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Facing a steep climb in costs for a long-planned pedestrian bridge on the eastern edge of Austin’s most popular trail, the city has finally found a path forward with a $4 million cash infusion from the federal government.

The new money will close a budget shortfall and allow the city to start contracting builders for the $25 million project on the Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail.

The unique, three-pronged bridge will connect Longhorn Shores, Canterbury Park and an unnamed peninsula in Lady Bird Lake. The wishbone-shaped span – the first of its kind in Austin – will have a 76-foot-wide plaza at its center with benches, bike racks, ornamental trees and shade structures.

City of Austin. The 76-foot-wide plaza at the center of the bridge will feature benches, bike racks, ornamental trees and shade structures.

The plaza will feature public artwork by Houston artist Dixie Friend Gay, known for her installations at places like George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Sam Houston State University and the Port of Miami.

As part of the project, a 6-foot-wide pedestrian tunnel under Pleasant Valley Road will be replaced with a more spacious 30-foot-wide tunnel with a 16-foot-wide sidewalk, better lighting and a higher, arched ceiling.

Nathan Bernier/KUT News (left), city of Austin (right). Plans call for replacing the 6-foot-wide pedestrian tunnel under Pleasant Valley road (left) with an arched, 30-foot-wide tunnel with better lighting.

In 2019, early cost estimates pegged the bridge at under $13 million. The following year, voters approved a transportation bond that included $20 million for the project. But escalating costs and an expanded scope that includes more sidewalk improvements pushed the budget higher.

The $4.1 million federal grant that fills the funding gap was locked in with the help of U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Austin, who was a City Council member during the project’s inception in 2018.

Five years later, Casar stood on the shores of Lady Bird Lake and handed a giant $4 million symbolic check to Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, surrounded by city officials and representatives of BikeTexas and the Trail Conservancy, which will oversee the bridge’s maintenance.

Nathan Bernier/KUT News. The wishbone bridge will be installed in this part of Lady Bird Lake, connecting Longhorn Shores, Canterbury Park and an unnamed peninsula.

“It is going to not just rival, but I think beat out any other bridge in the city for how beautiful it’s going to be,” Casar said Thursday. “You’re going to see people getting proposed to on this bridge. You’re going to see folks playing live music on this bridge. It is really going to be a special place.”

The city applied for the grant last year. Casar pushed it through a process called Community Project Funding – a program intended to be a more transparent version of earmarking, in which Congress members direct money to pet projects in their home districts. Casar’s office secured $15 million for 14 projects across his district.

Each year, more than 5 million people use the 10-mile Butler Trail that encircles Lady Bird Lake, according to the Trail Conservancy. But the trail’s eastern end has long reflected the city’s historical neglect of East Austin.

To cross the lake, pedestrians and cyclists had to detour to the Pleasant Valley Road Bridge, which until a few years ago was a harrowing passageway with a narrow sidewalk, chain-link fence and low guardrails.

Jorge Sanhueza-Lyon/KUT News. For decades, the eastern end of the Butler Trail detoured to this narrow sidewalk along the Pleasant Valley Road Bridge, which traverses the Longhorn Dam that creates Lady Bird Lake. In 2021, the city widened the sidewalk to 12 feet and added another 8-foot-wide sidewalk on the east side of the bridge.

In 2021, the city made “interim improvements” to the bridge, expanding the western sidewalk to 12 feet and adding an 8-foot sidewalk on the east side of the bridge.

The new wishbone bridge will mean pedestrians and cyclists won’t have to be anywhere close to cars.

“It has not been the safest environment,” Austin’s Transportation and Public Works Director Richard Mendoza told KUT News. “We’ve done some mitigating improvements, but it’s really not the permanent solution.”

Nathan Bernier/KUT News. Sidewalks over the Pleasant Valley Bridge were widened in 2021.

“This bridge is the permanent solution to fully complete the Roy Butler Trail,” he said. “It’s going to be a destination, a gathering place for our community, especially the East Austin community.”

Construction is expected to start this year, with the bridge projected to open in 2026.

This Thursday at 9am, City Council and the Planning Commission will hold a joint hearing on the second phase of the most significantchanges to the Land Development Code in years, known as Home Options for Middle-Income Empowerment (HOME).

The first phase passed in December and allowed property owners to build up to three homes on lots previously zoned single-family (along with preservation bonuses to keep existing homes intact); allowed tiny homes; and removed limits on how many unrelated adults can live together.

