Council members voted Thursday to amend the city's land use rules, allowing developers to build up to three homes where only one or two were previously permitted.

This is one of the more misdirected things the city has done. There are literally rows of empty houses and empty apartments near me that stay permanently empty except some weekends when they are filled with bachekorettes going WOOO at 1 AM.

You can walk down Haskell and see such a row of small apartments, all empty and used strictly for STRs.

And the removal of occupation limits hamstrings one of the only tools holding the AirBNB owners accountable, not that they care much about fines anyway.

The STR issue is rapidly killing our neighborhoods, and now there will just be more.

Here is data if you don’t believe me.

http://insideairbnb.com/austin/

Also people are doing this anyway, just building sheds from scrap lumber and running an extension cord to them and renting them out. Code doesn’t seem to care, so how could this ever go wrong?

  • @FigMcLargeHugeMEnglish
    2•7 months ago

    I see your point, but have definitely seen a cosmic shift in the way Austin looks and feels. I drive around sometimes and am just amazed at the places that have sprouted up and are full communities so I guess that’s part of my reaction here to someone saying it’s not enough. And don’t get me wrong, I am not against it, I just think that if you compare Austin now to say Austin in the 1990’s it’s crazy. Sure more can be done, and I am sure things will happen, but it does take time. Oh, and money. Lots and lots of money.