Judge Nixes City Plan To Waive Up To $80M In Development Fees For South Austin Project

SOUTH AUSTIN, TX -- A Friday ruling by a judge striking up to $80 million in fee waivers for the Easton Park development in South Austin voids an earlier, more favorable, deal for the project's builder, according to a published report.

Judge Stephen Yelenosky ruled Friday that the Austin City Council violated the Texas Open Meetings Act when they endorsed fee waivers between $50 million and $80 million in December.

At the time, council members voted to waive all fees for the development consisting of 6,500 single-family houses and 1,500 apartments in exchange for the developer to infuse money into a special fund to make 650 of the homes affordable.

The deal was part of a broader effort by city leaders to increase the affordable housingstock amid brisk gentrification throughout parts of the city.

But it was only after the vote on the project also known as Pilot Knob was taken that some council members then realized the city-owned utility would take a hit of roughly $50 million over the course of three decades as a result of the deal. Following the vote, community activist Brian Rodgers sued the city in February, arguing the council failed to provide adequate advance notice of the deal for members of the public.

Yelenosky agreed with the assessment, noting that the agenda item posted alerted only to a proposed ordinance to amend the property’s zoning.
“The subject matter of zoning a development does not, without more, alert a reader to an approval of water impact fee waivers,” Yelenosky wrote, as quoted by the Statesman. More bolstered advance notice was particularly urgent given the deal's massive implications, the judge added: “The dollar amount of the waivers is very large and the effect will be felt for 30 years,” his wrote in his ruling.

What's left for council in the wake of the ruling is a "back to the drawing board" scenario. At the time of the council's vote, all council members save for Don Zimmerman, who abstained, approved the fee waivers.

Mayor Steve Adler and council member Delia Garza, the architect's of the ambitious deal, didn't immediately return the Statesman's calls for a reaction to the judge's decision.

>>> Read the full story at Austin American-Statesman

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