The public will weigh in on four amendments: The first would reduce the minimum size for lots zoned single-family and the amount of space required between homes (“setbacks”). The second – compatibility standards – would reduce the space between new multifamily builds and existing single-family lots, and tweak design requirements to avoid impacting neighbors. The third would allow more developable space and require affordable units within a half mile of planned light rail. The fourth would allow more electric vehicle charging stations to be built en masse.

HOME phase one allowed property owners to build three units on one lot. Those three units all have to share an owner, though. The new proposal would more than halve the minimum lot size from 5,750 square feet to 2,000 square feet and allow you to split larger lots into three units, each of which could be owned by a different person.

Lest things get out of control, these new 2,000-square-foot lots can’t be subdivided further. The smallest lot you could put multiple homes on will still be 5,750 square feet. This limitation addresses fears that developers would pack more homes on lots than infrastructure can currently support, Planning Commissioner Awais Azhar said. 

Azhar says the minimum lot size change will boost affordability and allow homeowners to stay in place. “If a homeowner is struggling to pay taxes, but they're sitting on a high-value home, they could actually split their lot, sell part of it, and still be able to maintain their home.” Including an actual affordability requirement is more difficult, says Azhar. In order to cross-subsidize even one affordable unit on a three-unit lot, developers would have to build many more market-rate units than three. “During the LDC revision,” Azhar said, “we had consultants who do this work nationally, who said that for every one affordable home, you needed 23 homes to offset the cost.”

Along transit routes where apartment buildings with lots of units are allowed, an affordability requirement is feasible. The requirement proposed would require between 12% and 15% of units to be affordable for people making significantly less than the median income. Alternatively, the developer could pay a fee to the city, meaning they wouldn’t build units on-site but the City would use that money to do so elsewhere. 

These changes must be accompanied by non-code changes in order to work the way they’re intended, says Azhar, such as making the subdivision/site plan process easier: “How do we make sure the changes are able to be used by low- and moderate-income homeowners?” Overall, “our hope would be this allows somebody who wants to live in a teeny tiny triplex with neighbors and still raise children, [to do so],” says Azhar.

After the Thursday meeting, there’s an open house at Austin Central Library on April 17, and a virtual open house April 20: sign up here. The Planning Commission will discuss the changes April 23 and April 30 at 4pm, and Council will take a final vote May 16 at 10am.

The city will explore using the takeover of tax-delinquent properties as one additional strategy for creating more affordable housing and remedying the displacement of longtime residents who are being priced out of Austin.

As part of the consent agenda at Thursday’s meeting, City Council approved a resolutiondirecting the city manager to identify “viable land acquisition opportunities” in service of long-term affordability, with land banking and the establishment of community land trusts (CLTs) as a priority option.

Land banks and CLTs allow municipalities to purchase delinquent properties and hold them in service of long-term community priorities such as affordable housing, farmland preservation or larger economic development efforts.

The resolution, sponsored by Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison, directs staff to include the Financial Services Department, Austin Economic Development Corporation, Austin Housing Finance Corporation and other relevant entities or community organizations that could be involved in the land bank/CLT initiative.

Council expects to receive a report summarizing possible strategies, including an analysis of potential drawbacks, by December.

Land banks and CLTs were identified as one of the nine most promising tools for combating displacement in The Uprooted Project, a 2018 study from the University of Texas that examined the causes and possible solutions for displacement of longtime Austin residents. The study was particularly focused on ways to prevent the continued flight of residents who are Black, Indigenous and people of color.

In a City Council Message Board post made in advance of last week’s meeting, Harper-Madison said the city needs to utilize more innovative tools to slow and reverse displacement: “CLTs offer a tenable approach to addressing housing needs including community centered, amenities rich balanced development. There’s the added benefit of appropriately pairing with Land Banking,” she wrote.

The resolution was broadly supported during the public comment portion of last week’s meeting, though community activist Zenobia Joseph noted the addition of affordable housing in parts of the city disconnected from affordable mass transit will effectively cordon off those residents from the rest of the city. Joseph specifically targeted the city’s Colony Park project in Northeast Austin as an area that could be left separated from the rest of the city if there is no funding identified soon for the proposed Green Line light rail, which is proposed to reach to Manor and Elgin.

“The commuter rail is never going to Northeast Austin and it is unfunded and has never been funded,” she said. “I want to call to your attention that these are falsehoods that are specifically stated in this resolution.”

Edgar Handal, board vice president of the AURA activist group, said the city would benefit from more community land trust homes like those present in the Govalle neighborhood in East Austin.

