Folasade Fashina listens to speakers while protesting zoning laws at Austin City Hall on June 3, 2025. The Acacia Cliffs tenants association is calling on City Council to stop development initiatives aimed at creating housing density, but which they say will lead to accelerated loss of affordable housing.
Sara Diggins, Austin American-Statesman
Austin developers will soon be able to build taller and denser projects in exchange for providing affordable housing under a new citywide incentive program.
Its passage by the City Council comes after a year and a half of public input, but critics still argue it does too little to prevent displacement or preserve existing affordable housing.
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City officials agree the issue is challenging.
“Austin has seen tremendous population growth over the recent decades and our housing production has not always kept up with this,” said Warner Cook, principal planner for the Austin Planning Department. “There are still many households in Austin that can’t find affordable housing for their income level.”
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The vote was the final action after a June 2025 directive from the council that directed city staff to create a new tiered density bonus structure.
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Dubbed the Citywide Density Bonus Program, the program aims to encourage affordable housing by allowing developers to build more in exchange for community benefits — such as affordable housing.
Community members hold signs as they listen to residents of the Acacia Cliffs apartments speak while protesting zoning laws at Austin City Hall, on June 3, 2025.
Sara Diggins, Austin American-Statesman
Community members said the new program should go beyond affordable housing incentives by encouraging benefits such as public open space and ground-floor retail. They also urged the city to keep taller buildings closer to transit corridors, consider compatibility with surrounding neighborhoods, preserve existing affordable housing and require a mix of income-restricted units rather than focusing only on deeply or moderately affordable housing.
Taking that feedback into account, staff said the program creates five new districts tied to different height tiers, some modeled after the city’s existing density bonus framework.
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Officials also stressed that the council vote would not rezone any properties. Staff said the city would stop accepting new applications under the current DB90 and Vertical Mixed Use programs.
Residential and industrial zones would not qualify for the new program. The density bonus program would apply to areas zoned as neighborhood office, limited office, general office, neighborhood commercial, community commercial, general commercial, commercial highway services and potential future mixed-use districts.
Current tenant protections, including required notice and right of first refusal, would apply to all density bonus projects that redevelop existing multifamily structures.
The city’s existing program, known as DB90, has been contested by residents and housing advocates after it was used to rezone the Acacia Cliffs apartments for a redevelopment with fewer affordable units. DB90 has also struggled under recent state legislation that staff said encourages more market-rate housing and weakens the effectiveness of density bonuses as a tool for producing affordable housing.
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Acacia Cliffs resident Rosa Gutierrez speaks about the importance of affordable housing while protesting zoning laws at Austin City Hall, June 3, 2025. The City Council recently approved a new incentive program allowing taller projects in exchange for income-restricted housing.
Sara Diggins, Austin American-Statesman
Jacqueline Dudley, board chair of the Real Estate Council of Austin, spoke in support of the program.
“The proposed program provides more flexibility and certainty,” she said. “Through this broad range of heights and simplified affordability requirements, the measure of success of a density bonus program is its wide usage.”
Resident Betsy Greenberg said the new program does not fix displacement concerns like those raised by Acacia Cliffs and asked for more income-restricted units.
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“Instead of working to avoid displacement and the loss of existing affordable housing, the new proposal is focused on giving developers more options,” she said.
Council Member Marc Duchen was the only council member to vote against the program. He voiced concerns about mixed-use developments backing up against neighborhoods and warned that density bonuses could target properties with existing affordable housing.
“I know from talking to my constituents that a lot of people just prefer close-knit communities with compact shared common spaces,” he said. “Many different people want to build their lives in many different ways and I really hope we let them and don’t simply cater to a class of itinerant interlopers.”