Parkland Dedication Items - 9/15

Only City Council members and authorized staff are allowed to post on this message board.
Steve Adler
Posts: 533
Joined: Fri Jan 16, 2015 2:12 pm

Parkland Dedication Items - 9/15

Post by Steve Adler »

Colleagues,

We are set to discuss and can take action on our City's parkland dedication policies and fees on Thursday and this is to recap part of our work session conversation.

1. Item 53: Parkland Ordinance (allowing action on both residential and commercial)
2. Item 59: Fee Ordinance setting fees for both residential parkland (postponed at budget) and commercial (assuming we pass the commercial parkland ordinance) for this coming fiscal year
3. Item 66: Commercial Parkland Ordinance
4. Item 67: Public Hearing on Residential Parkland Ordinance

Considering the postponement of these items from the last meeting, we should plan to take action on them directly after the consent agenda on Thursday. We will take up these items together so that each may be discussed at the same time.

I am grateful for the leadership of MPT Alter who brought forward the commercial parkland dedication resolution this spring that resulted in the ordinance (item 66) on our agenda. I will be supporting her on its adoption. I will also be bringing forward an amendment (Adler Motion #1) that provides greater predictability by applying the parkland requirements in place when project plans are first submitted, preventing a project’s fee from changing even if it goes through a planning and development review that crosses City fiscal years (when fee schedules often change).

In addition, there was a strong interest expressed by the dais for extending the current parkland dedication exemption for SMART Housing to include all income-restricted affordable housing (Adler Motion #3). As both motion #1 and motion #3 received support on the dais and our City staff, they have been included into the base document for the ordinance that includes both residential and commercial (item 53).

If any of us intends to bring any other amendments (say from the Planning Commission work), please post them to the message board. Anything controversial might be best identified and then handled as part of the engagement process (see below).

I will offer direction (Adler Motion # 4) for the City Manager to initiate a community engagement process (equally to include park, development, housing, affordability and other advocates / stakeholders) for further consideration and to consider parkland dedication generally and report back to Council in the Spring ’23 with recommendations for and possible action.

Thank you and I look forward to making progress on this issue this week.

-S
Mayor
Natasha Harper-Madison
Posts: 64
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2019 12:52 pm

Re: Parkland Dedication Items - 9/15

Post by Natasha Harper-Madison »

Thank you, Mayor.

Our Planning Commission reviewed the Commercial Parkland Dedication proposal, held multiple listening sessions with stakeholders, and worked hard to put together some proposed amendments. I appreciate the commissioners’ all-volunteer efforts to create better policy outcomes for our city and want to recognize their work by bringing forward several of their recommendations for our consideration.

In the attached document, you’ll find a list of those items, my reasons for supporting each one, as well as ordinance language proposed by our Law Department: http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 171010.pdf

I look forward to continuing the discussion on Thursday.

Kind Regards,
Natasha
Natasha Harper-Madison
Council Member District 1
Locked