To begin let’s return briefly to the City Council meeting on May 22 of this year. The Acacia Cliffs item is about to be heard. That’s the case in which the owner of a naturally occurring affordable apartment complex in northwest Austin is proposing to tear down the existing complex in order to take advantage of the Council’s DB90 (Density Bonus with 90 feet in height) program. Residents of more than 250 units would be evicted. Many residents and their allies are in the Chamber ready for a tense hearing.
Just as things are about to get started Mayor Kirk Watson says he has an announcement to make, about DB90s. Said the Mayor, “For some time since its passage now, I have been working and cajoling and hoping and begging that we figure out a way that we achieve our positive goals, our well-motivated goals, for DB90, and mitigate or eliminate the pain that DB90 has caused.” Watson added that DB90 “has created significant unintended consequences, including creating serious division in our community.”
It is commendable that Watson wants to try and correct an ordinance that he has decided is flawed. If, however, he has been “working and cajoling and hoping and begging” to try and change DB90s “since its passage” he has been doing that all in private; at least as far as our research can indicate. For instance Watson missed the first part of the February 27, 2024 work session where staff announced the proposed removal of the one-to-one replacement policy. That policy required that any developer of a DB90 project replace any existing affordable units with new units “at the same comparable prices and size.” In other words in a proposed development like Acacia the developer would have to replace some 290 affordable apartments (around 255 currently occupied) with units of “comparable prices and size,” and offer the existing tenants the opportunity to live in those units.
Under the version of DB90 that Watson and the Council supermajority passed, the Acacia developers would be allowed to build around 700 units with 12% of them required to be “affordable.” The lobbyist for the owner of Acacia Cliffs told Council that their initial plans are to build 78 affordable units and these units would cost significantly more than the rents being charged to current residents. In other words there would be less than one-third as many affordable units as currently exist and they would cost more than the existing units. And the developer would be able to build more than 600 units that do not meet affordability standards.
The replacement requirement was included in the original draft of the the DB90 ordinance from City staff. The City staff version then went to the very developer-friendly Planning Commission where some Commissioners expressed dismay with the replacement clause. The Planning Commission ultimately proposed that the Council establish a waiver process, but did not recommend removal of the replacement clause quoted above.
But, when the final draft showed up at Council on February 27, 2024 City staff announced that they had removed the replacement clause from their recommendation. They explained that some “stakeholders,” almost certainly developers, objected to that provision.
Watson arrived shortly into the discussion, but did not take the chair duties back from then Mayor Pro Tem Leslie Pool. He did not say one word. He remained silent. Watson also remained silent two days later when he and eight Council Members gave final approval to the DB90 ordinance, without the clause requiring replacement of existing affordable units “at the same comparable prices and size.” Council Member Alison Alter voted no and Mackenzie Kelly abstained.
When Did the Cajoling Take Place?
I haven’t been able to review all the times when DB90s were on the Council agenda. (Even I can only endure so much.) I did, however, review two meetings (September 12 and September 26, 2024), where the agenda was packed with DB90 applications, to see if Watson did any working, cajoling, hoping or begging related to DB90s at those meetings. If he did, it must have been silent “hoping” because he did not say a word about DB90s. Or maybe he was “begging” developers at other times.
Those two meetings featured a broad array of citizens pointing to flaws with the DB90 ordinance. None of them got Watson’s attention enough for him to make a comment; or to express any change of heart. Instead, he quickly called for a vote on each of the DB90 proposals once all speakers were called. While it still might end up being a good thing that Watson is proposing changes to DB90s the reason he is acting now almost certainly has more to do with the fact that the Acacia Cliffs case exposed that the DB90 approach can incentivize the destruction of existing affordable housing; and, more importantly, that that aspect of the DB90 ordinance can be traced straight back to Watson and the Council. (The Council that approved the DB90 ordinance did not include current members Krista Laine, Marc Duchen or Mike Siegel.) We’ll discuss that a bit more further down, but for now let’s return to the May 22, 2025 meeting, where Watson announced that he would propose changes to DB90.
Watson Scoops Duchen in Proposing DB90 changes
As we noted in our previous Acacia Cliffs story, Council Member Marc Duchen was already on record saying of DB90, “In cases that don’t involve naturally occurring affordable housing, it can create affordability where there was none – which we always need! But in cases like this DB90 gives land developers the freedom to demolish affordable housing in exchange for a woefully inadequate preservation of affordable units. This is antithetical to the affordability issues that DB90 was intended to address.” Duchen was also on record that he was going to propose changes to the DB90 ordinance.
But then Watson announced his own DB90 reform effort. Watson also announced his co-sponsors; Duchen noticeably not among them. Longtime observers of Watson will likely recognize this approach as a signature move. He froze out the irritant Council Member proposing to make changes to DB90 and instead cast himself as the reformer.
Though a rookie, Duchen made a sound counter move. He asked for the floor and then began discussing an amendment he planned to propose. A few days later, after Watson and his co-sponsors (José Velasquez, Chito Vela, Zo Qadri and Mike Siegel) posted their initial announcement of an upcoming Item from Council on the Council Message Board, Duchen said that he hoped to add his proposals as amendments.
Of course Duchen would have to get six votes to pass any of his proposed amendments. That would have seemed extremely unlikely a few weeks ago, but I would say this has now moved into the uncertain category. Duchen has shown some success at winning majority votes from his colleagues; those had to do with postponing the Acacia votes. So it remains to be seen if he can get a majority of votes for changes to DB90s. It also remains to be seen whether Watson will work to accomodate Duchen’s concerns or whether he tries to freeze the rookie DB90 critic out of the process.
So Why Did Watson Decide to Change DB90s
So why did Watson make his DB90 move and why now?
