Austin, TX
Housing panelists examine what's worked in Austin, and across Texas – Austin Monitor
Photo by city of Austin
At a South by Southwest panel discussion last week on housing policies in Texas, City Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison shared possible new components of the “agrihood” housing-plus-agriculture approach she championed last year.
While sharing her views on steps the city has taken in recent years to address affordability concerns around housing, Harper-Madison talked about the possibility of allowing a wide-open “rogue zoning” classification to housing around small agricultural parcels. From prefabricated housing and trailers to multifamily projects, she said the removal of most regulations on housing types would make the projects attractive to builders who want to do business in Austin’s healthy real estate market.
“You can have trailers, you can have manufactured homes, you can have multifamily, you can have single-family, whatever you want. Just rogue zoning in this particular area, this designated area, to see how it works,” she said during the panel discussion organized by Realtor.com. “For no other reason than because we are so deeply invested in our innovative tendencies and because some of our capital is in our humans. Why don’t we try it and pilot it and see if it works?”
During the event, Harper-Madison discussed another possible policy she’d like to enact before her term expires: creating an onboarding program for new Council members, including a pre-hired temporary staff so the newly elected leaders can become more effective at land use and other policy requirements more quickly. Learning how to operate those “levers of power” faster, she said, would make it easier to enact change that is needed for the city to keep up with growth and demands coming from all sides.
Panelist Felicity Maxwell, executive director of Texans for Housing, said officials across Texas and at the state level are looking at how to emulate some of Austin’s recent actions related to zoning, including the Affordability Unlocked initiative, which was intended to remove many of the bureaucratic steps that made affordable housing too expensive to pursue profitably.
“The idea was essentially that we should loosen all the regulations that we normally have for housing projects related to affordable housing, and that just makes common sense,” she said. “If you’re doing affordable housing at a certain percentage, you get the constraints that we would normally put on some of these projects are lifted. That move was related to parking and setbacks and a number of things so we could also use our affordable housing bond dollars more efficiently. We were so lucky … our Council as well as all the community members really support affordable housing and have twice gone out for big bonds and supported that development.”
Harper-Madison said the gradual steps the city has taken around housing and zoning requirements in the aftermath of the abandoned CodeNEXT overhaul have been effective, even if it took the city far too long to revise its building code.
“What we did was we got creative, and the creativity was piecemealing Land Development Code changes that would allow for more development in the city in a way that transcended political parties,” she said. “Austin is one of the most economically segregated cities in the country. It transcended economics. It just makes sense the way that we’re doing things currently. I’d say we got a long way to go, but we’re moving in the direction of having the general public be able to speak the same language.”
Panelist Sara Bronin, president and CEO of the National Zoning Atlas, said Austin’s substantial reduction in minimum lot sizes to encourage infill development is supported by her organization’s analysis of most zoning policies and building codes across the country.
“If you don’t have a minimum lot size requirement in your zoning code or if you have a very small, let’s say a quarter acre or smaller, that’s a good thing because what it says is that you can build a house in a small lot. That’s a good thing for affordability. So overall in Texas, we do see a different approach to land use regulation,” she said.
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Austin, TX
America 250 celebration: Texans who fought for independence honored in Austin – Texas – The Black Chronicle
(The Center Square) – As part of Texas’ celebration of the founding of the United States, a new monument was unveiled in Austin commemorating 69 patriots who fought for U.S. independence who later came to Texas.
Texas is also celebrating its first U.S. Navy fleet week in state history in the Houston area, where roughly 1,000 sailors and Marines are participating in nearly 200 events as part of the America 250 celebration. This also includes commemorating the Texas Navy, which helped win Texas’ independence from Mexico 190 years ago this April, The Center Square reported.
Gov. Greg Abbott and the leaders of the Texas Society Sons of the American Revolution unveiled a new monument honoring Texas revolutionary war patriots at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.
Abbott, a direct descendent of a patriot who supported the cause of American independence, was also inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution and received the Silver Good Citizenship Medal.
“It is appropriate to remember that today, April 18th, 251 years ago, the Battles of Lexington and Concord occurred with the shot heard around the world,” Mel Oller, president of the Texas Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, said.