“Having these kinds of affordable homes in our own backyard makes me appreciate the neighborhood even more. If I had one complaint, it’s that we could use many more affordable homes, so I’m very happy to see this item,” he said. “It will pair well with efforts like the HOME initiative, making it so that money spent on programs like this goes further.”

Harper-Madison said staff and Council need to pursue more options to establish affordable homes throughout the city.

“We need to continue to explore and utilize all possible tools that we as a city have to address our critical housing shortage and produce more affordable and attainable (housing),” she said. “‘Affordable’ can sometimes be misconstrued. Attainable housing – that means it’s affordable and attainable by you and we need that at every income level and sustainable housing options in all areas of Austin.”

The Historic Landmark Commission is embracing the environmentalist zeal gripping City Hall, launching a set of policy recommendations last week aimed at tackling preservation goals from a sustainability angle.

The recommendation, authored by Commissioner JuanRaymon Rubio, outlines a number of strategies to tackle the emissions and waste wrought by building demolitions, including greater incentives for relocation and material salvaging practices. Commissioners endorsed the suggestions in a unanimous vote, with hopes such policies may be included in Council’s forthcoming Environmental Investment Plan.

Moves toward a new Environmental Investment Plan date back to February, when Council passed a resolution calling for a more aggressive approach to reach Austin’s goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. Since then, the city’s Joint Sustainability Committee has led the charge on a number of discussions refining policy ideas, with plans to vote on a final set of recommendations later this month.

“Noticeably absent from these conversations has been anything associated with preservation,” Rubio said. “I thought this was a great opportunity to highlight staff work thus far on our Preservation Plan, because the plan does have a section on sustainability measures. … Hopefully, we can remind Council and the Sustainability Committee of ways that preservation can help us achieve those sustainability goals.”

Among the proposed measures are a number of incentives for preservation and relocation, including raising fees for demolition permits and streamlining the conversion process between demolition and relocation permits. Currently, fees paid in the demolition permitting process do not apply toward remodel and relocation permits if building owners change their mind.

The recommendation also asks Council to explore more sustainable deconstruction and material salvaging practices. Commissioners hope such measures can reduce landfill waste and encourage recycling.

Council is slated to hold a public hearing on the Environmental Investment Plan sometime next month. In the meantime, opinionated readers can share their own thoughts with the city’s Joint Sustainability Committee here.

On Tuesday, the Travis County Commissioners Court dedicated $7.2 million toward a supportive housing development called the Lancaster, a 60-unit complex that will provide respite for people experiencing homelessness and survivors of domestic and sexual violence. 

The development is a project of the SAFE Alliance, a nonprofit serving survivors of child abuse, sexual assault and exploitation, and domestic violence. SAFE is one of the 11 nonprofit partners in the Travis County Supportive Housing Initiative Pipeline (SHIP), a county initiative that aims to build 2,000 “deeply affordable” housing units fueled by a $110 million allocation from the American Rescue Plan Act. 

Residents will be referred to shelter at the Lancaster’s studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments through SAFE’s Coordinated Entry program. Coordinated Entry is an ambitious initiative that screens people experiencing homelessness and connects them with housing opportunities drawn from a database of every organization in the city. This alleviates the need for individuals seeking transitional housing to apply to multiple agencies in search of care. 

For residents best accommodated at the Lancaster, SAFE and its partner organizations will provide a host of supportive services: Senior planner Nathan Fernandes reported that residents will have access to “Safe trauma-informed case management, survivor-led trauma-informed peer support services, and, of course, some of the very important wrap-around services such as benefits counseling, education and referral services for primary health care, substance use and legal services.”

Amenities will include community spaces like an indoor community room, outdoor community recreation space, supportive service staff offices, a group/conference room, laundry rooms, a computer lab, a single-entry/controlled-access reception area and around-the-clock property management. Developers attest that the complex will accommodate residents with a trauma-informed design imperative to respectfully accommodate its target population.

Some SHIP and other mixed-income housing projects have faced criticism for geographic isolation, lack of access to transportation and deficient access to basic amenities such as groceries and health care. As transitional housing projects are often clustered, some criticize the program for concentrating poverty. 

The Lancaster, however, has received high marks for its site.

Presenters emphasized the advantages of the Lancaster’s location at the 5000 block of Lancaster Court in East Austin, just east of 51st Street’s intersection with Interstate 35. They cited major amenities for residents: access to high-frequency transit stops within a walkable radius, proximity to health care, employment, retail, educational options in the Mueller redevelopment area and healthy food access. 

