Austin News

Austin, like many booming cities throughout the nation, is experiencing a lack of affordable housing; while countless middle-class individuals and families want to settle down in the city, developers are paying the city to avoid the construction of affordable housing. 

According to KVUE, the City of Austin is well aware of the need for affordable housing, as many families are having to move outside of the city due to ever-rising home costs. Many long-time Austin residents, in fact, are among the individuals who are having to now commute into the city due to expensive housing prices.

About 43% of residents who were surveyed by the city said that the rent was rising too high, making living in the city impossible. 

In order to combat this challenge, the City of Austin is paying housing developers incentives in the hopes of adding affordable housing to the city, however, it is a growing trend that developers are paying fees in the place of affordable housing as they move forward with building high-demand developments. 

According to KVUE, nearly $8.3 million in fees have been paid to the city by developers for 54 projects over the last 15 years. Unfortunately, these developments were mainly not affordable units, with only 15% of them being affordable. 

Real estate investors and developers understand the appeal of high-end, competitively priced units, rather than affordable housing. 

“If you're moving someone into a unit at $500 a square foot, it's a working-class family, it's a three-bedroom, they've got four kids. Do you want to put them in a million-and-a-half-dollar unit in a high rise downtown? Or do you want to go buy four or five times as many units in a neighborhood?” Perry Lorenz, a real estate investor told KVUE.

The Austin City Council has identified this as a situation that needs to be addressed and are taking action to see the implementation of affordable housing units. 

One of these measures was the approval of a 2018 bond that directed $250 million to affordable housing. 

Those in local leadership, however, believe that in order to remedy the housing shortage, it will require a partnership between government and the private market.