Austin To Kick Off 'Anti-Displacement Task Force'

AUSTIN, TX — The mayor of Austin and other city leaders are scheduled to kick off a long-planned "Anti-Displacement Task Force" with a Thursday press conference explaining the initiative in detail.

The task force seeks to find solutions to mass displacement of homeowners no longer able to pay their property taxes in light of ever-soaring property values amid brisk municipal growth. As developers descend on the hot market to capitalize commercially — a veritable eastward expansion, if you will — property values have soared — a trend that's been developing in earnest over the past decade or so.

In the emailed announcement alerting to Thursday's press conference, the mayor's office acknowledges indirectly to the delay in mitigating the problem with concrete municipal safeguards: "Thursday morning, Mayor Adler, Council Members Houston and Pool, and community leaders will hold a kickoff press conference for the Anti-Displacement Task Force to discuss next steps for the citizen-led group to provide the Council with an action plan to finally do something about displacement in the eastern crescent."

In his "State of the City" address on Tuesday, Mayor Steve Adler touched on the displacement issue among the myriad issues he covered.

"We all know, property taxes are going up," Adler said. "And going up too much, too fast. In fact, for the median priced home in most of Austin, all property taxes combined have gone up $1,408 in just the last five years."

But he made a point to note that the lion's breath of those bolstered taxes comes from the state, not municipal taxing entities: "That’s a lot," he said of the increases. "But did you know that $1,023 of that increase does not come from increases in city taxes, or county taxes, or hospital district taxes, or taxes to fund AISD schools, or all of those taxes added together?"

Using charts and bar graphs for visual aids, he pointed to the source of the increased taxation: "$1,023 of the $1,408 property tax increase you are feeling over the last five years comes solely from the increase in the State Property Tax. Did you realize that this year, the State of Texas will keep more of your local property taxes than the City of Austin?: he asked.

The press conference will preview the first community forum for the task force to take place on Saturday, officials noted. The details:

What: Anti-Displacement Task Force

Who: Mayor Adler, Council Members Houston and Pool, Nefertiti Jackson, Executive Director of Six Square and Co-Chair of the Anti-Displacement Task Force

When: Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018, at 10 a.m.

Where: Mt. Zion Baptist Church, 4310 Tennehill Lane

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