Public Notice: Zoom Zoom Zoom

Had a good discussion with new AISD Superintendent Dr. Stephanie Elizalde last week, who made a point to check in with the press in her first days in office. She struck all the right notes, on a variety of topics, from committing to a third-party equity assessment that critics have been asking for, to the efforts she'll make to compete against charters and boost enrollment at schools threatened with closure, to her commitment to low-income students of color having access to the enriched programming available to more affluent students and campuses, to cutting back on standardized testing, to improving outreach and listening skills, to ... well, we only had a half hour, but like I said, she struck all the right notes. It's all talk so far, but it's encouraging talk.

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Speaking of schools, Dr. Mark Escott said during Austin Public Health's weekly COVID briefing Wed­nes­day that, even though hospital admissions – the key indicator for staging restrictions – have dropped well below the Stage 3 threshold, APH will likely keep Travis County at Stage 4 restrictions until the positivity rate drops to under 5% – especially as schools and universities start up again within the next month. So, no gatherings for old folks for a while more, while the young folks sort themselves out.

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Also on Wednesday, ULI Austin, the local branch of the Urban Land Institute, hosted a discussion about a new white paper they're about to release concerning Transit Oriented Devel­op­ments, special zoning enclaves clustered around rail stations. The paper, called Transit Oriented Develop­ment: Opportunities for Affordability and Mobility in Austin, will be available any day now on the ULI website, austin.uli.org, but a few themes seemed pretty clear.

One of the main recommendations ("made screamingly loud," said one speaker) is that there be no fee-in-lieu option involved in affordable housing requirements for TODs. Current regs require 10% of square footage be devoted to income-restricted affordable housing, but developers can opt to pay into a housing fund instead. To date, that has not created many units of any sort anywhere, and fewer in these high-opportunity neighborhoods. Other recommendations included better communication; simplifying the process and lowering barriers to entry for small developers; and finding funding to support income­-restricted units, not just "market affordable" (which is "unaffordable" for half the population).

But by far the biggest-picture theme was to expand the "T" in TODs to mean more than just rail transit. "It was in some ways a strange choice" to adopt TOD zoning only in Red Line station areas, said another speaker, instead of along high-frequency bus lines that already carry more people. "Dedi­cat­ed right-of-way is enough of a commitment to transit" to make transit-oriented development viable. Expect to hear a lot more about that idea when it's time to talk about the zoning rewrite again, especially if the ambitious Project Connect transit plan passes in November.

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And for City Council, it's already time to talk about the zoning rewrite again, as next Thursday's meeting will include an executive session discussion of the Acuña lawsuit that struck down the last effort. There are already 131 items on that Aug. 27 agenda, including some 39 zoning cases.

Stir crazy? The YMCA offers all kinds of individual and group exercises and sports for kids and adults at eight locations around town – and they're waiving their $49 joining fee through Aug. 31. See membership info and schedules at www.AustinYMCA.org.