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September 23, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 New rules for Austin short-term rentals going into effect this fall (Community Impact)

🟪 Planning Commission OKs upzoning of Rosewood Elementary site (Austin Monitor)

🟪 Liberty Hill getting more homes thanks to water agreement with Georgetown, Round Rock (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Austin FC, Q2 support community with $50K grants for 3 local nonprofits (KVUE)

🟪 Here’s what the law says about protesting on Texas college campuses (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Camp Mystic will reopen over objections from parents of the dead (New York Times)

🟪 Trump cancels meeting with Democrats as prospects for shutdown increase (NPR)

READ ON!

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ Austin City Council Agenda - September 25, 2025

🏛️ Memo: Austin’s Downtown Homeless Shelters - September 15, 2025

🏛️ City Memo: Short-Term Rental Regulations – Upcoming Action Item (Development Services Department)

🏛️ City Manager Executives and Advisors Staff Visual Chart

🏛️ City of Austin Org Chart (as of July 2025)

💰 2026 City of Austin Bond - Public Input

ℹ️ 2025 Essential Resources for Navigating the City of Austin

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ New rules for Austin short-term rentals going into effect this fall (Community Impact)

Austin's new rules for short-term rentals, or STRs, will soon move into place after past legal and enforcement issues. Changes approved Sept. 11 capped off a regulatory overhaul intended to curb the spread of unlicensed rental operations and nuisances in neighborhoods, while raising more tourism dollars.

“This has been a thorny and difficult issue through many different lawsuits and permutations," council member Chito Vela said. "I feel like we’re finally getting to a point where we have a workable, enforceable STR ordinance that will be able to stand up to legal challenge and also generate the hotel occupancy tax that we’ve been trying to get into the city coffers."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Planning Commission OKs upzoning of Rosewood Elementary site (Austin Monitor)

A rezoning request for the former site of Rosewood Elementary in East Austin picked up a recommendation from the Planning Commission during a meeting on September 9, moving the site closer to possible redevelopment.

If successful, several addresses around the school, which is located at 2406 Rosewood Avenue, would go from single family residential zoning to general commercial services-mixed use zoning. City staff recommends the change, writing in their report that it would allow for a “reasonable use” of the property and noting it buttressed by nearby commercial services-mixed use zonings.

Some neighbors who spoke at the meeting, however, disagreed. Several took issue with the commercial zoning for addresses at the back of the property, which opens onto Sol Wilson Avenue, a small, dead-end residential street. Others expressed a more general anxiety over the prospect of offering greater entitlements on another East Austin property without a solid plan for redevelopment… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Liberty Hill getting more homes thanks to water agreement with Georgetown, Round Rock (Austin Business Journal)

A multifamily housing development is headed to fast growing Liberty Hill, and it was made possible through a water sharing agreement with two other cities in Williamson County, which has had to contend with water shortages over the past several years.

Liberty Hill City Council approved the site plan for the development, called Mansions at Liberty Hill, at a meeting earlier this month. According to City Council documents, the city engineer determined there was enough water supply to serve the project after Liberty Hill struck a deal in August to receive water from Georgetown and Round Rock.

Mansions at Liberty Hill is planned to rise on roughly 58 acres off of County Road 277, north of State Highway 29 and just east of Liberty Hill High School. The development will consist of 420 duplexes. Each unit will have a private driveway. The developer formed an entity called 4400 CR 277 Investments LLC, but the identity of the developer could not be immediately confirmed… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Boring Company could build a series of tunnels in Bastrop (Austin Business Journal)

Elon Musk's The Boring Company could soon construct a series of tunnels just a few miles away from its headquarters east of Austin.

The company is discussing with the city of Bastrop the potential of building pedestrian tunnels that would connect the city's expanding above-ground trail system, Bastrop City Manager Sylvia Carrillo-Trevino said.

Boring Co., which is headquartered just outside of city limits in Bastrop County, could construct three tunnels, officials said. Company representatives couldn't be reached for comment.

The first tunnel would extend from the east side of Buc-ee's underneath the convenience store and Highway 95 and spit out near Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. A second could extend from Mayfest Park under State Highway 150 to Bastrop State Park, and connect a trail system that is being built from the east side of Buc-ee's to the city park. The third segment may extend the first tunnel to Ferry Park along the Colorado River… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Delta to launch new Austin-Miami nonstop route in November (KXAN)

Delta Air Lines is launching another new nonstop route from Austin in November, this time to Miami.

Service between Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and Miami International Airport will begin Nov. 22, with flights operating once daily. The new year-round route will be operated by Boeing 737-800 aircraft. 

Delta has announced a flurry of new routes from AUS in recent months. Service to seven new destinations has already begun this year and more are coming before the end of the year. Nonstop flights to Palm Springs and Denver will begin in November, while international service to Cancun and San Jose del Cabo will begin in December. Delta has not served any international destination directly from Austin since 2011… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin FC, Q2 support community with $50K grants for 3 local nonprofits (KVUE)

Austin FC and Q2 Stadium are teaming up to support local nonprofits, the team announced on Tuesday. 

The Q-mmunity Gives grant program supports nonprofits dedicated to working with underrepresented communities in education, job skills and health programs in Central Texas.