“We specifically were thrilled with this location because of the access to transportation, to food services, to jobs, to medical services, to good schools. And also to our own campuses, which are very close by and can provide additional support services to folks should the need arise,” Fernandes said.

“What we have realized over and over again is that housing is a form of violence prevention,”  said Julia Spann, SAFE Alliance CEO. “If you don’t have a safe home to go to, it forces you back into unstable and potentially very dangerous housing.

“And I think of it also as homelessness prevention, because the folks we’re serving are folks with children. And we don’t want them to be thinking that normalcy is living in shelters or living on the streets or bouncing in between family member, friend and friend. And so this really is homelessness prevention. It’s violence prevention and all of that work that goes with it,” she continued. “This is a tremendous opportunity, and we’re delighted to be part of the solution.”

Nyeka Arnold is a sixth generation Austinite. Before they came to Austin, her family was enslaved just a few miles east of the city, in the cotton farming town of Webberville. It was her great-great-great grandfather, Rev. John Henry Winn, who founded St. John Freedom Colony in Austin in the early 1870s.

Community leadership seems to run in the family – in 2021, still without a college degree, Arnold co-founded the nonprofit Healing Project. That same year during Winter Storm Uri, she drove down Austin’s frozen roads in a white van, personally picking up more than 200 homeless Austinites and bringing them to warming shelters.

Though Arnold’s family have been leaders in Austin longer than the University of Texas has existed, none have attended. For most of the university’s history it would’ve been impossible. UT resisted integration even after a Supreme Court ruling demanded it, and it wasn’t until 1956that it accepted its first Black students.

Arnold herself was 12 or 13 before she ever stepped foot on campus. It was a field trip to visit the Longhorns women's basketball team.

“I got my poster signed by this young lady named Tiffany, and she was a Black woman,” she said. “And that was something I could relate to. She showed me love and she saw me. And I was so nervous, just so star-struck because she looked like a star in my eyes, going to the university.”

Arnold, now a mother of two, became the first person in her family to attend college last year, pursuing her bachelors from Austin Community College. This January, she also started coursework in UT Austin’s WIELD Texas, a two-year executive leadership and entrepreneurship program that not only teaches women of color practical skills, but also emphasizes networking in the community. The goal was to help women of color get hired in high-power roles and attract investors. Under the umbrella of Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity (DEI), WIELD and its sister program the Product Prodigy Institute have ended every semester with a Shark Tank-style “Demo Day,” which sees diverse students pitching their business ideas to real-life investors in the community.

But now, just one semester in, Arnold’s losing her shot to learn at UT. The WIELD program is one of the DEI initiatives the university announcedTuesday that it would dissolve. At least 60 people were laid off this week following a March 26 letterfrom state Sen. Brandon Creighton which warned that “merely renaming DEI offices or positions” would not comply with Senate Bill 17, the state’s new law banning DEI at public schools. The larger Division of Campus and Community Engagement that houses the WIELD program had already undergone changes to ensure all programs were in compliance with the law.

“I thought I would never be able to touch this environment, and now that has been taken away,” Arnold said. “And it feels like Jim Crow.”

Denné Reed, a UT anthropologist who was also DEI coordinator for his department, feels similarly. He still has his job, but his DEI work has been eliminated. “I honestly feel that Texas is hostile to fairness,” Reed said. “It feels like the bad old days of Jim Crow racist stupidity are making a resurgence.”

Arnold doesn’t know how completing WIELD would have changed her life, but she knows how it’s altered other people’s lives. While most of WIELD’s students are enrolled at UT Austin, some community members, like Arnold, audit classes. Product Prodigy graduate Rodolfo Galván Martínez said the program’s founder and instructor, Rubén Cantú, fought for that auditing option. “If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be where I am today.” Galván Martínez graduated from Texas State, but he describes his time in Product Prodigy as life-changing. A DACA recipient, Galván Martínez now works as a software engineer at IBM in Boston. “All my cousins, my dad, my stepdad, my uncles – they all work in construction. Quite literally building Austin, right? And I think that's amazing work. But you know, what I'm doing now, building software to help in aviation, that's something that's completely new. It's not something that I would have gotten intrinsically through my family.”

Robert Hudson was one of the first students to audit the Product Prodigy program when it launched in 2019. A Black man raised in rural Alabama by his grandmother who worked at a chicken factory, Hudson doesn’t hold a college degree. But, in part thanks to the program, he now works in Human Resources at a major nonprofit in Austin. 

