The push for a new density bonus
A resolution with potentially significant implications for the future of housing & mobility in Austin.
Clarification: An article I wrote last week may have left the impression that Council actually cut $100M+ from the police budget in 2020. As I've written many times before, much of the total was simply earmarked to eventually be eliminated (and then never was).
On Thursday City Council is taking up a resolution with potentially significant implications for the future of housing, land use and mobility in Austin.
VMU2, take two
First, the resolution directs city staff to craft a new affordable housing density bonus. The proposed bonus is largely modeled after the ill-fated VMU2 program, which Council voted to approve in 2022 but was one of a number of land use reforms that were struck down last month by a judge who ruled that they were not subject to sufficient public notice.
Like VMU2, the bonus program would offer 30 additional feet of height to developments that set aside either 10% of rental units for those at 50% of the area median income or 12% of units for those at 60% of the AMI.
