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BG Reads 3.22.2024

BG Reads 3.22.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - March 22, 2024

March 22, 2024

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Bingham Group Reads

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March 22, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 BG Blog - City Manager Spotlight: 5 Issues To Watch for Monday’s Candidate Town Hall

🟣 City will spend $87 million on SE Austin Tokyo Electron property for affordable housing

🟣 Austin Board of REALTORS: Commissions are and will remain negotiable

🟣 Texas leads country in semiconductor manufacturing, Gov. Greg Abbott says

🟣 California sends a message on homelessness — and Newsom

Read on!

✅ CLICK HERE for this week’s City of Austin meeting times and agendas.

[AUSTIN CITY HALL]

As part of the City Manager recruitment process, the City is inviting community members to submit questions that may be included during the moderated discussion.

The two candidates under consideration, T.C. Broadnax and Sara Hensley, will be introduced on Monday, March 25 at the Permitting and Development Center, 6310 Wilhelmina Delco Drive.
The event begins at 6 p.m. and doors will open to the public at 5:30 p.m. Free parking will be provided at the adjacent parking garage, which can be accessed from Wilhelmina Delco Drive, Middle Fiskville Road or East Highland Mall Boulevard.

[BINGHAM GROUP]

✅ [NEW] BG Blog - City Manager Spotlight: Five Issues To Watch for Monday’s Candidate Town Hall

Monday's city manager town hall gives voters a chance to hear from candidates T.C. Broadnax and Sara Hensley. We took a look at the five big issues they’ll need to address:

Land Use & Affordability
Public Safety Priorities
Addressing Homelessness
Austin's Transportation Future
Promoting Equity and Opportunity

✅ BG Blog - City of Austin org chart red line (as of 2/9/2024)

✅ BG Podcast Ep. 241: Austin Politics Weekly Recap and What's Ahead

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Austin will spend $87 million on property in Southeast Austin for affordable housing (KUT)

The Austin City Council voted Thursday to spend $87 million to buy 107 acres of land in Southeast Austin for affordable housing.

Tokyo Electron, which makes semiconductors and display production equipment, announced in February that it was moving from the site. The city plans to build 1,100 units — some of which will be affordable — on the property. It sits near a future light-rail line.

Council Member José Velásquez, who represents the area, said the project will allow the city to prioritize housing needs for "hard-working residents."

“This is the first major step in a project that has the potential to be transformational,” Velásquez said. “One of my goals is to provide more affordable housing and deeply affordable housing to District 3. The opportunity to do so in this location, built intentionally and strategically with public transit access, is beyond exciting.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Incentive package for music venues, arts spaces headed for May public hearing (Austin Monitor)

The city is working to make incentives for creative spaces available to individual sites and properties as well as larger cultural districts that have been proposed in city planning documents in recent years.

Monday’s Arts Commission meeting included a presentation from Donald Jackson, a business process consultant in the Economic Development Department, on progress on the push to create standardized incentives that would encourage developers to create art galleries, music venues or other creative spaces in new projects. The incentives would work in some ways similarly to affordable housing bonuses that would allow greater building height and floor area ratio in exchange for providing discounted creative space for at least 10 years.

Jackson said EDD staff is working on the creation of a “paper district” with all the necessary conditions and incentives that could be applied to any site if a developer wished to incorporate a creative use into a given project. Jackson said the paper district would offer flexibility without the city deciding which districts or specific geographic areas would be best suited for the incentives… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

ABOR: Commissions are and will remain negotiable (Austin Business Journal)

After the National Association of Realtors announced a blockbuster $418 million settlement in the face of a wave of lawsuits alleging a conspiracy to keep commissions elevated, the Austin Board of Realtors has released a statement to make clear that “there are no standard commissions.”

The lawsuits alleged a conspiracy between the NAR, multiple listing services and brokers to keep commissions high by largely requiring home sellers to pay buyer-broker commissions, and to require those commissions as part of being listed on listing services.

“There have been several reports stating the settlement proposes eliminating the use of ‘standard commissions,’” ABOR CEO Emily Chenevert said in a statement. “That is inaccurate. NAR and the Austin Board of Realtors do not set commissions for real estate brokers or their agents. Commissions related to both the buying and selling of real estate are negotiable.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

Texas leads country in semiconductor manufacturing, Gov. Greg Abbott says (Austin Business Journal)

Texas aims to cement its position as a leader in the semiconductor industry with the formation of an innovation committee, Gov. Greg Abbott announced at an event held by the University of Texas at Dallas.

Abbott announced inaugural members to the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Consortium Executive Committee, which aims to ensure the state's position as a leader in semiconductor research, design and manufacturing.

“We will leverage the expertise of industry leaders and our world-class higher education institutions to ensure we not only remain the best state in America for semiconductors but we become a global leader for semiconductor innovation,” he said in a statement.

Semiconductor manufacturing has become a major force in the Central Texas economy. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., which has had a decades-long presence in North Austin, is building a $17 billion-plus plant in a suburb northeast of the city, and its suppliers are expanding all over the region to support the major factory. And the company could one day build more fabrication plants in Austin and Taylor. Other companies with a presence in Austin include NXP Semiconductors NV and Infineon Technologies AG, plus industry suppliers such as Applied Materials Inc. and Tokyo Electron Ltd… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Tom Oliverson announces he is challenging Dade Phelan for Texas House speakership (Texas Tribune)

State Rep. Tom Oliverson on Thursday announced a surprise challenge to Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, condemning his fellow Republican’s “dysfunctional” leadership as he fights for political survival in a May runoff.

Oliverson, an anesthesiologist from Cypress in his fourth term, pitched himself as the right man to realign the lower chamber with the priorities of the Republican party, which he said Phelan too often ignored. He criticized Phelan for appointing Democrats to chair some House committees and pledged to end the longstanding tradition if elected speaker.

“The Texas House is a collegial body, but there is a difference between collegiality and capitulation,” Oliverson, 51, said. “The majority must not be held captive by the will of the minority.”

Phelan has defended the practice, arguing that it allows the Legislature to function free of the gridlock seen in Congress. His defenders also say that Democrats — who chair eight of the House’s 34 standing committees — have not used their positions to hold up conservative priorities, most of which flow through committees overseen by Republicans… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

California sends a message on homelessness — and Newsom (Politco)

Proposition 1 was a major victory for Gov. Gavin Newsom. It was also a lesson and a warning.

The $6.4 billion bond measure — which overhauls how the state addresses the overlapping crises of homelessness, drug addiction and untreated mental illness — passed late Wednesday by the thinnest of margins, barely 30,000 votes in a state of nearly 40 million people.

Newsom, who made Prop 1 the centerpiece of his political agenda this year, celebrated the win Thursday but acknowledged the obvious message from voters.

“People want results. People are exhausted with the time delay,” the Democratic governor said at a news conference in Los Angeles hours after a painstaking, two-week count to settle the race. “They’re exhausted with the promises. They want to see results.”

The unexpectedly close result, in a campaign that featured only token opposition, shows that Californians are deeply divided over whether to spend more money on homelessness, and to deal with the cost of housing more broadly, which voters consistently say is the No. 1 issue in a state with more people living on the streets than any other. It also raises questions about Newsom, and whether he can execute on major policy proposals… (LINK TO FULL STORY)