“When I first stepped on campus at UT it felt weird. It did. It is not welcoming at all,” Hudson said. He described the Office of Inclusive Innovation and Entrepreneurship, led by Cantú, as the one place on campus where he felt he could be himself. “Rubén was creating a place where we could challenge these spaces that are not letting us in to not only let us in but to let us be us.”

In a public statement on the office’s Instagramaccount, Cantú described the decision to dissolve the programs as coming, “both rapidly and unexpectedly.” It’s unclear if Cantú will still have a role at UT when the office closes July 5. UT spokespeople had not responded to our request to comment as of publication.

For Galván Martínez, reading the news about the office’s closure was devastating. “This decision, it will be so impactful – for many people who don't even know that they're impacted right now. They won’t know what they could’ve had,” he said. At the same time, it was no shock. “I don't feel safe in Texas. And quite frankly, that's one of the reasons why I decided to move.”

Hudson isn’t ready to leave, and Arnold is dedicated to Austin for life. They’re hanging on to hope that programs like Cantú’s will move somewhere else in town – maybe through a private school unaffected by SB 17, or through nonprofit partners.

“My p​​rofessor [Cantú] really genuinely loves his job,” Arnold said. “So when he tells us that he's going to always be there, that he'll teach under a tree if he has to, I honestly believe it.”

T.C. Broadnax will be making $82,000 more than his predecessor when he starts his job as Austin’s city manager next month.

City Council on Thursday approved an employment agreement with a base salary of $470,000. Broadnax will also receive an array of fringe benefits, including a $5,000 per month housing allowance for six months to offset costs of a temporary residence, relocation and moving assistance; a cellphone stipend; and an “executive allowance.”

The salary is about $50,000 more than Broadnax was making as city manager in Dallas. Before he was fired in 2023, Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk was making $388,000 annually.

“Austin is a vibrant city with immense potential, and I am committed to working tirelessly alongside our dedicated team to ensure its continued growth and prosperity,” Broadnax said. “Together, we will navigate challenges, seize opportunities and build a resilient and inclusive future for all residents. I look forward to serving the people of Austin with a collaborative, transparent, inclusive and equitable approach.”

Broadnax was informally offered the job last week following a town hall meeting with the community and an interview with the mayor and City Council. He beat Sara Hensley, the Denton city manager and former Austin assistant city manager, for the role.

The city manager is the highest-ranking employee at City Hall. Broadnax will be responsible for hiring and firing department heads, preparing the budget and serving as an objective adviser to Council.

Broadnax brings 30 years of experience in local government. He has been the Dallas city manager since 2017. He resigned the role in February under pressure from the Dallas City Council. He had a tense relationship with some council members for years, making it difficult for Dallas to accomplish anything.

The Dallas mayor and three council members called for his firing in 2022, amid vacancies in the city’s 911 call center and delays in the building permits office. He was criticized for his handling of millions of deleted Dallas Police Department data files that included evidence and investigations.

Before Dallas, Broadnax worked as a city manager in Tacoma, Washington, and was assistant city manager in San Antonio for six years.

Austin has been without a permanent city manager since February 2023, when the City Council fired Cronk for his handling of an ice storm that caused widespread power outages. Communication was a key failure.

Jesús Garza has been serving in the interim.

Broadnax said last week that he would prioritize emergency preparedness, including communication, upon his arrival in Austin. He also said he would focus on homelessness response and hiring a permanent police chief.

Council members sang his praises, saying his wealth of knowledge in city government made him the best fit for the role.

“I am looking forward to working with T.C. Broadnax and am excited for his leadership that he will bring to our city,” Council Member Vanessa Fuentes said.

Council Member Chito Vela shared similar thoughts Thursday.

“T.C. Broadnax is probably the most qualified city manager candidate and if we hadn’t hired him, the next city would have snapped him up,” Vela said. “I am glad he is coming to the city of Austin.”

Mayor Kirk Watson said Broadnax will get to work quickly on budget planning for the next fiscal year.

“He brings a wealth of experience in city management, and I am confident will help us continue to address our critical community priorities and further advance the great work that our interim City Manager Jesús Garza and his management team have begun,” Watson said.

In Dallas, Broadnax helped usher in the revitalization of Fair Park, where the State Fair of Texas is held, and the master plan for the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. He also helped oversee operations at Dallas Love Field airport, according to his resume.

He is joining Austin as it embarks on many similar projects, including the light-rail buildout known as Project Connect, the Interstate 35 expansion, the renovation of the Austin Convention Center and the airport expansion. The city is also in the midst of reforming its housing and policing policies.

