Hi All, we were one of groups that helped secure the city’s $250m affordable housing bond by calling for $300m. We helped to more than triple the initial proposal and demonstrate a significant commitment to addressing Austin’s housing crisis. Let’s update our commitment with a vote to endorse what has become Proposition A.
Below: updated the vote language from April to reflect what’s actually on the ballot now and incorporate some feedback I heard from that resolution:
Austin is in a housing crisis. To truly be an inclusive city, we need to make sure we build enough housing so that longtime residents and newcomers alike have a place to live. That means changing the zoning to allow as much housing as possible to be built. But the market won’t build enough on its own; in addition to upzoning, we need public investment to ensure homes for people from all income levels. In particular, we support Proposition A for $250m in bond money in 2018 for building new public multifamily housing.
Thanks for offering to shed some light on Proposition A, @AshkanJahangiri.
Does Proposition A provide any guidance on where the public investments in subsidized affordable housing would go (or the criteria for making that determination), and how much of it would likely go toward multifamily dwellings?
Hi! I’m a big fan of more, diverse, and dense housing. But I’ve lived in 8 different cities and I have yet to see a public housing project that actually works. What examples can you cite that make you thinking giving the government more money to spend on the problem will be a success? More government intervention is the problem, not the solution. I sincerely believe we should not support a bond and we should fight for less regulation and zoning - that will go a long way to solving the problem.
The other issue with a bond to be spent by government is that no amount of money I’ve ever seen can solve what is a market issue/supply and demand problem.
What’s the timeline for voting on this and city council races? Should we vote on all of the other ballot issues also? It looks like a lot of other organizations have already endorsed or are in the process.
Do we need to wait until the questionnaires are returned to vote on an endorsement? If so, what’s the deadline for them to be back? I’m afraid FAN has already waited too long to have much of an impact with the FAN endorsement. There’s already articles like this one coming out to where FAN is absent, but the ANC is part of. The ANC seems able to respond quicker to most policy issues and so they have a greater impact, which should be the strength of FAN instead.
Yeah, Muni’s not too important right now as long as FAN will have another vote sometime soon it can be added onto. If it’s something FAN would want to take a position on anyways.
At this point, it will depend on whether @josiahstevenson or someone else will take on the task of adding to the ballots before they go out tomorrow morning. The Helios vote is set to start at 8 am.
I’ve had some people ask about props H, I, and K missing. Were they mistakenly left out? It’s just confusing having a few props missing. I don’t think there’s a way to add something into Helios after the vote starts, but maybe it can be added to the NA vote?
If it’s something FAN would want to take a position on anyways.