In this week's issue:

  • Austin council voted 9-1 to bulldoze the last neighborhood shields blocking housing density — and the council member who personally promised those shields would hold co-sponsored the resolution
  • The city has spent $35 million on outside lawyers since 2020, including nearly a million dollars to fight — and then settle — a botched SWAT raid that caused $23,000 in actual damage
  • The viral SpaceX IPO math: 160 Austin employees projected to clear $100 million each, 12 will become billionaires — the number Austin's money class can't stop talking about
  • A Texas startup built 550 robotic telescopes on a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere and Ashlee Vance showed up

Let's ride.

Top Stories

HOME Phase 3: Austin Council Breaks the NCCD Shield

Austin City Council voted 9-1 Thursday to direct City Manager T.C. Broadnax to draft amendments extending the HOME (Home Options for Mobility and Equity) deregulation program into neighborhoods previously declared off-limits — specifically those protected by Neighborhood Conservation Combining Districts, regulating plans, and conditional overlays. The resolution, authored by Council Member Krista Laine and co-sponsored by Mayor Pro Tem Chito Vela, Council Members Jose Velasquez, Ryan Alter, and Zo Qadri, represents the most aggressive expansion of Austin's housing supply reform since HOME passed in late 2023. Council Member Marc Duchen was the lone dissenter — and he came loaded. He proposed three amendments, all of which failed: one that would have required a policy recommendation instead of code drafts, one requiring documented community outreach to affected neighborhoods, and one that would have explicitly exempted Lake Austin and rural residence zoning districts from the expansion. All three failed. The vote was not on Tuesday's work session agenda, meaning Thursday was the first public comment opportunity despite more than 180 people having signed up to speak. Resident Catherine Tucek captured the procedural grievance cleanly: "City council has given up on respecting Austin residents by trying to pass resolutions with no warning, no discussion or no input promise."

The political story here is bigger than zoning. Council Member Zo Qadri co-sponsored the resolution despite telling Hyde Park resident Pam Bell — in 2024, and again in February 2026 — that HOME would only apply to single-family zoning outside of NCCDs. Hyde Park, which sits squarely in Qadri's District 9, is one of Austin's most prominent NCCD-protected neighborhoods. Qadri's reversal is not an oversight; it is a deliberate policy shift wearing the costume of a technical cleanup. Laine herself framed the resolution in neutral bureaucratic terms — "all that's happening today is the council is showing its level of support for the city manager to have his staff invest time in making our zoning code more consistent" — but Duchen called the bluff directly: "I am uncomfortable cloaking everything we do under the idea of lowercase affordability when we are seeing — whether they are edge cases or not — instances where that is clearly not happening." The resolution does not change any zoning ordinance today. It directs staff to draft amendments for future council consideration, and critics are correct that the "exploratory" framing functionally obscures a predetermined conclusion.

The market data makes the policy case. The Austin Board of Realtors' 2026 HOME Impact Report — released last month and covered in this newsletter — confirmed HOME units sold at a median price of $750,000 versus $1.58 million for traditional new-construction single-family homes during the same period: a 53% discount. Median 3-bedroom, 1,693-square-foot homes selling faster than traditional builds. The program works. The NCCDs — historically the moat protecting the wealthiest, most politically connected central Austin neighborhoods from density — are now squarely in the crosshairs, and a council supermajority just put them there. Whatever Zo Qadri told Pam Bell, that conversation is now history.