Broadnax is set to begin May 6.

City Council on Thursday approved the renaming of the bathhouse at Barton Springs Pool in honor of the woman who, as a teenager, led the first “swim-in” at the segregated pool in an act of civil disobedience.

With the unanimous vote, the facility officially becomes the Joan Means Khabele Bathhouse at Barton Springs Pool. The structure is currently undergoing an extensive rehabilitation project.

Scott Cobb, a lifeguard at the pool, submitted the nomination for renaming the bathhouse after Khabele, with more than 20 other community members adding their names in support.

“I think that’s a fitting honor for her and for all those teenagers back then, and the teenagers today who stand up for what they believe is wrong and want to make it right,” Cobb told Council.

Means, who died in October 2021 at the age of 78, was the oldest of five children born to Bertha Sadler Means and James Means, both prominent educators and pioneers in the civil rights movement.

Growing up in a segregated Austin, Khabele attended Blackshear Elementary and Kealing Junior High, where she was valedictorian of her graduating class. She entered Austin High School in 1957 as part of the third small group of students to integrate the school, three years after the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954.

Documents submitted with the renaming nomination include a transcript of a video interview conducted with Khabele, which aired on Austin PBS in 2014. In the interview, Khabele recalled the principal summoning her to his office in the spring of 1960. She said he wanted her to deliver the news to her Black classmates that they wouldn’t be allowed to attend the senior picnic because of Jim Crow laws in effect at public facilities.

For years, Austin High had traditionally held its senior class picnic at Zilker Park, followed by a swim in Barton Springs. Khabele was understandably upset when she was told she and her Black classmates wouldn’t be able to participate in the tradition – and that she had been designated to be the bearer of bad news.

The principal’s refusal to defy segregation laws motivated Khabele to begin organizing students, including 11th graders, “which means, once I went off to the University of Chicago, there are still people who can carry on if we failed to open up Barton Springs and Zilker Park,” the interview transcript reads.

Khabele said she had a vague memory of the school ultimately allowing Black students to attend the picnic at the park, but they would still be banned from swimming. “We were not to get into that water and, you know, there’s all sorts of ignorance about getting in too close or in an intimate environment with Black people on the part of whites,” the transcript states.

Thus began what would become a series of summer swim-ins at Barton Springs Pool, with Khabele the first to make the jump. It wasn’t long before Khabele’s white classmates joined the swim-ins, along with older students from Huston-Tillotson University, the University of Texas and St. Edward’s University.

“A swim-in is, you just jump in and then they (the lifeguards) come and pull you out,” Khabele says in the transcript. “You go around the building. You go back in, and you just do this all day.”

Keeping up with aggressive business and residential growth throughout the Austin area is a persistent challenge for those involved in supplying energy reliably to the city while also trying to move away from fossil fuel sources for generation needs. Speakers at a recent Austin Chamber infrastructure summit said the demand coming into the area means Austin Energy, the city-owned utility company, will need more transmission lines and related capacity components to prevent more widespread outages like those in early 2021 and 2023.

Michael Enger, vice president of market operations and resource planning for Austin Energy, said the demand caused by major companies such as Tesla and Samsung has added to the capacity problems that have occasionally caused dramatic short-term price increases for power. Enger said much of the capacity problem comes from having too few transmission lines to import power from sources outside the Austin market, which leads to congestion and “price separation issues.”

“It will take more transmission, more distribution, in combination with more local generation that helps mitigate those risks,” he told Austin Monitor. “Load will continue to grow in Central Texas. This is a very attractive place for businesses to come. And so as load is growing, we need to be building up more transmission just to meet those needs. And so by focusing only on one solution, we may be hampering our ability to really be successful in mitigating that risk. A combination of local generation, potentially local batteries, and some more transmission distribution, all in concert, could probably give us a better solution going forward to help maintain affordable, reliable rates for our customers.”

To characterize the state of local demand, Enger said last summer the city saw a day when peak load exceeded 3,000 megawatts, an event that wasn’t forecast to happen for several more years, based on recent five-year projections. Similarly, there was occasional demand over the winter in excess of 2,700 megawatts, also ahead of the utility’s forecasts. Those new usage levels can cause supply problems if the state’s network of power generation facilities, which schedule their production and operation months in advance, aren’t running at a suitable level.

Asked about the recent national push to connect Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to the national power grid – a move intended to improve reliability and prevent outages due to capacity issues – Enger said that it would take several years and substantial state and federal investment to make any impact.

