Responding to a lawsuit alleging a Texas Open Meetings Act violation, the city of Austin said that the agenda posting for the zoning of the Easton Park development – which became controversial earlier this year because of the affordable housing provision – complies with state law and that the suit should be dismissed.
That provision makes all 9,500 or so housing units in the development on the southeast outskirts of Austin eligible for fee waivers, which could total $69.3 million over a couple decades, and says the developer will put an amount of money equal to the waivers in a fund for affordable housing.
Civic activist Brian Rodgers, who has criticized funneling away money from the cash-strapped water utility by waiving water and wastewater impact fees, filed a lawsuit in February and then offered to settle if the City Council voided its vote on Easton Park, also known as Pilot Knob. The lawsuit said the city failed to properly post the subject of the Easton Park zoning item, as it made no mention of the millions of dollars in fee waivers.
Construction is underway on the first of roughly 9,500 housing units in Easton Park, also known as Pilot Knob, located southeast of Austin.
The city’s response had two main points.
First, the city said, Rodgers hasn’t shown any violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act – and following his logic to the T produces “absurd results.”
Easton Park is a “planned unit development,” a large, master-planned community that the city said involves complicated agreements with many pieces. Rodgers winning his lawsuit would mean the city has to post huge notices of each council vote on a planned unit development, which the city said “would have the contrary effect of defeating public participation by overloading agendas with details of each development.” Plus, the city publicly posted documents related to the Easton Park zoning, including the proposed ordinance, the city said.
Second, the city said, a recent City Council vote has made Rodgers’ lawsuit moot.
The council recently voted to send a revised version of the affordable housing and fee waivers part of Easton Park’s zoning back through the process, meaning it will re-appear before the Planning Commission and then the City Council.
“Any defect was subsequently cured when the City Council voted, on March 3, 2016, to reconsider the … provisions concerning the allocation of development fees to affordable housing programs,” the city said.
Taken together, these two points mean the courts don’t have jurisdiction to take up the lawsuit, the city said.
Attorney Bill Aleshire, who is representing Rodgers, said in an email the city has a “warped sense” of open meetings act requirements.
“Besides being circular BS logic on jurisdiction, the scariest thing about their answer is that the City is defending the notice that mentioned nothing about there being a $100 million price tag for the ‘zoning’ agenda item,” Aleshire said. “If they think that notice was adequate, then they’ll do it again.”
