5/17 Austin City Hall

We had great meetings with city officials at Austin City Hall today as well as interesting property tours. The structure of Austin City Hall deserves some discussion in itself. The sustainable aspects of its construction, which began in 1999, proved that the design and development teams were wise beyond their years. Although it is the standard for sustainable development, LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) was in its infancy at the time of the construction. The design team incorporated sustainable aspects into its development and it was later decided, after seeing the LEED rating system emerged, that the building would shoot for a Silver rating by allocating only a 4% increase in construction costs. Everyone was blown away when the final inspections were done and it achieved a Gold rating. The second highest designation for LEED certification!

Our first discussion was with the city of Austin’s project manager of public works, Fred Evins. An architect by trade, Mr. Evins is on the forefront of the visionary experts at the city planning department. His original focus at this position was to build infrastructure, such as libraries and fire stations, but he has grown into a more sophisticated business role involving attracting large corporations to Austin, while providing support to the growing entrepreneurs and start-up companies. He is now primarily focuses on downtown development and is particularly influential in getting the 6 blocks along the 2^nd street distruct redeveloped into a large pedestrian domain. RFP’s, TIF’s, PID’s, ground leases, and public/private partnerships are the main vehicles that he uses to make investment viable for the private sector. Although Austin is very conservative in their approach to funding private programs, each one of these concessions allows them to attract developers. Capital view corridors as well as other interesting and unusual zoning and legislation make the redevelopment initiative challenging. The city seems to be coming around to the idea making small concessions until things happen. One major initiative is providing support for low income housing. Increased multi-family affordable housing construction continues to be provided by utilizing local, state, and federal benefits.

Christopher Johnston, Austin’s Manager of Development Assistant, joined us as Mr. Evans discussion drew to a close. This became a gradual transition into a discussion of his job of providing a place for a “one stop shop of all aspects of development.” This a unique initiative where the city provides answers to an average of 500 walk-in citizens per day as well as an online question portal. Their interests range from citizens interested in development to large corporations that schedule formal development meetings. The idea is to provide all Austinites with information regarding development of all parcels within the Austin city limits. They have been very successful and this is a unique approach that most other cities neglect to take. Austin is thick with regulations stemming from their environmentally concerned citizens. They help people understand these regulations and answer questions from a broad range of disciplines.

These regulations are very broad, but are incorporated into all aspects of building. For this reason, Leon Barba, the cities Assistant Director of Inspections, joined us towards the end of Mr. Johnston’s discussion. Our main focus with Mr. Barba was how these regulations were incorporated into the building codes of the city and vice versa. The city makes regulations in order to try to meet the intent of the building code. They usually begin this process by reviewing plans for proposed construction. Although framing an plumbing are the top violations that occur just like in any other city, a unique feature of Austin’s code is based on accessibility requirements, which are pushed by the city and advocacy groups. Environmental fees are also major consideration for Austin’s development because of their push for sustainable development. Most sustainability measures are tied to water quality which remains a driving factor of regulation. Austin is broken into four environmental zones that range from restricting construction on 20% of parcels to more than 85%.

Our next guest was Michael Knox, the head of Downtown Economic Development, who has served the city for 22 years. He stressed that guidelines are made to best provide for the cities intended use of development. The unique downtown experience is perhaps their best marketing tool and they want to keep it that way. The environment in the downtown area is something that other cities just simply can’t compete with. Spurring continued green development is a major feature that will continue to make Austin unique. Not very many incentives are offered because there is enough interest in the social environment that concessions from the city are not required. Downtown is a place people simply want to be.

Richard Morgan caught the tail end of Mr. Knox’s discussion which greatly transferred into the green building discussion. Mr. Morgan is the Green Building and Sustainability Manager of Austin Energy. He provided great insight as to how a corporation can work with a city for the greater good of both parties. They provide services to 4% of Texas’ residents. He discussed Austin’s unique sustainable rating system, which is commonly known as Austin Energy Green Building Rating System. The city utilized their own rating system to get their own intent out of environmentally friendly projects through this system. Two to three stars in the Austin energy system is roughly correlated as a silver LEED certification: three to four for gold, and four to five for platinum. Their SMART program focuses on residential sustainable development and over the last few years 50% of all multi-family has been done according to their standards. They charge much smaller fees for their designations as opposed to LEED certifications. Although Austin is ranked as the 8^th greenest city, it is likely to be among the greenest cities in the US because these ranking are done by LEED certifications only and Austin’s unique rating system is not incorporated.