Economic Incentives Reform Resolution

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Steve Adler
Posts: 533
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2015 2:12 pm

Economic Incentives Reform Resolution

Post by Steve Adler »

Next week, Councilmembers Troxclair, Houston, Flannigan, and I will introduce a resolution directing the City Manager to bring forth recommended changes to our City’s Economic Incentives program. We recognize others on the Council are also interested and/or working on this issue and we welcome support on this effort.

Our city needs more middle income jobs, preferably located near the folks that most need those jobs and where we want growth to occur, as well as the access, training, and experience (including paid internships and apprenticeships) necessary for the folks that live here to get those jobs. Further, we have all collectively been working on other priority goals such as eliminating food deserts and improving population health. We propose to better align our economic incentive programs to these ends, initiated by the following draft resolution:

http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 150256.pdf


This effort is just another part of the broader affordability agenda in which we’ve all been engaged. We’ve collectively taken great steps to address some of the factors impacting affordability, including progress on mobility, increased funding for affordable housing, settling the Austin Energy rate case, among many others.

To note: there are several other very significant council and community efforts already initiated that will impact affordability. The proposed Strategic Housing Plan will be considered by Council this spring as a potential amendment to our Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan, and can help us set bold goals for ensuring that we have a better balance between the supply and demand for housing. Workforce Solutions will shortly be coming to us with our first Community Workforce Master Plan to address training and living wage opportunities (which Judge Eckhardt and I requested in our statutory roles related to regional workforce development). Obviously, CodeNEXT is a critical component of our affordability agenda.

Our discussion of affordability challenges needs to address not only housing costs and property taxes, but also transportation, health care, and child care among many others. Importantly, this focus also needs to address income levels and access to economic opportunity for our residents. The Economic Incentives Reform resolution is one way to do this.
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