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- BG Reads 9.18.2024
BG Reads 9.18.2024
🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - September 18, 2024
Bingham Group Reads
Presented by:
www.binghamgp.com
September 18, 2024
Today's BG Reads include:
🟪 How much parking is getting built in Austin now that it's not required? One program offers an idea. (KUT)
🟪 Travis County files federal lawsuit against Paxton over challenge to voter registration mailers (KUT)
🟪 Plans for huge River Park project in East Austin evolving to meet the market, developers say (Austin Business Journal)
Read On!
[BINGHAM GROUP]
🟪 We are proud to represent and have represented a wide range of clients in the Austin Metro and Texas Capitol at the intersection of government and business.
🟪 Learn more about Bingham Group’s experience here, and review client testimonials here.
[CITY OF AUSTIN]
🟪 The Austin Council has seven (6) regular meetings left in 2024.
TOMORROW -> District 4 - September 19th
City of Austin Permitting and Development Center, Room 1405, 6310 Wilhelmina Delco Drive, Austin 78752
District 2 - September 25th
Dove Springs Recreation Center, 5801 Ainez Drive, Austin 78744
District 10 - September 30th
Dell Jewish Community Campus, Epstein Family Community Hall, 7300 Hart Lane, Austin 78731
Mayor - October 3rd
Austin City Hall Council Chambers, 301 W. 2nd St. Austin 78701
District 6 - October 7th
Hope Presbyterian Church, 11512 Olson Drive, Austin 78750
đź“ş City Council Candidate Forum: District 7 - Video (9.5.2024)
âś… All candidate forums will are scheduled from 6:30pm to 8pm.
âś… All forums will be streamed live and archived on ATXN.
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
How much parking is getting built in Austin now that it's not required? One program offers an idea. (KUT)
Austin is one of the largest cities in the country without minimum parking requirements after City Council members did away with them late last year.
Builders of apartments, shops and restaurants can now decide how much parking they want, although they must still provide a certain number of parking spots for people with disabilities. Advocates and elected officials who supported the change in November ultimately hoped it would result in builders constructing less parking and encourage people to bike, walk or use public transit instead of driving.
“If we truly want to achieve our progressive goals of making Austin a less car-dependent city, we cannot be forcing developers to be providing car storage in every new project,” Council Member Zo Qadri, who represents Central Austin neighborhoods, said before the vote.
While it’s a little too soon to tell just how much parking is being built, one housing program may provide a glimpse into Austin’s parking future.
In 2019, the Austin City Council created Affordability Unlocked. The policy allows developers to forgo parking requirements and other building rules as long as they set aside at least half of the homes they build for low-income people.
A KUT analysis of 14 Affordability Unlocked projects finds that developers built, in total, about 25% fewer parking spaces than they would have had to under Austin’s old parking rules... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Travis County files federal lawsuit against Paxton over challenge to voter registration mailers (KUT)
Travis County has filed a federal lawsuit against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for his attempt to stop a program that mails out voter registration forms to residents.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses Paxton and Secretary of State Jane Nelson of violating the National Voter Registration Act. The law requires states to provide residents the opportunity to register to vote, including through driver's license applications and mailers.
At a news conference Tuesday, County Attorney Delia Garza said Travis County is not going to let Paxton intimidate or stop the county from helping people register to vote, which is protected under the law. She said the county is asking a federal judge to let it continue sending out mailers as a voter registration tool.
“The Texas attorney general thinks that he is above the law,” Garza said. “Here in Texas, and in this country, we still value the things that are foundational to us – things like voting, registering to vote and making sure people have a voice in their government.”… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Plans for huge River Park project in East Austin evolving to meet the market, developers say (Austin Business Journal)
Plans for a huge mixed-use project on Riverside Drive in East Austin now call for inclusion of a 65,000-square-foot venue for live shows and events as developers continue tweaking an initiative that has spent years on the drawing board.
The development — called River Park — will sit on 109 acres between Roy G. Guerrero Colorado River Metro Park, E. Riverside Dr., Pleasant Valley Road and Country Club Creek. Dallas-based Presidium Group LLC, which is working on the project with Partners Group, released updates regarding it earlier this month, including plans for the entertainment venue and changes to some other elements.
River Park will be developed over 10 to 20 years and will feature multifamily units, office, retail, parkland and the entertainment venue, according to Presidium — although no date for a groundbreaking has been announced.
“To accommodate the music and event venue, we are processing slight adjustments to the site plan under the city’s revision process. Until those revisions are approved, there is not a firm timeline” for work to begin, Presidium Vice President Michael Piano said in an email.
