AUSTIN, Texas — It's an understatement to say Austin has an affordability crisis.
“Right now, a lot of the housing that's being built is 60 to 80% of median family income," Mayor Kirk Watson said.
That's more than twice what financial experts say should be spent on a home.
The mayor and the current city council are the latest in a line of officials trying to increase housing supply by changing the decades-old land development code.
“The rules that were in place don't move as fast as they need to move," Watson said.
The council agreed to allow builders to put up more properties on a piece of land or make them taller – if they include a share of low-income properties.
This was tried a few years ago. In 2019, neighbors sued, saying they had the right to protest what's going up next to them. A Travis County district judge agreed, saying the City of Austin violated state law.
Fast-forward to this year: another attempt to change the building code and another lawsuit, saying the City has once again failed to follow the rules of new builds.
A hearing is set for Monday morning in a Travis County courtroom.
Boomtown is KVUE's series covering the explosive growth in Central Texas. For more Boomtown stories, head to KVUE.com/Boomtown.