Sources: Statesman post-vote (May 9), Statesman pre-vote preview (May 5), KXAN (May 7), ABoR HOME Impact Report via Yahoo/KXAN

Upcoming Events

  • The Confluence Grand Opening. June 6, Waterloo Greenway downtown — the $91.5M, 13-acre second phase of the Waterloo Greenway opens to the public with free park tours, scavenger hunts, and live music.
  • Movies in the Park: Steel Magnolias. Tonight (Saturday May 9), doors 6PM, Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park — free outdoor screening presented by Waterloo Greenway, a Mother's Day weekend event.
  • Warren Hood with Emily Gimble. Tonight (Saturday May 9), doors 7PM, The 04 Center — a seven-time Austin Music Award winner returns for an evening of fiddle, song, and deep Texas roots music.
  • MIKA — Spinning Out Tour. Sunday May 10, 8PM, ACL Live at the Moody Theater — the British pop artist brings the North American leg of his Spinning Out Tour to Austin, with DJ Bad Apple opening.
  • Austin Psych Fest — Final Day. Sunday May 10, Far Out Lounge — the festival closes out with Thee Sacred Souls headlining, plus Night Beats, La Lom, and a DJ set from Adrian Quesada; single-day tickets still available.

Austin's $35M Legal Liability Machine

Austin has spent more than $35 million on outside attorneys since 2020 — across all city departments, covering civil suits, employment cases, real estate, and a growing stack of police misconduct litigation. Total settlements paid out since 2020: more than $48 million, including $20 million-plus specifically to plaintiffs who claimed APD used excessive force during the 2020 protests. This is happening during what city leadership keeps calling a "lean budget season." The math is not complicated: Austin is cutting services while writing checks to outside law firms to clean up its own operational failures. Council Member Mike Siegel — who voted in favor of the latest settlement but wants reform — framed it plainly: "Hiring just one or two more good litigators for the law department could save us hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in outside contracts." The city has added two employees to its law department in recent years despite a legal caseload that has required tens of millions in outside help.

The Shield case is the perfect specimen. In August 2023, APD and DPS SWAT raided Glen and Mindy Shield's home on Channel Island Drive in Parkside at Slaughter Creek, southeast Austin. They were looking for an armed suspect named Dwayne Brzozowski, who lived across the street. APD Detective Christopher Van Buren told other officers at 9:14 p.m. they were at the "wrong frickin house." He reiterated "100% the wrong house" 25 minutes later. Another officer responded: "let them do business." At 11:01 p.m., a DPS SWAT officer placed strip explosives on the Shields' unlocked front door and blew it. The couple was detained in separate police cars for two hours. Damage to their home: approximately $23,000. APD's internal affairs review, completed December 2024, found no wrongdoing. The city then approved $609,000+ in payments to the outside firm Richards Rodriguez and Skeith to defend the case — and on Thursday approved a $350,000 settlement. Total cost to Austin taxpayers to handle a $23,000 problem: ~$959,000. That's not a rounding error. That's a policy. A separate June 2024 botched raid — APD used a sledgehammer on the wrong apartment (unit 821 instead of the actual target), finding a 79-year-old grandmother and two small children ages 3 and 5 — ended with the city denying the damage claim, citing Texas governmental immunity. From January 2020 through December 2025, 135 police-related property damage claims were filed against the city. All 135 were denied. Every single one.

The city's official position is that outside counsel is necessary for conflicts of interest and specialized expertise. Austin attorney Scott Hendler has a different read: "These little outside lawyers have no incentive to resolve these cases early when they can bill against [an] allocated budget of $800,000 to earn fees for their law firm." This isn't governance. As one pointed commentary on the situation put it, it's "fiscal self-harm dressed in progressive piety" — a city that talks endlessly about affordability and equity while structuring its legal department to maximize billable hours for outside firms at taxpayer expense. The gap between Austin's self-image and its actual operational competence is measurable in dollars, and the number is north of $83 million since 2020.

Sources: KUT: Austin spends millions on outside attorneys, Statesman: "100% the wrong house" Shield lawsuit, Statesman: "Damaged for Good" series — when Austin police kick in the wrong door, Austin Politics Newsletter: Why can't council just do the right thing?, KUT tweet, Commentary: fiscal self-harm

Weird Austin

One Thing

Austin's market is moving faster than its government deserves. Council just deregulated the last housing holdouts while the city's law department bleeds $35M to outside firms cleaning up its own operational disasters. The gap between what Austin builds and what Austin's bureaucracy costs is the real number to watch.

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