Piano said the planned 10 million-square-foot mixed-use project — equivalent to about seven Barton Creek Square Malls or 20 Frost Bank towers — will continue to evolve to serve market demand… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
American Airlines to drop four routes from Austin airport (Austin Business Journal)
American Airlines confirmed it is dropping four routes from Austin Bergstrom International Airport.
The airline will discontinue service from Austin to Nashville, Raleigh/Durham and Boston in November. The route to Orange County in California will be dropped in January, according to American Airlines. These routes will continue to be served by other carriers in Austin, according to an ABIA representative.
“As part of the continuous evaluation of our network, American will reduce service from Austin (AUS) starting this winter. American will continue to offer customers access to our comprehensive global network of more than 350 destinations with one-stop connections. We’re proactively reaching out to impacted customers and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause,” according to a statement from American Airlines... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Gov. Greg Abbott announces crackdown on Venezuelan gang (Texas Tribune)
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday announced the state is going to target a Venezuelan gang that he said was notorious for brutal violence and murder and posed a threat to Texans’ safety.
At a press conference in Houston, Abbott signed a proclamation that declares the Tren de Aragua gang a foreign terrorist organization, and directed the Department of Public Safety to create new strike teams of highway patrol officers, SWAT teams, helicopters, canines and Texas Rangers to target areas with known TDA activity.
“We will bring the full weight of the government against the TDA by declaring TDA a foreign terrorist organization,” Abbott said before signing the proclamation. “Texas will use the courts to halt their operations, use civil asset forfeiture to take their property, use enhanced criminal penalties to keep them in jail, behind bars for longer periods of time.”
The governor singled out El Paso as a hotbed for recent criminal activity by suspected members of Tren de Aragua. He said residents there had recently been concerned about criminal activity in a local hotel where 20 suspected Venezuelan gang members were arrested… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
How an algorithm could be artificially raising rents for thousands of Houston renters (Houston Chronicle)
More than 25 Houston-area landlords managing thousands of apartments here are among those named in an ongoing lawsuit that accuses them of colluding to set rent prices with Richardson-based software company RealPage.
While it's impossible to determine how much the alleged scheme cost tenants of those buildings, Texas housing advocates say the RealPage software at the heart of the case could have made the high cost of housing in the area even more expensive. Average apartment rents in Houston are about 22% higher than they were in 2020, according to MRI Software, which provides software to real estate professionals and is unrelated to RealPage. Rents have flattened recently, but they're still beyond the reach of many Houston households, said Ben Martin, research director with Texas Housers, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing.
“RealPage isn’t responsible for all of those rent increases — there’s a lot of factors that play into that, involving housing demand and supply,” Martin said. “But it appears that landlords using RealPage and other algorithmic software basically have a point of confluence of additional information that helps them squeeze out (more) rent than they would be able to do otherwise.”
The 2023 class action suit filed in Tennessee covers anyone that paid rent to a landlord using RealPage’s software from October 2018 to the present — likely millions of tenants. Among the landlords operating in Houston named in the suit are some of the biggest names in the industry: Allied Orion Group, Camden Property Trust, Cortland Management, Greystar Management, Crow Holdings/Trammell Crow Residential and Willow Bridge, formerly Lincoln Property. RealPage denies helping to set rents, saying that market conditions have pushed prices higher…
🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[US and World News]
Amazon’s return-to-office plans spark concern and debate among employees (Wall Street Journal)
Amazon.com’s decision to require its corporate staff members to be in the office every weekday sparked frustration among employees and curiosity among executives at other companies interested in seeing worker reaction.
Some at Amazon said they were surprised and disappointed. On social-media sites, employees complained about added commute times. Others were fine with the change that takes effect in January, saying they were already in the office at least four days a week.
“People are not happy about it,” said an Amazon software engineer during an interview on Tuesday. “It seems unreasonable and stands against data that people are still productive out of the office.”
Amazon’s new office policy marks a significant shift for a tech industry where most employers have embraced hybrid work.
Only 7% of large tech companies require employees to be in the office five days a week, compared with 33% for all U.S. companies, according to Flex Index, a software firm that tracks return-to-office efforts. Tech companies have often led significant shifts in office policies during and after the Covid-19 pandemic… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
_________________________
We are proud to represent and have represented a wide range of clients in the Austin Metro and Texas Capitol at the intersection of government and business.
Learn more about Bingham Group’s experience here, and review client testimonials here.
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