“There is a lot that would need to happen for that to be able to move forward and come to fruition. There’s some significant costs that would need to be incurred as well, so that’s not necessarily a nearer-term solution,” he said. “Having more interconnections could potentially provide more reliability in certain circumstances, but that is not going to address any of the local cost pressures that we’re seeing.”

Allen Fore, vice president of public affairs for national infrastructure firm Kinder Morgan, put Austin in the context of other fast-growing cities such as Denver, Chicago and Los Angeles – with local governments that are responding to the call for reliable, green energy systems.

“If you’re looking at growing your tax base and creating jobs and all the things that go with businesses … reliable energy is a key leg on the stool. Businesses look at that and say, ‘OK, what do you have now? How are you preparing in the future? And how can you accommodate our growth?’” he said. “In addition to having a qualified workforce, and Austin certainly has that, having the space, the facilities, the roads and bridges and all of that, energy is certainly a part of that.”

On Thursday, City Council unanimously approved a $3 million contract with HDR Engineering Inc. for a study to determine where the water utility might locate an additional new pump station and reservoir in Southwest Austin in conjunction with the Davis Lane Pump Station. Austin Water says that on a day when there is maximum demand, the Davis Lane station operates at 75 percent effective capacity – the highest level of use among the utility’s distribution pump stations.

According to documents provided to Council, the engineering study is necessary “to improve redundancy and relieve the utility’s reliance on the Davis Lane Pump Station.” This study is intended to identify, analyze and recommend a feasible secondary facility and transmission, the utility says.

During Winter Storm Uri in 2021, about half of Texans lost access to clean drinking water. That included people living in far South and Southwest Austin, some of whom were without water for a week. One major reason for that was problems at one water treatment plant, Ullrich, which a review last year found to be “at the center” of four of five high-profile problems over several years.

After problems at Ullrich were addressed, Austin Water officials found out that the southwest and south central areas needed better pressurization.

Shortly after the storm, Austin Water officials acknowledged that they had not considered a winter storm to be a serious threat to the water supply.

Now, three years after that treacherous freeze, the water utility is funding a study that will look at where in Southwest Austin to locate a new pump station. HDR Engineering will also be tasked with considering environmental factors in deciding where a new pump station should be located.

District 8 Council Member Paige Ellis was pleased that Austin Water was moving forward with the project. Ellis told the Austin Monitor, “depending on pressurization, there are some parts of North Austin and southwest corners of town that run out of water first.” She said that during the 2021 freeze, residents of her apartment complex were among those who lost access to water. She said they, like others, had to use bottled water. But some people in the area could not find water or could not leave their homes in order to look for it.

After learning that neighborhoods like Meridian in Southwest Austin did not have water or water delivery, Ellis said that she and Precinct 3 Constable Stacy Suits started to find water that could be delivered from warehouses to those impacted by broken pipes and insufficient water pressure. This was several days before the utility started deliveries in the area. They were not the only ones doing that work, as Travis County reported that it helped an estimated 360 apartment complexes that needed water.

Bill Bunch, executive director of the Save Our Springs Alliance, urged Council not to approve the contract, saying he was “opposed to funding the southwest pressure zone study. This is business as usual. We should not be thinking about having to expand our water pipes. We should be facing reality. … Our water future is not guaranteed by a 100-year contract. We’ve got to make do with the water we have. The idea that we’re going to expand pipes and be pushing obscene amounts of more water is absurd.”

Asked whether the study relates to adding pipes to new residences, Ellis said she did not think so.

“It just makes sure that the system has enough pressure. What a lot of pumps will do is they will pull water up and hold it … at a higher elevation” so the water will be there in case of access problems, she said.

The Spring Pickin’ Party runs May 9-12, despite property sale plans

BY CARYS ANDERSON, 4:53PM, THU. APR. 4, 2024

Old Settler’s Music Festival is back on. After canceling its 2024 edition late last year, the long-running roots music event announced plans to return, May 9-12.

Hosted on its 145-acre homestead in Dale, Texas – near Lockhart – the surprise comeback pares down from the festival’s typical 30-plus acts to 14 total. The lineup includes Uncle Lucius; Kelly Willis, Brennen Leigh, and Melissa Carper (known collectively as the Wonder Women of Country); the South Austin Jug Band; Luke Bulla; Kalu & the Electric Joint; Hot Club of Cowtown; Tomar & the FCs; Texas String Assembly; HalleyAnna Finlay and Dustin Welch; the Hillsiders; Everett Wren; Good Looks; Elijah Delgado; and Audry Bryant.

