The Codes and Ordinances Joint Committee—a group made of four Planning Commission and three Zoning and Platting Commission members—asked last week how many cases would have been recommended by the Historic Landmark Commission if only a simple majority was required instead of the current two-thirds supermajority rule, which applies when a property owner objects to the designation. The committee should receive that information and potentially take action on the recommendation at its May 17th meeting, according to Greg Dutton, an employee in the city's planning and zoning department.
Historic zoning recommendations, once approved by the Historic Landmark Commission, go to Planning Commission and eventually council. But if a case fails to gain enough votes at the Historic Landmark Commission, the case dies.
According to Nuria Zaragoza, the joint committee chair and Planning Commission member, most commissions are advisory in nature, meaning council will have the ultimate say. The Historic Landmark Commission is among the only commissions in which a case dies because of a failed recommendation.
"The bar we have set in the city code for the Historic Landmark Commission to recommend historic zoning is just higher than the bar we set for any other advisory land use commission."
District 9 Council Member and Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo
Zaragoza referred to the Montopolis Negro School case, which failed to obtain a supermajority at the Historic Landmark Commission earlier this year. She said the city is now fighting to keep the building intact by offering land use entitlements to the property owner in exchange to keep the historic structure.
District 9 Council Member and Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo sponsored the resolution in January that directs city staff to look into the efficiency of the supermajority requirement. She said an earlier analysis showed a "small" number of additional cases would have made their way to council if only a simple majority was required.
"The bar we have set in the city code for the Historic Landmark Commission to recommend historic zoning is just higher than the bar we set for any other advisory land use commission," Tovo said. "And the results are pretty final. [Often] a demolition permit is issued. It's a pretty significant, irrevocable circumstance."
A parallel but contrasting House Bill
The item contrasts sharply to a state bill currently making its way through the Legislature that would require a three-fourths supermajority vote from a city's Historic Landmark Commission and Planning Commission to initiate historic zoning against a property owner’s objection.
As of Wednesday, HB 3418, authored by state Rep. Gary Elkins, R-Houston, is still pending in the House’s Urban Affairs Committee.
Glen Coleman, an urban activist representing the Home Builders Association of Greater Austin, said in a letter to the Codes and Ordinances Joint Committee that historic zoning in Austin has “become so much a matter of thwarting infill development and so little matter of preservation that the city has attracted statewide attention and derision.”
The recommendation to eliminate the supermajority requirement could hand the Planning Commission “some very long nights,” Coleman cautioned.
Questions remain, however, over how best to handle a bill that advances beyond the Historic Landmark Commission only to die at the Planning Commission, level. Under city law, the Planning Commission's vote is only advisory, and all cases—regardless of the commission's vote—make their way to City Council for the final say.
The current two-thirds supermajority requirement is in proportion to the 11-member Historic Landmark Commission, which has exacerbated the issue because of attendance issues—many times barely reaching a six-member quorum, making an eight-vote supermajority impossible to reach.
Zaragoza said she offered a compromise to the Codes and Ordinances Joint Committee: have the two-thirds requirement be in proportion to the commissioners that are present. However, she said the option was not well-received.