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On the evening of April 18, Paul Revere rode from Boston to Charlestown warning colonists that British troops were coming. Several hundred Minute Men and colonial militia fought British soldiers the next morning in Concord and Lexington, the first battles of the American Revolutionary War.
The commemoration in Austin was important “to reflect on the courage, sacrifice and enduring principles that gave birth to the United States of America,” Oller said. “This monument stands as a tribute to those patriots and reminder to future generations of the ideas that continue to shape our Republic.”
“Texans played a role in the war too, and it’s important to recognize them, and the sacrifices they made for our freedom,” he said.
“The history that is etched the United States into the annals of the greatest country in the history of the world,” Abbott said. As others try to rewrite American history or “try to condemn the glory of what America has been able to achieve,” Abbott said Texas was focusing on teaching children about U.S. and Texas history. “We must educate every generation about why it is that America grew from just a tenuous 13 colonies into the most powerful country in the history of the world.”
“There could hardly be a better time to dedicate this monument than during our 250th celebration of freedom, of independence,” he said. It’s “an enduring testament to the heroes who fought for that freedom that is unique to America.”
One of the greatest gifts Revolutionary War heroes gave Americans was freedom, Abbott said, “but freedom is not a one-time event. The fight didn’t end with the Treaty of Paris. It’s an everyday process, perpetually. Just as the patriots took to the hillsides to battle the Red Coats, modern day Patriots” continue to fight for freedom, including the failed policies of Marxism, he said. Many Texans’ ancestors “died for a country they would never get to see. Stories of these heroes must be told. Generations of Americans must be reminded of who they are and what they fought for.”
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There are 69 American Revolutionary War heroes listed alphabetically on the monument who later settled in Texas, including native Tejanos who fought for American independence, according to TSSAR.
Listed first is John Abston, who enlisted in the militia in Virginia when he was 18. He fought alongside and under men like John Crockett, father of Davy Crockett, in one of the most pivotal battles of the war: the Battle of Kings Mountain, in South Carolina. He later moved to Collin County, Texas.
Another is José Santiago Seguín, the grandfather of Texas Revolutionary hero Juan Seguín, the first and only Tejano to be elected to the Republic of Texas Senate. He also fought with Sam Houston in the Battle of San Jacinto.
Another is Peter Sides, who fought with a North Carolina regiment against the British. He later joined the Gutierrez-Magee expedition in 1812 and was killed in 1813 at the Battle of Medina in what is now Bexar County. The battle is “known as the bloodiest battle on Texas soil. The rebels’ bodies were desecrated and their body parts were removed and scattered,” the TSSAR explains.
Another is William Sparks, who joined a North Carolina militia when he was 17. He and his family later moved to Nacagdoches, Texas; his sons and grandsons fought for Texas independence.
Listed at the bottom of the monument is Ira Hobart Evans, a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient and the youngest Speaker of the Texas House who founded the Texas Society of the Sons of American Revolution.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas’ highway system dropped two spots since 2025, and now ranks at No. 27 in the country for its cost-effectiveness and overall conditions, according to the Reason Foundation’s 2026 Highway Report.
The report assessed pavement conditions, fatalities, deficient bridges, infrastructure costs and congestion levels across the United States. Texas earned the following rankings:
- 33rd in urban interstate pavement conditions
- 21st in rural interstate pavement conditions
- 39th in urban arterial pavement conditions
- 12th in rural arterial pavement conditions
- 3rd in structurally deficient bridges
- 26th in urban fatality rate
- 42nd in rural fatality rate
- 41st in traffic congestion
“More than 42,000 of the nation’s 618,923 highway bridges, nearly 7%, are still structurally deficient. Arizona, Nevada, and Texas reported the lowest percentages of deficient bridges,” the report said.
The full report can be found online.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Small hail peppered the Austin area as strong thunderstorms moved through Saturday.
A few of the storms dropped rain and up to pea-sized hail in San Marcos, Dripping Springs and the Austin metro area.
A Severe Thunderstorm Warning was issued for Williamson County around 8:15 p.m., and then canceled shortly after. However, it was enough for the Two Step Inn music festival in Georgetown to cancel shows for the rest of the evening. Event organizers say the festival will run as planned Sunday.
KXAN’s First Warning Weather team is monitoring the storms. We will update this post as the evening continues.
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