TDH: 5/10/11

Will historic tax credits become history? (Photo by John Anderson)

Election or not, there's still city business to attend to. This Thursday's City Council meeting is a relatively robust affair, containing long-gestating changes to tax abatements for historic homes, the Holly power plant decommissioning, a controversial youth resource center funding item, and more.

Below, agenda highlights for council's Thursday, May 12 meeting. (If you tune in right now, you can watch Council discuss these items in their weekly work session.)

Items 2, 8: Funding and selecting a contractor for the controversial, perennially-punted Holly power plant decomissioning. (Not if Norman Jacobson has anything to say about it!)

Item 6: $5.8 million for improvements to Austin Bergstrom International Airport, expanding the runway apron for planes staying overnight.

Item 9: A 12-month, $1.9 million, federally-funded agreement with the Capital Area Council of Government to develop a Sustainable Communities Analytics Software Tool. “This tool will provide computerized cross-functional performance modeling of different scenarios for transportation, housing, economic development, land use, and infrastructure investment with return on investment measurements to guide both local and regional planning, policy-making, and investment in communities,” reads back-up.

Item13: The return of a proposed $150,000 in funding for the African American Youth Resource Center. Appearing at a previous meeting as an item from council members, including Chris Riley and Randi Shade, In Fact Daily recently quoted African American Resource Advisory Commission co-chair Nelson Linder questioning the timing of the allocation; “Those two people are being criticized in many black communities about what they didn't do last year,” he told IFD about Riley and Shade, referring to their controversial votes in the Nathaniel Sanders II settlement.

Item 17-38: Parts for riding mowers, fire doors and computer software are all parts of this week's Purchasing Office agenda.

Item 40: An ordinance from lead sponsor Shade “relating to requirements for tours, garage sales, home occupations, and art production and sales;” essentially, the changes allow artists to sell works out of their homes for a few days each year, during events like East Austin Studio Tour, without violating city code.

Item 41: From lead sponsor Lee Leffingwell, “a resolution commending and supporting the Navy League Council of Austin for their continuing efforts to have a U.S. Navy ship named the USS Austin.”

Item 42: Long-awaited changes to the tax exemptions the city offers to historic homes. The resolution caps the property tax exemption for an owner-occupied historic property at $2,500; it will also index the residential exemption cap “based on future increases or decreases in property values due to inflation and deflation,” and abandon the previous process that exempted the land and property at different amounts. The changes will be immediately implemented for all new residential property requests, those approved after January 1, 2010, and for all that have a change of ownership; those grandfathered homes that have had the designation in place longer will have their exemptions gradually reduced to the limit over five years (provided they cross that $2,500 threshold). The ordinance also calls on the City Manager to “ develop details of a rehabilitation program … to encourage and promote continued rehabilitation projects on individually-designated historic buildings.”

Items 53-55: 10:30am morning briefings: A Mueller redevelopment update; a social service briefing; and overview of the redistricting process. The long-awaited revamp of city-funded social service contracts will produce lots of winners and losers; at council's Public Health and Human Services Committee meeting Monday, staff recommended only 23 of 51 social service groups currently receiving city funds continue to receive those funds.

Items 60-73: The zoning agenda includes a request from the storied Champion Sisters to add left turn access onto their controversial 2222 plot.

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