Steph Douglass 

Okay, so interview, interview, interview. And now start whenever you want.

 

Kristina Modares 

Welcome to the Open House Podcast: where women talk real estate. I'm Kristina Modares.

 

Steph Douglass 

And I'm Steph Douglass. How's it going?

 

Kristina Modares 

It's good. I it's like a beautiful day and I'm really excited after last night.

 

Steph Douglass 

I know we're like floating on air. Yeah. Last night was great.

 

Kristina Modares 

It was wonderful.

 

Steph Douglass 

It's a secret project that Kristina and I are doing. Okay, well Get your mind out of the gutters, everyone.Where ya know, we have a we have a new project we we created. We've been kind of plotting this behind everyone's back because we've been doing research talking to buyers. And we've developed this very exciting course that kind of addresses what we've been noticing in our clients.

 

Kristina Modares 

Yeah, like, basically, we've been talking to many people who have expressed to the us that they want to buy a house, but they're just they haven't done it yet. So we were just asking them questions of like, why they want to buy a house what kind of makes you scared about buying a house and, you know, we talked to probably like over 30 people and figure it out. Everyone was kind of saying the same thing. Like I know nothing. I'm really nervous about the repairs. I don't know what the cost will be. And like we also realized a lot of it had to do with you know, our parents don't talk about this growing up. We don't are not taught this in school. So I don't know we took all that information and we're making a very personalized course for first time homebuyers. And I'm it's really Exciting I'm they're gonna leave feeling confident and having their own personalized plan and like a little community that they can kind of check in with along the way.

 

Steph Douglass 

Yeah. So it feels very, very individualized and that that's what people are missing. Everybody was saying in talking to people they were saying like, there's so much information out there, but I don't know, it's hard to sift through that. And none of it feels like it's directed towards me. Yeah, so we Yeah, so it's going to be kind of a longer term, you know, we have our workshop, which is only, you know, hour and a half

 

Kristina Modares 

our first time homebuyer workshop right now that I think we're calling it-

 

Steph Douglass 

calling it rent sucks and then you buy?

 

Kristina Modares 

Yes. So this will be like a much more in depth longer version of that. And we're doing it right now with our first group, which I'm really excited about and actually have this available to the public within the year. So we have, you know, if you want to kind of stay updated on it, we have A way that you can join the waitlist for when we do release it. But on our website, yeah, we'll actually put that in the show notes too, if you want to access it.

 

Steph Douglass 

Yes. And I think I don't know how clear we were. But last night was our very first session. So we kind of did like a very exclusive group just to just to test it, but also, you know, gather more information so that when we do release it to the public, it's really, really, really valuable. So please join that waitlist so that you can keep abreast on the information. And you're the first to know when it actually launches.

 

Kristina Modares 

Yeah, for sure. So, Steph, who are you interviewing today?

 

Steph Douglass 

Yes. And this is this is very exciting. I loved this conversation. I interviewed on Anjelica Rivas. She works as an affordable housing consultant in Texas. And she is also just like, interested in equality in investing with integrity and she is so knowledgeable and she she lives here in Austin, but works all over Texas. And I was really fun conversation. So very excited for you guys to hear this. And yeah, let's just get into it. Yeah, sounds good. Perfect. Okay, so I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while. First of all, thank you so much for speaking at our women's investor meetup last week.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah, it was really fun. Thank you for inviting me.

 

Steph Douglass 

We've had such good feedback and everybody loved the conversation. So I'm excited to continue the conversation now. Anjelica, can you tell us about yourself a little bit and then dive into like what what you're doing in the realm of affordable housing.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

So my name is Angelica Rivas. I am from Houston and I moved to Austin to go to UT, I went to UT for undergrad and grad school. And I recently got my master's in Community and Regional Planning, and was really interested in sort of exploring equity in open spaces primarily. And that's where I had focused my research in. But through that process, I also started learning a lot about housing and became really interested in that and saw that as a really actionable way to involve myself in pursuing a more equitable city. And so that's sort of where I've focused career wise at this point.

 

Steph Douglass 

That's amazing. So you're, you're all master degreed up and you're working for Tell me again, the company that you're working for?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

They're an affordable housing development and finance consulting firm.

 

Steph Douglass 

And you work you live in Austin, but you work across Texas, is that right?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah. So we work with developers who are working on working on affordable housing, affordable housing developments all across Texas.

 

Steph Douglass 

And just developers, you're not working directly with cities, correct? Yeah,

 

Anjelica Rivas 

We work we work with. I mean, yeah, we our clients are developers, and then we'll work with cities on getting on working on getting those developments through.

