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Austin City Council members rarely broke with development interests in hundreds of city rezoning cases between January 2023 and May 2024, an Austin Free Press analysis shows.
A council majority rejected just one of the 238 rezoning cases that developers brought before the council in that period, city council data show. In another case, a landowner withdrew his rezoning request in the face of opposition from some council members.
In all, Austin Free Press reviewed 2,629 opportunities for each member of Austin’s 10-1 council to vote on 239 rezoning cases from January 1, 2023 through May 16, 2024. Individual council members cast a total of just 20 “No” votes, affecting just eight of the 238 rezoning cases during that period, or 3 percent of the total.
The near lockstep approval of developer-sought rezoning cases fuels public criticism that the council acts as a rubber stamp for developers seeking to upzone neighborhood projects.
Critics say rubberstamping undermines political bartering in which developers provide key community benefits in exchange for rezoning changes that increase their profit margins. They say that fast-tracking rezonings, with minimal discussion or dissent, squanders leverage that the city — along with community and neighborhood groups — once wielded to obtain developer concessions on such amenities as affordable housing, compatible designs, infrastructure improvements, or greenspace.
By contrast, advocates, including business groups, new urbanists, and City Hall insiders say that fast-tracking development interests alleviates bureaucratic bottlenecks and the lengthy public hearings that previously hindered the market from meeting Austin’s prodigious housing demand.
Rapid rezoning results in more housing inventory, which helps renters, District 5 Council Member Ryan Alter said in an interview. “Rents have gone down now 15 percent in large part because of the number of units that have been developed and are now available,” Alter said. “I think we’re going to see some of that downward price pressure just given the allowed density.”
Critics counter that favoring developer rezoning requests can undermine affordability.
“I don’t buy that just upzoning and allowing more building is going to solve our housing problem,” former Council Member Laura Morrison said. New construction may provide denser housing, she told Austin Free Press, but that new housing typically is more expensive. This displaces residents and fails to address the needs of Austinites looking for affordable housing, she said.
Morrison was a Council Member in 2012 when she and her colleagues approved the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan. It called for greater density in Austin’s nodes and corridors. Morrison sees that as a more sustainable approach than Austin’s recent HOME code amendments, which allow different types of housing to be built in single-family zoning.
“Trying to densify everywhere is a recipe for displacement and driving up costs,” she said.
Kathie Tovo, who recently lost an electoral challenge to Mayor Kirk Watson, served on Council from 2011 until 2023, partly overlapping with Morrison. Tovo agrees that rezoning doesn’t always deliver affordability. “When rezonings lead to demolition of existing structures, the resulting housing is never more affordable,” she said.
Tovo’s campaign platform stressed the need for more transparent local government in Austin and more dialogue between government officials and community stakeholders. She said the current council has less public engagement.
“There’s a trend of just approving what hits the council agenda without working to help shape it or mitigate what stakeholders regard as harm,” she said.
Council Member Ryan Alter disputes that characterization.
“We always provide the same opportunity to testify that has existed for — in my understanding — quite some time,” Alter said. “Anybody can come and testify at a zoning case, both before the Planning Commission and at a City Council meeting.”
The City Council is authorized to revise property zonings through three readings of a proposed zoning ordinance followed by council votes. Rezonings involving certain kinds of city-validated opposition require a supermajority of nine council votes to pass.
Those three council readings often occur in a single vote without any public discussion, however, according to former Austin Planning Commissioner Carmen Llanes Pulido, who also recently lost a challenge to Austin Mayor Kirk Watson.
“When community members meet with the council staff and the developers, the council offices are making it clear that they are going to vote with the developers,” Llanes Pulido said in an interview. Llanes Pulido recognizes “great development projects (are) out there.” But the current Council’s tendency to align with developers diminishes stakeholder leverage to get developer concessions, she said.
The nonprofit Community Not Commodity has protested that the Austin City Council violated its own rules at its July 18 meeting by approving a slew of rezoning cases with a single consent vote. The group, which opposes recent Austin land-use changes, also claimed that vote occurred without any description of those cases and with no council or staff discussion.
Morrison and Tovo both expressed surprise at the low number of “no” votes cast by the council. Tovo said that counting “no” votes doesn’t always tell the full story, however.
“The simple number of how many cases got approved and how many didn’t is never going to tell you the whole picture of how it may have shifted based on public comment, council intervention and work,” Tovo said. “It seems like a whole lot more of that was happening in the past.”
Retiring Council Member Alison Alter (District 10) led the council’s limited rezoning dissents, casting five “No” votes over the 14-month period studied. Paige Ellis (District 8) and Vanessa Fuentes (District 2) each cast three “No” votes. Zohaib ‘Zo’ Qadri (District 9) and José Velásquez (District 3) each dissented twice. Republican Council Member Mackenzie Kelly of District 6 was the only member who did not vote against any rezoning cases.
“One thing that … this Council could certainly do,” Tovo said, “is really make sure they’re spending time understanding some of the challenges in districts other than their own… and be willing to meet with stakeholders outside your own district.”
Council Member Ryan Alter said this would break council protocol. “We typically defer to the council member that represents an area,” he said. “If you have a council member that is supporting a zoning change in the district they represent, then there typically need to be some more extenuating circumstances for another council member to step in and say, ‘No.’”
Denying a rezoning tax break to state-government elites
The only rezoning case that the City Council rejected denied lucrative tax breaks to condo owners who included a veritable “Who’s Who” of Texas lobbyists and politicians.
Across from the Texas Capitol, the 26-story Westgate Tower completed in 1966 at 1122 Colorado St. helped inspire the state’s 1983 Capitol Views Corridors law. Austin’s first mixed-use building, this tower was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010. Westgate condo owners then petitioned the city to recognize the building as a historic landmark, which would give its condo owners hefty property-tax breaks.
Three citizens sued the city in 2011, arguing that the lawmakers had approved historic tax breaks to subsidize the restoration of deteriorating historic buildings. Their attorney, Jim George, told the Austin Chronicle at the time that, by contrast, Westgate residents “are millionaires who claim they can’t afford to restore houses that they’ve already restored.”
In February 2023 the Westgate Condominium Association returned, asking council to grant the building “historic landmark” zoning. Westgate resident and real estate broker Kenda Daniels cited the building’s state and national historic designations in urging the council to grant the landmark zoning.
Westgate Tower general manager Brian Evans argued that the building complied with every requirement of Austin’s historical designation program. “Judging our application for any reason other than those contained in this document sets a horrible precedent that the government can simply pick and choose their favorites,” he said.
Nonetheless, all but two colleagues backed Council Member Zohaib Qadri’s proposal to deny Westgate’s rezoning on equity grounds. Mackenzie Kelly, who had a policy of backing all landowner rezoning requests, voted against Qadri’s proposal. Alison Alter declined a Free Press request to explain her support for Westgate’s rezoning.
Just before that rezoning vote, Council Member Qadri said he wanted to overhaul the city’s historic preservation plan to include “equity-based” criteria. The Council adopted that new plan in November.
Editor’s Note: A follow-up story on Friday will take a closer look at the seven other rezoning cases that sparked opposition votes on the council.
Patrick M. Davis is a Midwest native who has been a producer/reporter for the statewide NPR show Texas Standard and a freelance journalist. Patrick enjoys playing guitar and checking out new vegetarian restaurants with his wife, Nicolette.
Andrew Wheat is the managing editor of the Austin Free Press.
