Affordable rental housing has three requirements. The first requirement is that it be housing, places where individuals can actually live. The second requirement is that the housing that is offered be for rent, not for sale, and that usually means an apartment complex. The third requirement is that it be affordable; i.e., housing where the rents are lower than the market average. One of the first requirements for such a project to be affordable is that the property on which it is built should cost less than the market average. Those affordable land opportunities are most often found on certain fringes of the city; rarely, if ever, are they found closer to the city center. In Kyle, specifically, the affordable fringes are going to be found almost exclusively on the east side of I-35.
However, last night, the City Council voted 4-3 it doesn’t want affordable rental housing built on affordable land on the east side of Kyle, effectively creating an impenetrable barrier that will prohibit the construction of any affordable rental housing, as defined by HUD, in the city. In effect, the City has decided it doesn’t want folks who live on fixed incomes like Social Security to live here, especially at a time when the City is taking so much pride in constructing its “Uptown” haven for the well-to-do and increasing property taxes to construct an ecologically unfriendly police headquarters. Send “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" to Buda or San Marcos because we definitely don’t want them in our city.
The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, as the name suggests, is a state government agency that, among other things, makes program funds available throughout the year to qualifying applicants for a wide range of housing and related activities. The TDHCA accepts applications for these funds and weighs them through a point system it has developed that is too complicated and too multi-layered to detail here. What you need to know is that the applications with the most points are granted the funds and the TDHCA normally declares only three winners per geographical area each year. Kyle falls into the Austin area geographical area. One of the necessary ingredients in any application is a formal resolution from the city in which the development is to be located that states the local government supports the project and such a recommendation is worth a whole lot of points.
A company called KCG Development, LLC, was seeking to locate affordable rental housing, specifically a development for individuals 55-years-old and older, at 1351 Bunton Creek Road, and was hoping to win one of the awards from the TDHCA that would provide about 58 percent of the costs of the project. Thus it came before the City Council last night asking it to approve a support resolution KCG could include in its application to the TDHCA. The council said “no.”
Why did it say “no”? The argument was, essentially, a majority of council members don’t want affordable multi-family rental housing located on land that’s affordable; it can only be located on unaffordable land. Go figure.
Mayor Travis Mitchell said he could not support endorsing the project “just because there’s no multi-family in that area,” neglecting to point out that when Seton Hospital was approved for Kyle there were no other hospitals in that area either.
But then the mayor made a surprisingly (at least, to me) elitist comment: “While affordable housing is a great program, it’s to be administered in limited supply especially where it’s not close to areas where it makes more sense. I have high aspirations for Bunton Drive up there along that new road.”
Council member Dex Ellison put it just as bluntly: “I am in agreement on the need for 55 and up affordable housing. I’m empathetic to that idea. I would certainly be supportive of it, but in another part of our city — not in this area.” This statement marked the first time I had ever heard a Black public official support segregated housing.
“I know there is a need for more housing for 55-plus folks,” council member Robert Rizo, who sponsored the agenda item, said.
Mayor pro tem Rick Koch and council member Michael Tobias joined Mitchell and Ellison in voting to kill the project.
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