That’s the number of housing units the city of Austin is aiming to add in the 10 years, and Travis County is aiming to help hit that target, County Judge Sarah Eckhardt said Tuesday at a Commissioners Court meeting packed with items relating to affordable housing.
Here are items from Tuesday’s agenda that could bring more affordable housing to the city and unincorporated areas.
North Campus development
Despite losing roughly $7.8 million in state tax credits, Travis County continues to move forward with its North Campus development consisting of residential units and office space for its health and human services department.
Karen Thigpen, Travis County Corporations project and program manager, said the preliminary design of the project is complete, and efforts remain on schedule.
However, after the county lost out on a bid to receive 9 percent affordable housing tax credits because the North Campus project failed to receive the support of state Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, in March, it left a $4 million to $5 million gap in funding, Thigpen said.
The county is pursuing 4 percent affordable housing tax credits, and the developer of the project is aiming to fill that gap with a potential general obligation bond from the city of Austin, she said.
“The gap is not intimidating to them,” Thigpen said. “It’s not unusual on a project like this, and we are pursuing every avenue to fill it.”
During discussion of the item, Eckhardt called for collaboration instead of competition. She said the county will have to “dig deep into relationships that we may not be comfortable with” to achieve the goal of adding 135,000 housing units in 10 years.
“The city of Austin cannot do it alone, so we are here to be in partnership,” Eckhardt said.
Public improvement district policy
The county is set to become perhaps the first in the state to use public improvement districts, or PIDs, to add to its affordable housing stock, according to a staff presentation Tuesday.
County staff presented amendments to the court Tuesday including the ways in which it notifies the public when a PID is being proposed, potentially expand construction worker protections and encourage affordable housing in PIDs.
Developers use PIDs to collect assessments from homeowners in the district to help pay for infrastructure improvements to the district, such as water and wastewater systems. Travis County approved creating a PID at the Wildhorse Ranch development in far East Austin near Walter E. Long Metropolitan Park last year.
“The PID is not for everyone,” Eckhardt said. “The market handles most of what we do, but the market is not producing the kind of stock that is going to build place in our unincorporated area moving forward. … It’s not going to produce change, and that’s what the PID is for."
