I wanted to say thank you to everyone that worked really hard sending emails, making phone calls, meeting with council members, showing up to council meetings, and everything else that you’ve done to help. It’s unfortunate that the city council decided to ban type 2 short term rentals and add additional regulations to make it harder to continue having type 1 and type 3 rentals. It’s especially disappointing that they decided to ban existing type 2 STR owners and take away our family’s homes and our family’s incomes. Many of us spent our life savings and invested money and our futures into what the city of Austin guaranteed us was something that we could do. I know a lot of you are angry and feel lied to by the city council. I know I am. My family invested our life savings into our STRs and there is no way to pay back the additional mortgages that we took out to convert them into STRs in the next 5 years. If our STRs are taken from us, we will no longer have an income, most likely be forced to sell even the home that we live in to help pay back the loans, and be forced to move out of Austin. It’s not an option for my family to long term rent, since that would mean we would no longer have a family income. So I know how a lot of you feel right now. The city council has shown that they don’t care or understand who they harm and can not be trusted when they give their word or approval to their constituents.
Austin may have lost at the city council level, but this is far from over and I have no doubt that we will ultimately prevail. We’ll be determining our next steps in the coming week or two and should have more to announce soon. Until then, please take the time to thank the following council members for trying to protect the Austin families that depend on short term rentals. Please email or tweet them.
Thanks to:
Mayor Steve Adler
steve.adler@austintexas.gov
Twitter: @MayorAdler
Council Member Troxclair
ellen.troxclair@austintexas.gov
Twitter: @EllenforAustin
Council Member Gallo
sheri.gallo@austintexas.gov
Twitter: @SheriGalloD10
Council Member Zimmerman
don.zimmerman@austintexas.gov
Twitter: @DonZimmermanATX
Council Member Kitchen
ann.kitchen@austintexas.gov
Twitter: @D5Kitchen
Please feel free to email or tweet the following city council members and let them know how disappointed you are in their lack of compassion for the Austin families that depend on STRs - from the homeowners, managers, cleaners, employees - all who will be out of jobs in the coming years because of them. Please tell all of your friends, family, and anyone else in Austin about these council members from now until their next election.
Garza
delia.garza@austintexas.gov
Twitter: @DGarzaforD2
Casar
gregorio.casar@austintexas.gov
Twitter: @GregorioCasar
Houston
ora.houston@austintexas.gov
Twitter: @Oraatx1
Renteria
sabino.renteria@austintexas.gov
Twitter: @CM_Renteria
Pool
leslie.pool@austintexas.gov
Twitter: PoolforAustin
Tovo
kathie.tovo@austintexas.gov
Twitter: kathietovo