foot
lot size for somebody to build a single-family home.
That is the biggest
of any of the major cities in Texas.
So now the housing costs have grown
where we have these single-family zoned areas.
We’re just seeing $1 million homes,
$2 million homes replace those former homes
that were just torn down.
And so we’re not gaining housing inventory,
but then we’re also watching that median home
value of all those neighborhoods skyrocket.
The East Cesar Chavez neighborhood is located
on the east side of Austin
and was historically one of the most diverse
communities in the city.
But gentrification amid
the housing crisis has pushed older residents
farther away from downtown.
In East Austin, we have zip code 78702.
That area is now one of the most posh areas in Austin.
So single family homes
that not that long ago were $40,000
are now over $1 million.
Places like East Austin,
which are predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods,
have depressed land values,
which means it’s easier for developers
to come and build there
versus in communities like West Austin and Central Austin,
which are more expensive to build on
and which have whiter, wealthier
homeowners who are able to deter and delay
these new construction projects.
So where building happens is very much influenced
by who lives in these neighborhoods
and what kind of political power is exerted there.
The worst thing that we can do
for displacement and gentrification
of our working-class population,
especially our Black and brown population,
is the same thing
that we’ve been doing for the last 20 years.
We need to build housing
so all the people that are coming
because of the Tesla factory,
because of the Samsung factory
that’s going to be built, have housing that they can buy
and are not competing to buy the same
old little East Austin house.
If you’re building homes in Austin,
the best and most profitable thing that you can do
is buy an old home, tear that home down
and build a huge McMansion on that same property.
I want that to change to where that same lot
is going to be redeveloped with two homes
or with three homes or with a four-plex.
What’s really on the table is
what are called transition zones,
which are areas that are sort of
between those busy streets
and then those quiet interiors of the neighborhoods.
And that’s where really a lot of the controversy is right now.
How big should those transition zones be?
I’ll say my personal preference is
I’d rather just raise the bar across the whole city.
I think that’s a simpler and a fairer way to do it.
That’s in fact what the city of Minneapolis did.
Citywide zoning reform has remained elusive.
In the meantime, Austin voters
have approved multiple bond measures
to build affordable housing,
such as a $350 million bond in November 2022.
Honestly, we probably need to add
a $250,000 housing bond
every two years for the next 20 years
if we want to get a critical
mass of public housing, of affordable,
publicly subsidized housing,
that there are enough units
where we are able to house
a lot of our working poor and folks
that really need help.
You know, one of the things I’m most proud about
in the time that I’ve been mayor
is that our city has taken really
big steps, big enough to actually bring forth
real transformative change in our city.
But if you don’t deal
with your really big challenges,
then they just get bigger.
I think it’s important that we look at zoning,
not only as not a silver bullet,
but a double-edged sword.
Upzoning can actually do
tremendous harm to some communities
and especially the people who are most vulnerable in the market.
And upzoning only works to achieve our housing goals
if we’re pairing it with other tools and collaborations.
Solutions like building on public land
at deeply affordable rates.
I’m a firm believer in community land trusts.
Unfortunately, many of the community-based solutions
that are truly equitable, they’re not moving at scale.
The most affordable units
we have are the ones we have now
and it costs us much less to protect those
and to preserve those than to build new units.
It’s not to say we shouldn’t build new units.
We need to build new affordable housing,
but we’re going to have to disrupt the market as we do it.
I think that cities that are smaller than Austin
that think they may be on the same
or a similar trajectory over the next 10, 15, 20 years
should be learning, going to school on us.
Goodness knows we did not do the things
10 and 20 years ago that we should have.
I would tell other cities
that they have to prepare for the growth that is coming.
A lot of times the growth and the change is uncomfortable.
There is sometimes a resentment of the newcomers,
but if you don’t build housing for the people
that are moving to your city,
you’re going to price out your current residents.