Public Notice: Public Land for Public Good?

(l-r) Kerry Awn, Tommy B., and Rick Turner work on the 23rd Street mural (Photo by Nick Barbaro)

Worth watching on today's Council agenda: Item 41, which would create a long overdue framework to harness the city's substantial real estate portfolio for the public good.

Helmed by Council Member Kathie Tovo and co-sponsored by CMs Vanessa Fuentes, Allison Alter, and Ann Kitchen, the resolution aims to provide a consistent, reliable, transparent process to ensure that future use of city-owned land supports Council's policy priorities on issues such as affordable housing, transportation, living wages, day care, space for creatives, and more. It would also involve Council much earlier in any proposed plans for public lands, rather than waiting until a deal is mostly cooked (or, too often, half-baked).

If you're wondering why we need this, look no further than the recent near-debacle on the city-owned parcel known as HealthSouth. While it ultimately resulted in a happyish ending, a ton of time, money, and nerve endings could have been saved had we had a clear process in place like the one Item 41 lays out.

As various media outlets have reported, Austin currently leads the nation in building permits for both single-family and multifamily housing – but those are nearly all market­-rate units, far out of reach for most regular folks. Where we're woefully lagging is in the production of deeply affordable housing, the kind that can only realistically be built with public subsidies, very much including the use of publicly owned land.

Item 41 had been postponed previously to address questions from city staff and other Council members, which Tovo's office has now answered in a cogent post on the Council message board. Stay tuned to see if Council adopts this badly needed measure without further delay.

The Austintatious Artists ride again. Kerry Awn, Tommy B., and Rick Turner, the original artists of the facing murals that define the 23rd Street Artists' Market on the Drag, have been working for the last month on a major restoration project – which in some places went down to repairing crumbling stucco on the wall – in advance of the mural's 50th anniversary. The trio are putting on the final touches probably as you read this, in advance of a press conference on-site at 1pm this Friday, Oct. 27, to celebrate the completion.

The work largely remains a time capsule of the Austin of 1973, though a lot of the elements are timeless (the Tower, the Capitol, the river and streams ...), or enduring (the Drag, the Ritz, Dirty's ...). But the AAs have added some new touches for the update, including a couple of their comrades who've died in the past few years, Henry Gonzalez and Micael Priest, plus Earl Campbell, Ann Richards, and a soccer ball with the Austin FC oak tree logo on it. (Go Verde; 2pm Sunday!) And they're getting paid for it this time, unlike the last update following a vandalism incident 10 years ago, which was self-funded through an Indiegogo campaign. This time around, there's funding from both the Phogg Foundation and the city, through the Dougherty Arts Center.

In the short run, this is part of the city's effort to revitalize the artists market space, which used to bustle with activity but now acts mostly as a pedestrian cut-through. (The Parks Department, which manages the space, is offering free Market Permits for the next year; see the Dougherty's website for info.) But the Phogg Foundation is playing the longer game, planning a 50th anniversary event for next April Fools' Day, which should include a long-in-the-works interactive presentation, with different parts of the wall telling their parts of the cultural story in sound and video.

And don't forget the free fireworks show Halloween evening, Monday at 9:30pm, east of Pleasant Valley, behind Krieg Fields, another Phogg Foundation presentation.

Meanwhile, in another part of town: The Austin Museum of Popular Culture is holding their annual Fall Fundraiser is this Sunday, Oct. 30, 6-10pm following the Austin FC game, with dinner, a raffle silent auction, plus music by Al Staehely; buy tickets on Eventbrite.