City of Austin pushes for more single family homes

(ABC 6 News) – City leaders in Austin are addressing growing pains.

With more people moving to town the city says there are fewer and fewer places to live. The city is taking an unconventional approach to creating housing that’s both affordable and accessible.

A group of city and council members and others met with the National Association of Home builders to talk about some out-of-the-box ways to tackle the issue.

One way is to change the way newly constructed homes are treated as far as payment assessments go.

If you own a home right now, you have two options, either pay the entire assessment at once or stretch it out over 15 years with interest. But, if you decide to build a new home you only have one option, pay the entire assessment at once.

Now, the city council is proposing to allow new home builders both options to make it more affordable for people to build new houses.

“By giving them the option to potentially pay that with interest over 15 years, just like we would a resident. That should create more flexibility and ultimately make Austin a more attractive destination for developers. This will help us to increase the number of single-family homes that we have here,” said city council member Jason Baskin.

Council member Baskin added that Austin is a growing city and they want to keep on that path. This is why creating more housing and affordable housing is a priority.

“Austin’s population has grown in double digits over the past 15 years, and we got a great attractive welcoming community. There are always things that we can do to improve it and we’re very committed to doing that. But, for us to take that next leap in population we have to have more housing,” said Baskin.

Council member Baskin said that all plans and ideas are on the table right now, and they’re making progress on a solution.

The next city council meeting is on August 1st.