 

Steph Douglass 

Where they all are. Yeah, well, so you're you're all over Texas, but. And we have listeners all over. I thought all of our listeners would be here in Austin, but they're kind of across the nation. So I feel like all of the things we're going to talk about today can be applied in growing cities across the nation. Right, there's a need for affordable housing everywhere. But we will be talking like more locally more in Texas just because that's where we are and that's where you know, but can you go into kind of the current policies and practices in Austin that reinforce racially inequitable access to real estate?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

So one of the issues in Austin that I think causes a lot of lack of affordable housing is low housing stock. And so since we have a land very old land development code that was really put in place when Austin was much more of a town and not a city at this point. It's just it's really low density. And so that, that has increased or because of that, prices have gone up a lot. Because a lot of times higher income earners are are purchasing in lower income neighborhoods, because there's not housing stock elsewhere that might have been more in what their price range would be, or just there's just not the housing stock to support them the amount of demand, right.

 

Steph Douglass 

So that's the biggest thing, you know, yes.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Oh, and then and then on top of that, we have a lot of A lot of policies such as I always use the example of the neighborhood conservation, combining districts because the those are zoning overlays that make it, I guess, make density even more difficult to achieve. One thing they do is make sure that you have to have an even larger lot size then then the zoning code says to build an ADU. So there are just different policies. There's on top of our land development code, there are other policies that are trying to sort of to enforce not building more housing.

 

Steph Douglass 

Okay, so I just built an au, an accessory dwelling unit, or a tiny house is what I'm calling it behind one of my properties. And so it's like very personal for me. But you talked about a little at our at our women's investor meetup. But can you go into the kind of the role that ADUs can play in preserving affordability in Austin

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah, um, so Austin. ADUs are one way that Austin has put a lot of focus on preserving affordability because it allows us to increase density without changing zoning. So while we don't have zoning changes, we can still do something with the land that we have one really interesting way that I have seen a neighborhood organization use ADUs  to help preserve affordability was sort of it started off the Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Corporation. They've done a lot. They've played a huge role in preserving affordability on the east side, but one of the big roles they initially did was buy a lot of land to take it off the market so that they could play a role in developing affordable housing in those areas. But once there wasn't land to buy or land that was affordable to buy or anything like that. They have partnered with UT and community powered workshop to start this initiative called the alley flat initiative, which basically they help provide access or that they help provide affordable ADUs. The thought behind that is really, that by by putting more properties on one piece of land it allows it basically allows the cost of that land to be split between two people. I know a big thing that you guys also talk about is the, the access to, to building wealth through having someone rent out part of the property that you own, which is really important as well and so it kind of it does both and that it can provide an affordable rent to someone and also help the owner pay for their property.

 

Steph Douglass 

Yes, I Love that that's something we've been talking a lot about. And that kind of leads me to my next question. I'm the fact that I just build an ADU and it was kind of painless and didn't take that long made me think that it could be such a good way to help people stay in the neighborhood. Do you? Are you aware of any programs? I know that that there's a lot of affordable housing, where we're helping people get affordable rent, or or find a place to stay that's close to downtown, but is there anything that helps people stay in their home right now that you know of in Austin or in any of the cities you're working?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

I would I definitely. I think that one of the most effective ways is is like we were saying through building ADUs I think right now in Austin, that's a really effective way. And like I'd mentioned there's the alley flat initiative and then the I think one thing that's going to be a big, hopefully will be a big game changer for Austin, within this next year, is a initiative going to the city to make that a program that helps homeowners build ADUs at lower costs, and would basically make it easier for homeowners to get low interest loans and maybe have permitting fees waived for in exchange for building ADUs that are rented that are income, restricted, affordable. So maybe rent rent to someone who makes 60 or 80% of median family income, I'm sorry, that at a city level would be really effective and would would hopefully be really accessible to a lot of people. So it looks like that is is going through really well. And I'm really hopeful that that will be something that a lot of people in Austin can take advantage of.

 

Steph Douglass 

I love that idea and I think that if we can make that happen on a wider scale, because even I mean low interest loans is perfect and waiving permitting fees, and maybe even consulting with them and helping people because I know for me, it's hard to navigate the city and navigate those, those laws. So that's really exciting to me.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

And like, oh, sorry, from my understanding, it would be where it there'd be basically be a manual about you know how to navigate the whole process, but also, which would also include design options. And so it also eliminates the need to maybe hire an architect or work with someone that might be it might, it just might make it more expensive. But if you can pick from basically a catalogue of I'm sure what will end up being really great looking affordable, accessory dwelling units. I think that that in general would make it so thing that is just a lot more attainable and just, you know something that people can wrap their minds around a little bit more.

