The Mayor and City Manager have an “uber” problem — Pilot Knob. The Mayors chief of staff is in the paper

today admitting they made a mistake but expressing little intention of correcting it.
Brian Rodgers’ letter to the Council below explains why this is a bad deal for Austin. Call it affordable housing if you wish. It takes us down the same road of the previous Council by incentivizing growth that has dug the hole out of the bottom of Austin’s affordability.
The Mayor talked about making growth pay for itself when they ran for office.
Please call and write your Council member, especially the Mayor, and urge them to:

• Nullify Pilot Knob and instruct the city manager, Marc Ott, to do his job and follow the law — post the fiscal notes so the Council can really look at this deal.
• Give Ott his walking papers — he’s up for review in a few weeks.
• Sign the petition at Manage Austin Better — ask your friends too!

Get to work, Austin! Call ’em and write ’em now.

Austin City Council Members,
The dramatic increase in impact fee revenues to AWU shown below is the result of hard won efforts by various city committees and individuals over 5+ years against substantial pushback from RECA, the Chamber, the DAA, and even upper city management itself. The maximum fee was approved unanimously by the previous council. The result of this rare success to make growth pay for itself is that hundreds of millions additional dollars will become available over the next 10 years to help AWU right itself as a utility which currently has negative ratings with Fitch and Moody. (See CM Gallo’s CBQ link below.)
Unfortunately, the Mayor has “discovered” this income stream and has decided to make it his golden goose to fund affordable housing on the backs of the ratepayers for Pilot Knob and future PUDs. He even wants to revisit old agreements.  Don’t allow this.  Please roll back the Pilot Knob PUD to the deal presented at first reading.  I imagine Richard Suttle’s client won’t care a bit. Please end city management’s sloppy practice of RCA’s without fiscal notes when clearly that would have made all the difference last December 17th.
How good is this “big new idea”? The annual $2 million in impact fees diverted can buy only 44 lots at the $45,000 lot price used in the Mayor’s documents. All of this for 44 lots per year? Beginning some time in the future and running for the next 20-30 years through at least one or two full blown recessions? It’s practically meaningless.
Thank you,
Brian Rodgers
Impact Fee Advisory Committee – 5 years
Joint Committee on Austin Water Utility’s Financial Plan