WTF city redirects surplus to affordable housing?? (Austin, Happy: 2013, subsidized)

[Austin97]

Austin's surplus: $10M to affordable housing - Austin Business Journal

Austin City Council directed the largest share of its $14.3 million surplus to low-income housing at a work session Tuesday night.

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by Austin97

Austin's surplus: $10M to affordable housing - Austin Business Journal

Austin City Council directed the largest share of its $14.3 million surplus to low-income housing at a work session Tuesday night.

Ironically, it only directed 188K to new hires to meet the permit backlog. If the city council were really concerned with affordable housing it would address the the kafkaesque land-use development codes that created this situation in the first place.

[CptnRn]

I find it highly offensive that the majority of the current council has decided to ignore the will of the voters and send our tax dollars on something we just declined approving in a public election. I think they know with the council redistricting they are not likely to be reelected and this is their way of imposing their personal opinions on the rest of us.

[die Eichkatze]

Originally Posted by CptnRn

I find it highly offensive that the majority of the current council has decided to ignore the will of the voters and send our tax dollars on something we just declined approving in a public election. I think they know with the council redistricting they are not likely to be reelected and this is their way of imposing their personal opinions on the rest of us.

Agreed. Slap in the face to the voters.

[scm53]

Two maps will tell you much of what you need to know about this.

The first is the precinct voting for Prop 15 - the defeated "affordable" housing initiative - red districts for, blue against.

Second is a map of the home addresses of the current council. It should come as no surprise that the current council was legitimately shocked at the Prop 15 outcome. EVERYBODY they knew voted for it - how could anyone be against it? The vote to ignore the expressed will of the people was just a huge case of confirmation bias.

[Trainwreck20]

Interesting note at the end:
Council did not heed Mayor Lee Leffingwell's push to use a large amount of money to offset future property tax increases. Only

$500,000 was set aside for tax relief, although if federal matching funds aren't available for the affordable housing project $4.5 million of that money will be used for tax relief instead.

Anyway, what irks me is not where they spent it so much as the fact that they are going to SPEND it instead of 'return' it in some form or fashion. We will never have any sort of debt reduction if every + year in revenue is turned back into an even or - year.

[sxrckr]

Honestly, I'm not surprised.
Austin claims to be "liberal" but is very NIMBY with regard to spread-the-wealth policies if that means it may affect them in some way.
By the way, I think most government subsidized housing is a bad idea... then again I don't vote for liberal/ far left candidates locally or otherwise.

[HappyTexan]

With Austin RE going up where else are the poor people going to live ?
They are being priced out of their city.

[Komeht]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

With Austin RE going up where else are the poor people going to live ?
They are being priced out of their city.

These programs are a bandaid on an axewound, only help a minuscule number of "lottery winners" and make the city NIMBY's feel a little less guilty about causing the problem in the first place.

[tildahat]

Originally Posted by Komeht

These programs are a bandaid on an axewound, only help a minuscule number of "lottery winners" and make the city NIMBY's feel a little less guilty about causing the problem in the first place.

This.

I'm not philosophically opposed to affordable housing set asides in the abstract (I'd describe myself as a European-style social democrat) but these debates serve exactly the purpose you describe. Allows NIMBYs who want to feel "progressive" assuage guilt about taking a "I got mine *********" attitude toward zoning and development, while doing very little for the larger problem.

[Edit: And again, the auto-censor makes it look like wrote something worse than I actually did....]