The Council supermajority has been dismantling virtually every neighborhood or homeowner protection ever put into the City Code and congratulating themselves for doing it. Yet, all of a sudden there is a willingness to redo DB90s.
With Watson, and many other politicians, the usual place to look to explain sudden changes of heart is to explore whether the issue in question is hurting them politically, or could hurt them politically. In this case there is potentially real political damage that could be done to the Mayor and Council. Up to now they can attribute all housing policies they have passed to their philosophy, and mantra, of putting “affordability first.” That appears to be the Mayor’s favorite two word phrase, except, of course, for “campaign contribution.” So far this has been enough to win Council supermajorities and avoid any serious analysis of their policies from mainstream news outlets.
But, in the Acacia case there are clear casualties among the types of folks — both in racial mix and economic circumstances — that the Council supermajority maintains they are trying to help. These are real folks and if they get evicted they will still be around; and some of them might even become Council regulars and repeatedly remind the Council of what they did.
Whether or not that last thing happens, the Acacia case provides very vivid evidence for what critics of Council policies have been saying all along. That is that the Council’s policies are not intended to help working people find reasonably priced housing, but instead to give developers virtually anything they want.
In this case it is very clear that the only people or entities who stand to benefit from the approval of a DB90 are the property owner and the developer. That helps explain why the only person who spoke in favor of the zoning change and resulting DB90 at the May 22 hearing (other than the lobbyist handling the case) was an employee of the company planning to do the development of the new DB90 complex.
As described above, If the zoning is approved and a DB90 built, the current Acacia tenants — individuals and families living in some 255 occupied units — would be evicted and forced to find new housing. There would be some 70-80 affordable units in the new complex, but they would cost considerably more to rent than the existing units. It is very difficult to spin this situation in a way that sounds like the Council is acting in the interests of providing housing to people of moderate means.
It is very difficult to spin this situation in a way that sounds like the Council is acting in the interests of providing housing to people of moderate means.
On top of that, and this is the really critical political element: the fact that the residents would be evicted, with no right to return, can be traced straight back to a conscious decision of the Council supermajority; as detailed above and, more thoroughly in our original Acacia Cliffs story.
From what I have seen the Austin Independent is the only media outlet so far to make this connection, to trace this path. That could change at any time, now or in the future. It’s just a bird’s nest on the ground for any reporter who wants to pick it up.
By the way, the origins of the staff’s proposal to drop the affordable unit replacement policy also cast some suspicion on the Mayor and Council. As a former Council Member and person who also covered the Council in the media for many years — I can almost guarantee that the City staff and the City Manager would not have pulled something that important from a proposed ordinance without informing the Council in advance. Staff would almost certainly let Council Members know this important clause was being removed, if for no other reason than to avoid running into the buzzsaw they might face if they deleted something this important without consulting the Council in advance.
In fact it is possible, even likely, that staff was actually acting on pressure coming from the Mayor and Council who were getting their pressure from developers; sorry, I meant stakeholders. I can’t prove that in this case, but it does happen. (Also, as reported earlier, I submitted public information requests trying to find any correspondence to, from and between the Council regarding the removal of the one-to-one replacement rule. The City was unable to meet the 10-day turnaround under state law on that particular request, and so I won’t have any information on that until after the vote on Thursday.)
Another reason to suspect that the Mayor and Council Members knew in advance is that none of them expressed a single bit of surprise when staff announced the change at the February 2024 Council work session. As already noted only then Council Member Alison Alter, by then a lame duck Council Member, objected to the removal of the replacement clause. Council Members Chito Vela and Natasha Harper Madison applauded the move.
So, to summarize, the Council supported and approved removal of the “comparable prices and size” replacement clause when they approved the creation of DB90s. The removal of this replacement clause led directly to the situation that Acacia Cliffs residents now face.
What Now?
So what will happen at the Council on Thursday (June 5)? Of course we won’t know until then, but it seems like a vote will be taken, after two postponements. The Council could just turn down the zoning request. After all their staff told them back at the February 2024 work session that, when deliberating on individual cases, the Council could consider whether granting zoning changes to make someone eligible for a DB90 is appropriate.
As a high ranking staff member told them, “If the DB90 program is adopted, as we currently recommend, without the (replacement) requirements, Council can always consider the facts of the particular property when a rezoning case comes before you.” The staffer added, “you’ll have the information in the staff report about whether there is existing affordable multifamily development on a property and if it meets the planning principles to apply the density bonus.”
So there it is, an Acacia type situation anticipated. And the City staff said that Council could “consider the facts of the particular property” and whether “it meets the planning principles to apply the density bonus.”
So the Council could just say, we don’t believe this is an appropriate place for a DB90, and then reject the zoning. Acacia residents don’t have to be sacrificial examples of why the DB90 policy needs to be fixed?
Yes, that approach carries the risk that the property owner will just knock down the apartments and redevelop, with more costly units, under the existing zoning. But, that is a big risk for the property owner as well; to tear down a large complex with 255 tenants paying rent and build something new and more expensive — especially during a time when there is a large glut of apartments.
Another possibility, probably remote, is that the owners will offer a large enough incentive package that the tenants association thinks that is a safer course for them. That seems unlikely, but it would be a game changer. After all, while many issues have been raised about DB90s, the focus of this particular case has rightly been on the fate of the tenants.
Of course, another outcome is that a Council majority somehow rationalizes approving the zoning change. The Mayor and Council will then later make whatever changes they plan to make on DB90s. A big question there will be what happens to the cases filed, but still in the pipeline?
We asked the City for numbers on how many DB90 cases have been filed, how many have been approved, and how many are awaiting Council consideration. We did not hear back by press time. We will report more on that later.
Stay tuned.
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