Put It In Park

Carless affordable housing development pedals into East Austin

The Ivory carless affordable housing in East Austin

Residents at The Ivory will use personal e-bikes or borrow one of two electric vehicles.

Another affordable condo development is going up in East Austin, but this one is a little different. It will be a completely carless community, and each resident will receive a free e-bike.

The development, called The Ivory, is the second phase of The Chicon, which was completed in 2018. Originally, The Ivory was only going to have 22 units, but thanks to Austin City Council member Natasha Harper-Madison (District 1), developers were able to expand it.

With the implementation of the Affordability Unlocked Development Bonus Program, they were able to build twice as many units, move from three stories up to five and make the community carless. It will now have 53 residential condos and three commercial spaces to house local businesses.

Following with the city of Austin’s Climate Protection Plan, the building will be all electric and powered by solar, except for one corner unit on the first floor for the local restaurants.

“We've modeled the solar to be about 95 percent of all the electric demand, and so everybody's going to get a rebate back on their electric bill every month for all their electric usage,” said Sean Garretson, the board president for the Chestnut Neighborhood Revitalization Corporation. “It’s a huge savings in not having to own a car and the electricity.”

The smallest unit will go for around $220,000, whereas the market price is $450,000. Forty units in the building will be available to households earning at or below 70 percent Median Family Income and the other 13 will be sold at market rate.

“We decided to push the envelope on affordability,” Garretson said. “A lot of folks think about affordable housing as the price of a home or the price of your rent, but we added to that, and we also look at the cost of transportation.”

A new CapMetro station will also be going up right in front of The Ivory for residents to use. For further transportation needs, the development will have two e-vehicles on-site for only the residents to use. Residents will get three free rides a month, then $6 for any additional rides.

Read the full story and watch the video at KVUE.com.

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Eviction Notice

Major landlords with Austin ties being investigated for illegal rent hikes

Photo courtesy of KVUE

Some of Austin's rent woes could be a result of this alleged scheme.

The Justice Department (DOJ) is suing six of the country's largest landlords, along with RealPage, alleging they took part in a pricing scheme that harmed renters.

We already know the increase in population and businesses moving to Austin raised rental prices. But lawyer and owner of Texas Tenant Law Jennifer MacGeorge said the new DOJ lawsuit could prove illegal rent hikes made it even worse.

"It's about collusion versus competition," MacGeorge said. "It's just about trying to gouge the market and get as much as they can."

The antitrust lawsuit claims six property management companies — Cushman & Wakefield, LivCor, Cortland, Greystar, Dallas-based Willow Bridge, and Houston-based Camden, which have numerous locations in the Austin area — are using software like RealPage. Together, the landlords control 1.3 million apartment units.

According to the lawsuit, the software uses an algorithm to help set rents and privately share sensitive, non-public information with competitors, allowing landlords to align their prices and avoid competition.

MacGeorge said the result is higher rents, for not only residential but commercial properties. She said this type of behavior exacerbates affordability issues and displaces residents and small businesses.

"We're getting rid of people that help the economy sustain itself and be stable, which is what everybody's looking for in this environment where you can't even afford your groceries, and now you're worried about your rent. It's absolutely unacceptable," MacGeorge said.

The lawsuit names the Austin-Round Rock metro area multiple times, saying 30 percent or more of the residential properties in the area are using this type of software.

While MacGeorge mainly represents tenants, she found out some of her landlord clients are using similar pricing strategies to artificially raise prices.

"They are engaging in other practices that are artificially raising prices, such as putting in a rental rate at a renewal that's maybe 20 percent above what the tenant was paying before and leaving it that high only until the tenant moves out and then immediately dropping it," MacGeorge said.

Read the full story and watch the video at KVUE.com.

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