This is one of the more misdirected things the city has done. There are literally rows of empty houses and empty apartments near me that stay permanently empty except some weekends when they are filled with bachekorettes going WOOO at 1 AM.
You can walk down Haskell and see such a row of small apartments, all empty and used strictly for STRs.
And the removal of occupation limits hamstrings one of the only tools holding the AirBNB owners accountable, not that they care much about fines anyway.
The STR issue is rapidly killing our neighborhoods, and now there will just be more.
Here is data if you don’t believe me.
http://insideairbnb.com/austin/
Also people are doing this anyway, just building sheds from scrap lumber and running an extension cord to them and renting them out. Code doesn’t seem to care, so how could this ever go wrong?
I find it interesting that the majority of people who spoke for 11 hours were against this resolution, but the majority of the council ignored them and approved it anyway.
It sounds like you live in a really desireable part of town. Haskell is ripe for Central Business District zoning, it’s literally a 2 block walk to Rainey Street.
Personally, I think these rules are great. I’m zoned SF-2 right now and cannot build an ADU under code, but I could skirt code and build a “shed” that’s under a certain size with just electricity. My neighborhood has pretty good size lots, why shouldn’t we be able to build ADUs?
Separately, the data from that site you linked is dubious. There are 3 houses near me shown on that map that have been occupied full time by their owners for all 8 years I’ve lived in this neighborhood and are absolutely not STRs
ADUs are fine. Duplexes are great. Tearing down existing homes to build six tiny homes on the same lot with no parking and no sewage or road upgrades are not. This is just a giveaway to developers.
We should be building more planned mixed use developments instead, like Mueller and the Domain, but in place of one story strip malls like Gateway, Arbor Walk, and Hancock Center. There are huge swaths of empty land in Austin as well. Build new desirable neighborhoods instead of trying to cram more people into existing ones.
“Tearing down existing homes to build six tiny homes” is a blatant mischaracterization. The new rules plainly state up to 3 units on a lot where it used to be single family homes or duplexes. I 100% support increasing density across the city and am sick of the wealthy single family homeowners in Hyde Park, Bouldin Creek, Zilker, Travis Heights, North University, and Rosedale putting up barriers to every attempt at building more housing.
We should be building more planned mixed use developments instead, like Mueller and the Domain, but in place of one story strip malls like Gateway and Arbor Walk. There are huge swaths of empty land in Austin as well. Build new desirable neighborhoods instead of trying to cram more people into existing ones.
We live in a world with private property rights…the city can’t just create a new PUD out of thin air, private actors have to want to create one, apply for it, and fund it. The city is already building residential mixed use on some of those lots it does own, e.g. the St. John’s Home Depot project that’s getting started
Not being disingenuous — look up phase two
and threeof the proposed zoning changes.Phase three talks about cramming six homes on an existing lot.Edited, because I misunderstood what I was told. There is definitely a phase 2, but no phase three that I could find.
Phase one which got approved yesterday is just the start.
Not sure why you are concerned with increasing density those neighborhoods. Hyde Park is already fairly dense. Personally I’d like to see crap like Hancock Center torn down instead, and replaced with mixed use. Build more mixed use instead of concentrating on some strange vendetta about people who live in a nice home in a nice neighborhood. Build new neighborhoods. Look at all the empty land across from the Apple campus on Parmer. Or the empty land around the old Dell campus. Why aren’t neighborhoods going in there? Who owns that land? Why isn’t it the owner incentivized to build there, conveniently located to places work and shop? Why does Lakeline Mall still exist? Or Barton Creek Mall? Seems like these would be great places for new Mueller-like developments. But they aren’t being redeveloped — why not? What can the city do to change that?
some strange vendetta about people who live in a nice home in a nice neighborhood
This is another mischaracterization. I have no problem with people in those neighborhoods, just the people who live in those communities showing up at City Hall or filing lawsuits to stop every. single. thing. the city is trying to do to bring our land development code into the 21st century.
Build new neighborhoods
You just cited a bunch of far flung suburban lots. There is no lack of new housing developments happening in suburbia, more housing is being built in Austin’s suburbs than in Austin now because of how onerous our land development code is. The entire point of this is to build more density closer to downtown.
Like I said before, the city doesn’t get to dictate to Arbor Trails or Lakeline Mall what to do with their properties. The city is already incentivizing high density developments on properties like this though, see the Statesman building, Brodie Oaks, Twin Oaks, up and down South Lamar or Burnet, shit…look at Rainey Street, not one of those skyscrapers was there 15 years ago. High density residential in large buildings is not enough, more needs to be allowable throughout the city.
Will you link to the zoning phases you’re talking about?
Here’s the info about phase two (end of the article). There is no phase three that I can find. I was misinformed.
https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2023/12/06/austin-home-initiative-city-manager-changes.html
Phase two will reduce minimum lot sizes. I haven’t done the math to confirm, but the concern is where one home stood on the previous lot size, now there could be six (existing lot cut in half, three homes per lot).
Look at all the empty land across from the Apple campus on Parmer. Or the empty land around the old Dell campus. Why aren’t neighborhoods going in there? Who owns that land?
You task the guy about a vendetta about people who live in a nice home in a nice neighborhood and then ask this question? Sounds like a vendetta against people who lived in what used to be just cattle ranches and farmland. I have been here long enough to see these places being gobbled up by developers, so I am guessing the answer to your question is, the families that have possibly owned this land for generations isn’t ready to give it up just because a fuckton of people moved here and think they deserve it as some kind of right. Just my opinion.
Nah. They have the right to keep that land empty if that’s what they want to do. They own it. I’m just pointing out that there is empty land in Austin, owned by a variety of interests, and we don’t seem to provide any incentives to sweeten the deal for anyone who might be interested in turning it into mixed use.
As an aside, I’d also like to see incentives for providing discounts to people who both live and work im the same development.
I see your point, but have definitely seen a cosmic shift in the way Austin looks and feels. I drive around sometimes and am just amazed at the places that have sprouted up and are full communities so I guess that’s part of my reaction here to someone saying it’s not enough. And don’t get me wrong, I am not against it, I just think that if you compare Austin now to say Austin in the 1990’s it’s crazy. Sure more can be done, and I am sure things will happen, but it does take time. Oh, and money. Lots and lots of money.
AirBNB goes to great lengths to obfuscate the data, includng the location of the rental until you rent. The insideairbnb.com data is not preciseb locationally but the overall count of full time units is near the city’s estimates.(and that’s just AirBNB, not the other STR companies).
You can argue if more density in this manner is better or worse, but it does not achieve the goal if huge percentages are just bought up by corporations for short-term rentals. Entire apartment buildings on Rainey are AirBNBs. Those ten thousand unavailable units put a huge squeeze on what is already extremely limited resources (capped by geographic limitations no matter how much you build).