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At a time when the rich are getting richer, you deserve a City that is investing in you. It’s too hard to get by for too many people. We owe it to working families, seniors, and everyone worried about how they can afford to call Austin home to prioritize them – prioritize you. That’s exactly why I supported the recent “Dog’s Head” agreement: a deal that makes large corporations like Amazon and new development pay their full share – so their taxes fund our city, instead of yours shouldering the load.
What this deal is – and isn’t
Let me be absolutely clear about what this deal is and what it isn’t. This is not a tax break for developers, large corporations or billionaires. If it was, I wouldn’t support it. With this deal, every new business, including Amazon, will pay 100% of their property and sales taxes. Without it, they would pay 0% in City property tax, and none of their sales taxes would help fund local transit. With this deal, someone else helps pay for public safety, parks, housing, and homelessness services. Without it, Austin loses that revenue entirely, and you’re left shouldering the cost alone.
What is the “Dog’s Head” development?
At its core, this agreement brings over 2,600 acres (that look like a dog’s head) into the city limits. Here’s why that matters to you:
- Larger tax base – less reliance on your tax dollars to pay for City services
- Affordable housing – 20% of the housing, or almost 2,500 homes, is required to be affordable
- New open spaces – nearly 300 acres of dedicated parks, trails and open space, mainly along the Colorado River, for public use
- Good-paying jobs – guaranteed wages and worker protections for construction
- Expanded transit – and the future home of a light rail station
Without this deal, none of this is guaranteed. No tax base expansion, no affordable housing requirement, no protected trails – just development on the county’s terms, not ours. At a time when properties are fleeing Austin’s city limits and jurisdiction – and taking their taxes with them – this is an unprecedented opportunity that we can’t afford to miss.
Who pays for the roads and pipes?
A development this size needs a lot of public infrastructure. Normally, the city pays for things like roads and bridges by issuing bonds – paid by everyone’s property taxes. Similarly, new water and electric lines mean higher utility rates, which we all pay too.
This deal works differently. The developer pays over 70% of infrastructure costs directly. The rest comes from a TIRZ – a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone – which uses a portion of the tax revenue generated within the Dog’s Head zone itself to cover the remaining infrastructure costs. The TIRZ is not a handout, a tax rebate, or a subsidy. It’s a reimbursement for building public infrastructure that the City and our residents will own. That you will own.
On top of this, this agreement sends over $500 million to the city’s general fund for public safety, parks, housing, and homelessness services. And thanks to an amendment I passed, over $200 million from this deal will be dedicated to our parks and affordable housing. Without this deal, those infrastructure costs are paid by you. Without this deal, we have $200 million less for parks and affordable housing.
Real environmental protections
Without this deal, this land would remain in the county with no impervious cover limitation, meaning 100% of the developable space could be paved. Instead, we capped the impervious cover at 79%, well below our standard 95% for commercial and similar to the Mueller development (which also had its share of naysayers back when it was initiated). We also increased the buffer zone along the river from the standard 200 feet to an average of 300 feet with a 200-foot minimum and required that the first dollars generated from this development will be used to enrich the environment, not the developer.
The bottom line
It’s easy to speak in catchy slogans or simply just make up facts to fit a narrative, but we have to govern in reality. The reality is that without this deal, you lose. You lose tax dollars that won’t support our City. You lose parks, open space, and environmental protections. You lose contributions that support transit. No deal is perfect, and if the Legislature hadn’t taken away some of the tools cities used to have, we might have been able to secure additional benefits. But this deal lowers your costs, protects over six miles of river trails for you to enjoy, and adds thousands of homes working families can actually afford.
Austin City Council Member Ryan Alter represents District 5 and is seeking re-election in 2026.
