Public Land Opportunities IFC summary

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Kathie Tovo
Posts: 128
Joined: Thu Oct 30, 2014 11:18 am

Public Land Opportunities IFC summary

Post by Kathie Tovo »

Colleagues,

Thank you for engaging in conversation yesterday about the resolution related to City-owned land that I have brought forward with co-sponsors Mayor Adler, MPT Alter, CM Fuentes, and CM Kitchen.

On Monday, I had the opportunity to help open the latest park at Mueller, an incredible skate park and cycle pump track, which already draws Austinites of all ages and from across the city to come together, exercise, and have fun. At that event several of us attributed Mueller’s incredible success in large part to the community’s role in guiding that development from start to finish—from the calls to relocate the airport to the urgings to create the skate park that we were there to celebrate. Yesterday at work session, we heard from community members whose passionate commitment and energies have poised us for the step we’ll take tomorrow toward creating an incredible development and community resource at Colony Park.

These examples remind me of the enormous opportunities we have to use our City-owned land to create community assets and to meet community needs. For years, the Council, task forces, and community members have urged that we do so more extensively and with a clearer and more consistent process. The Council has passed resolutions, directed practices, and received multiple recommendations related to using our public land. The resolution we will consider tomorrow aims to consolidate these recommendations into one place and to use our learnings of recent years to set out a framework for the future.

Since it’s a long resolution, I thought it might be helpful for me to summarize its actions. Though the resolution includes many details, I believe I have summarized all of the major actions below in one of the bullets. I've also developed a short powerpoint presentation:

http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 172504.pdf

I welcome your thoughts and continued conversation.

The Resolution:
• Establishes early Council involvement in discussions about sales/purchases/redevelopments
• Enhances transparency and public involvement prior to Council decisions
• Prioritizes the use of the City’s public lands for living wages, Better Builder Standards, affordable housing, affordable high quality child care, and tenant and source of income protections be embedded into requests for proposals, unless City Council decides otherwise
• Gives direction on a process for nonprofits to apply for City-owned land/building space
• Achieves maximum value -- community or financial benefit -- with City-owned land/buildings (use current appraisals, adjust calculations for public space valuations, consider joint uses, rezone before sale/leases)
• Coordinates consultation with Austin Economic Development Corporation, relevant school district, and Travis County on opportunities for partnership
• Takes next steps on centralized parking management strategy recommended years ago in a City-sponsored report


The Resolution codifies prior policy direction and/or current city goals/practices:
• Leases favored over selling public land
• Ownership favored over leases for city purposes
• Avoid vacancies and significant underutilization in City facilities


The Resolution also ensures:
• Ability for City Manager to recommend changes to priorities, process, and other elements
• Existing projects will continue without change
• Exclusion of utility-specific facilities (such as power plants), airport runways, and the lik
Council District 9
Steve Adler
Posts: 533
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2015 2:12 pm

Re: Public Land Opportunities IFC summary

Post by Steve Adler »

Thank you, CM Tovo, for your post. I share many (if not all) of the “values” like those listed in your bullet points, above. Your IFC seeks to further institutionalize those values in our city processes. The issues with your IFC appear to be less about the values and more about how the IFC is proposed to “routinize” execution of those values.

I think it is worth the effort to see if we can memorialize the experiences of this council with real estate matters in a way that is helpful to future councils, our staff and the community. I am not and do not believe many of our colleagues are in a place to approve your IFC today and I appreciate your willingness to postpone this item.

I suggest Council spend 30 minutes today discussing your IFC. Maybe very briefly, you could first set out the values we all share. Then, we would spend the balance of that 30 minutes learning, say, five specific and overarching staff concerns about how you are proposing to institutionalize those values (such as staff concerns about flexibility and time and other resources). I think Council would benefit from better understanding what and why staff and any others have concerns so that all of us know what is at issue in your IFC.

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

Re: Public Land Opportunities IFC summary

Post by Steve Adler »

As promised in work session, here is a very short enumeration of the real estate questions that staff should tee up for the next council. My office has shared this with CM Tovo and we are posting it here for the full Council's consideration.
http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 175438.pdf
Mayor
Bobby Levinski
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2022 4:19 pm

Re: Public Land Opportunities IFC summary

Post by Bobby Levinski »

Council Members,

I am posting this message on behalf of Council Member Tovo. Based on the feedback received at the Work Session and after additional conversations with various stakeholders, CM Tovo made significant revisions to the resolution. The new version is hyperlinked below and will be forwarded to the agenda office.

http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 184148.pdf

These revisions not only simplify the language substantially, but also retain the flexibility of the City Manager in offering recommendations and helping the future Council come up with solutions. For example, to address concerns about the target goals (e.g., living wages for workers) being too prescriptive, the community benefits were rolled into solicitations process as considerations for inclusion. We also addressed specific concerns such as those that pertain to contractor capabilities by mirroring the threshold of Project Connect projects for Better Builder standards, per the recommendation of Workers Defense.

Many thanks to all of you, your staff and City staff for your work on this item.

Bobby Levinski
Office of Council Member Kathie Tovo,
District 9
Legal Counsel,
Office of Council Member Kathie Tovo
Austin City Council, District 9
Bobby Levinski
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2022 4:19 pm

Re: Public Land Opportunities IFC summary

Post by Bobby Levinski »

Happy Thursday, Council Members.

Here is the line-itemed resolution (as distributed on yellow sheet): http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 130149.pdf

Note: There is substantively nothing that changed from yesterday; just numbering of the line and one bullet item was moved up into the correct section.

And here is the exhibit (as distributed with on yellow sheet): http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 130006.pdf

Note: This is a helpful list of the various real estate-related resolutions that have passed over the years.

Both of these were also distributed to you by the Agenda Office.

Bobby

Bobby Levinski
Office of Council Member Kathie Tovo
District 9
Legal Counsel,
Office of Council Member Kathie Tovo
Austin City Council, District 9
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