Austin City Council approves $87M purchase of land on East Riverside

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Thursday, Austin City Council approved the purchase of more than 100 acres of land off of East Riverside and Montopolis, home to the former Tokyo Electron Campus.

Mayor Kirk Watson said he hopes the City of Austin can build at least 1,100 housing units there right on the proposed light rail line.

Council Member José Velásquez, who oversees the district this property is in, said he hopes it provides "more opportunity for housing in an area that has been ravaged by displacement and gentrification."

The vote passed with only Council Member Mackenzie Kelly abstaining. She said she chose not to vote on the item because she thinks it's "important for the Council and the community to have more time to evaluate a complex project of this size."

Go Austin/Vamos Austin (GAVA) -- a group that focuses on Austin's Eastern Crescent -- showed up Thursday to express concerns about just how affordable the units built on that land will actually be. The group's executive director is also a candidate for mayor.

"I'm uncomfortable with this decision, like a lot of decisions I think were made very quickly. I am concerned about the amount of public investment for what we're actually getting, particularly because this is an anti-displacement fund that we're pulling from," said Carmen Llanes Pulido, executive director of GAVA and mayoral candidate.

According to council documents, the property will cost the City of Austin roughly $87 million if the sale goes through. Of that, more than $27 million will come from Project Connect anti-displacement funds. The council also voted to allocate those dollars Thursday during its Austin Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC) Board of Directors meeting.

"It's still very preliminary, we just approved purchasing the property. But we want to ensure because we're using anti-displacement funds that we are ensuring that there are affordable and deeply affordable units on site," said Velásquez.

We asked Mayor Kirk Watson about that earlier this week too. He said because the city is acting as a developer, it will have the ability to make units deeply affordable. He also wants to create workforce housing for people like teachers and first responders.

"This is too good an opportunity to pass up and we need to move fast," he said.

Mayoral candidates chime in

The project will likely fall into the lap of the person you select to be mayor in November.

Former Austin City Council Member and mayoral candidate Kathie Tovo also brought up the importance of affordable housing, alongside community resources like childcare, but also touched on the environment and how the units should be built.

"That the project really becomes an example of high-quality, sustainable design. So I would expect to see some really strong environmental provisions here to really set an example as a city for how sustainable development can be," Tovo said.

Meanwhile, candidate Doug Greco wrote: "87 Million DOLLARS is a lot of taxpayer money, so if the purchase goes through there needs to be a heck of a lot of conversations with taxpayers about how they want their money spent."