Most of the music takes place on the festival’s campground stage on Friday and Saturday, but gates open at 12pm on Thursday, May 9, for the fest’s traditional open mic. The event wraps at 3pm Sunday, on the morning of which organizers promise special Mother’s Day programming.

Speaking to the Chronicle Thursday, Old Settler’s Executive Director Diana Harrell said the 2024 edition will be an “intimate,” back-to-basics party.

“Old Settler’s is known for picking circles. So after the music ends, all the campers get together and do a picking circle until about 2 o'clock in the morning,” Harrell says. “We're getting back to our roots with this festival.”

Single, two-day, and three-day tickets are available through the Old Settler’s Music Festival website, as are camping passes. Single-day passes start at $85, while multi-day tickets start at $125.

In November, the 1987-launched Americana festival announced plans to sell its Dale property, located at 1616 FM 3158. At the time, the organization’s then-executive director, Talia Bryce, told the Chronicle the spacious estate was “much larger than we need,” but that the nonprofit was open to working out a deal with prospective property buyers to stay in the current spot. Bryce then stepped down from Old Settler’s in December.

According to Harrell – who held the festival’s top title once previously, in 2021 – the land is still for sale. Harrell says she’s confident that Old Settler’s will return in the future, even if it moves to a new location.

“We've been around for 37 years and we're planning to be around for 37 more, if not longer,” Harrell says. “If the land sells and it's not something that works for us to stay with the new owners, we will return.

“It's not the property that we stand on. It's the people dancing to the music.”

Ahead of national Wildfire Community Preparedness Day on May 4, the Public Safety Commission this week heard an update on how Austin is faring with its own community readiness efforts.

The good news is that Austin leads the state in its number of “Firewise” communities – a designation given by the National Fire Protection Association’s Firewise USA program.

The rest of the news is still in development. Taking its directions from a 2016 City Council resolution, the Austin Fire Department’s Wildfire Division continues working with high-risk areas to develop local Community Wildfire Protection Plans. These individualized plans include such preventive measures as fuel mitigation, emergency response and emergency evacuations.

In the April 1 briefing, AFD Wildfire Mitigation Officer Justice Jones told commissioners that 23 community wildfire plans have been completed and largely implemented.

“That doesn’t mean these communities are done,” Jones said. “That means they’ve checked off the initial list of recommendations in the plan, and now they’re going back to the drawing board and revising those plans and finding out what they need to do next to … create a fire environment that lends itself to our operational success.”

About 51 percent of Austin’s highest-risk wildfire areas are covered by a plan, Jones said, while 49 percent have been identified as “opportunity zones.”

Commissioner Rebecca Bernhardt noted that nearly all the areas identified as opportunity zones are located east of MoPac Expressway, which, she said, “is really problematic.”

Jones agreed that AFD’s outreach efforts to communities west of MoPac have been made easier by the existence of homeowners associations, which are more prevalent in communities in the western reaches of the city.

“This is a challenge that the nation is facing,” Jones said of wildfire outreach efforts in communities that don’t have the organizational structure of HOAs or the grassroots astuteness of established neighborhood associations. For that reason, he said, “we’ve engaged with community groups like GAVA (Go Austin/Vamos Austin) and the city Equity Office to help us understand how to reach other vulnerable populations across the community through, for example, our wildfire preparedness town hall meetings, or our (May 4) symposium.”

Based on feedback the wildfire team has received from community groups, Jones said, “We’re not convinced that ‘Firewise’ is the program for all of our constituents at risk. So we’re addressing this from the standpoint of individual preparedness. First, everyone should have access to information to understand their wildfire risk and the potential impacts. That’s our first line of defense, that personal responsibility.”

Still, Bernhardt wanted more assurance that the city is making direct contact with vulnerable populations.

“I’m really concerned that this whole system relies on people reaching out to y’all,” she said. “That’s a huge percentage of the folks that we should be worried about dying in a fire. And that’s what we’re talking about after Maui, and after Paradise, California.”

Jones said the wildfire mitigation team is exploring a range of communication strategies, such as targeting communities through direct mail.

“What we’re hoping will be most effective is (communication) through the existing community groups that already have networks with these individuals and have that trust within these communities,” Jones said.

The upcoming symposium could be a starting point for building on that trust. The annual event takes place 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 4, at the Rosewood-Zaragosa Neighborhood Center, 2800 Webberville Road.