The partnership will award three $50,000 grants to three nonprofit organizations… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Here’s what the law says about protesting on Texas college campuses (Texas Tribune)

In response to the continued Israel-Hamas war, student demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians have drawn scrutiny across the country and in Texas.

In late March, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered public universities to revise their free speech policies and singled out some pro-Palestine student groups, saying they should be subject to discipline. The order told officials for Texas university systems to report back free speech policy changes within 90 days.

Still, students and organizations have continued to conduct pro-Palestine demonstrations at several Texas universities. Multiple people have been arrested at UT-Austin during such demonstrations, even though administrators at other Texas universities have not responded as aggressively to campus protests… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Camp Mystic will reopen over objections from parents of the dead (New York Times)

Camp Mystic, the girls’ summer camp in Texas where 27 young campers and counselors died in flooding in July, plans to reopen next summer, a decision that has shocked and divided the once tight-knit community of Mystic alumni and parents. The camp’s owners announced their intentions in two emails sent hours apart on Monday, one to the families of the girls who died, and one to a much broader group of past campers and their families, many of whom remain fiercely loyal to the camp’s leadership. “We are not only rebuilding cabins and trails, but also a place where laughter, friendship and spiritual growth will continue to flourish,” the email to past campers read. “We look forward to welcoming you back inside the green gates.” Camp owners opened a second site in 2020, near the original location along the Guadalupe River, which is the campus that will reopen next year. The question of whether the camp should reopen has roiled the Mystic community for weeks. One child, Cile Steward, 8, remains missing.

The question of whether the camp should reopen has roiled the Mystic community for weeks. One child, Cile Steward, 8, remains missing. The Texas Legislature has passed new laws to address camp safety, with an emotional push from the families of the children who died in the July 4 floods that devastated the Hill Country of Central Texas. But questions remain about what happened in the early morning hours of the Independence Day catastrophe, and many families have deeply opposed a reopening.

The messages sent on Monday, which included plans to erect a memorial on Mystic grounds in honor of the girls who died there, prompted immediate waves of shock and anger among the families, several parents said on Tuesday. They also said that they had received almost no other communication from the camp in recent months. “The families of deceased Camp Mystic campers and counselors were not consulted about and did not approve this memorial,” Blake Bonner, the father of Lila Bonner, 9, who died in the flood, said in a statement on behalf of the families. Cici Steward, the mother of Cile, responded Tuesday with an anguished, blistering statement that declared, “The truth is, Camp Mystic failed our daughters.”… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Did Dallas officials violate Texas’ Open Meetings Act while discussing homelessness? (WFAAA)

Two Dallas council members say four of their counterparts violated the Texas Open Meeting Act on Tuesday morning when they met with representatives from hotelier Monty Bennett’s Ashford Hospitality Trust, a real estate firm, to discuss homelessness in downtown Dallas. One of the council members in the meeting said the discussion included a proposal to move The Bridge, a homeless service provider, out of downtown Dallas and establish a facility at the Dallas Executive Airport. Council members Adam Bazaldua and Paula Blackmon said they learned of the meeting at 10:30 a.m. occurring in council member Cara Mendelsohn’s office.

Blackmon and Bazaldua said the presence of council members Mendelsohn, the housing and homelessness solutions committee’s chair and Lorie Blair, the vice chair, alongside Mayor pro tem Jesse Moreno and council member Zarin Gracey — four out of seven of the committee’s members — created the majority needed to conduct public business and broke the state’s opening meeting laws.

Bazaldua is also a member of the housing committee. Mendelsohn told The Dallas Morning News the meeting started at 10:23 a.m. and introductions lasted until 10:45 a.m., at which point Bazaldua and Blackmon came in. Mendelsohn said she left the meeting at that point. “There were no meeting material discussed while a quorum was present. An outside group of philanthropists were pitching an idea for homeless services. There was no deliberation or vote or agreement on any course of action nor is there any open procurement. Councilmembers meet with third parties all the time,” Mendelsohn said.

“These are people who have a grudge because they aren’t a chairman or vice chairman of any committee,” she added. Gracey said he was invited to the meeting to learn about a model similar to San Antonio’s Haven for Hope, which offers sleeping quarters and assistance with housing, education, counseling and support. “My invitation was based on the proposal to potentially develop this model at the Executive Airport, which, according to the information I received during the meeting, would serve as a replacement for The Bridge (a homeless service provider) currently located in Dallas,” Gracey told The News. “While I can appreciate the Haven for Hope model, the idea of moving the Bridge to Dallas Executive Airport is not something the community or I support.”… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Trump cancels meeting with Democrats as prospects for shutdown increase (NPR)

President Trump abruptly cancelled a planned Thursday meeting at the White House with top congressional Democratic leaders, increasing the chances of a government shutdown on Oct. 1.

Shortly after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries claimed victory in a joint statement for securing the meeting on Tuesday morning, the president posted on his social media platform that he was calling it off.

"After reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands being made by the Minority Radical Left Democrats in return for their Votes to keep our thriving Country open, I have decided that no meeting with their Congressional Leaders could possibly be productive," the president wrote.

He argued that the items in the Democrats' alternative funding proposal like rolling back the Medicaid changes enacted in the president's signature tax bill and extending Affordable Care Act tax credits were nonstarters. "There are consequences to losing Elections but, based on their letter to me, the Democrats haven't figured that out yet," Trump wrote… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

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