, ,  Austin Chamber of Commerce View All Reponses >>

Council adopted the Strategic Housing Blueprint last year, calling for 13,500 new units annually over 10 years. This gets us to break-even in terms of need. Would you support amending the City’s proposed Strategic Housing Plan to increase the number to at least 15,000 housing units per year for 10 years, keeping the breakout across income levels and including permanent supportive housing for those chronically experiencing homelessness? (Y/N; Explain)

Steve Adler

Mayor

No. Not at this point. We achieved a good political and practical balance in passing the blueprint, sufficient for our city to move forward past blueprints and to action. We should be focused now on doing what needs to be done to realize the greater supply. The more significant number, at this point, is of how many new housing opportunities we need in order to generate the housing supply called for. The experts tell us that we need at least twice as many opportunities in order to hit the supply mark and that means increasing housing opportunities to 270,000. We absolutely have a housing crisis in this city, and it’s going to take a lot of effort to meet the existing goal.