 

Steph Douglass 

Totally. That is, that's something I hear all the time is just it's it's such a huge undertaking. Like what yeah, what person do I call who what materials do I use? So that is really cool to just have options and to pick something. So I can't wait for that. But that's separate from the alley flat initiative, right?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah, so the Alley flat alley flat initiative. I'm not really sure what year they started. But that is, that is a more, that's a private initiative. So it's with UT the community powered workshop, which is a nonprofit here in Austin, and the Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Corporation. And they, they do essentially that same thing, but Because of the community developer or community powered workshop has the capacity to design and so they all work together to provide reduced fees for architectural drawings and, and I'm pretty I know that they provide decreased costs for the architectural drawings. They provide access to or help nabbit I think it's really helping navigate the process to two different financing options. But I know that they they work primarily in the east side, and I just think that as as it because it's a private organization or collaboration between organizations, it they probably wouldn't have the capacity to, to provide that help on the, you know, the same level that the city would So, right. That's why I'm really hopeful that it works out with the city but I have I definitely have looked at that at what they do a lot as more of a model to understand what the city is most likely pursuing.

 

Steph Douglass 

Okay, so you mentioned that there were people that, you know, higher income earners that are moving to gentrifying areas or Eastside, primarily in Austin. I've seen it all the time as a realtor. We work with clients to buy on the east side sometimes and we I basically, would love to hear from you, how can that still happen, but without hurting these neighborhoods?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

it's usually pretty easy to identify what types of changes are happening and I think being conscious of supporting local businesses that have been around for a long time and not just generally not going in with the mindset of changing the neighborhood, I think is one way that people their actions behind businesses that they patron and things like that kind of will shift if if you go into it planning on, on appreciating the neighborhood and respecting the neighborhood and not, and not wanting to change the neighborhood.

 

Steph Douglass 

Absolutely. I think that's such a good point. And I think that moving forward even with our buyers, helping them to become better neighbors, and just better community members in general is going to be a big focus for us. Because we love helping people pass just closing and, and that's going to be a big, big part of, of how we leave people and how we continue to help them is like join the neighborhood association. You spoke a little bit on at the meetup about HOAs. Can you speak a little bit about that? I thought that was so interesting.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah. Um, so this really actually came to mind for me a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to my brother on the phone, and we were sort of reflecting on the neighborhood that we grew up in in Houston. And we were thinking about certain amenities that were available to was through the neighborhood association that are that all the homeowners are so through the homeowners association that all the homeowners in that neighborhood were a part of, and how those contributed or really informed our, like social circles growing up. And one way was through, particularly this summer league swim team that we were a part of, and many a lot of people in the neighborhood were and we would became really close friends with people through that. And one thing we were thinking about was it was so interesting, and really disappointing to think back on. Because I don't really know in different parts of the neighborhood, how how many renters there were in some of the single family houses, but I know that there was apartment complex that the front of the neighborhood. And that was right across the street from the pool. And the people who lived in the apartment complex didn't have access to the pool because they weren't part of the neighborhood association. And I don't really know how much I thought about that. I think I recognize that as a kid and was just kind of like I didn't feel so comfortable with that. When we were talking about it, and I was just thinking about how, on one hand, I think my my biggest concern with neighborhood associations is that they don't include the voices of renters. And renters make up a huge and very important part of our communities. Anybody who's renting or anybody who's renting or owning in a neighborhood that lives there and as part of that community, and then with that, renters are disproportionately people of color. So by not including renters voices, or renters, just inclusion in whether it's amenities, or their voices and advocacy for different things. It leaves out a huge, it leaves out a lot of people of color and just a really important portion of our community. But another thing that I've been thinking about with homeowners associations is I know that a goal of many is to protect property values. And I think as a as a homeowner, I don't think that that's something anybody would not want. I think generally protecting property values is considered important. But thinking back on how that that goal has been used to implement racial policy or racist policies in the US from since when racial zoning was legal. The the reasoning behind racially zoning the cities was to protect property values. So that term comes up a lot. And so I think it's just important to think about what is being protected or why is it being protected or through what rules is that being protected? So, yeah, that's that it's not obviously to say that, that every homeowners association is protecting racist ideology at all. But I think it's just important to look at how, how and why things are being protected. And just like look a little bit more critically at that.

 

Steph Douglass 

Totally. I think that is so important. And I know that HOAs are a little different than neighborhood associations in that. an HOA is just a homeowner. And I think that's so important to point out that renters are disproportionately people of color, and they aren't allowed or they aren't aren't allowed to be members of the HOA. However, there's neighborhood associations, that I'm pretty sure that renters are able to be a part of them. If you are in a in a neighborhood association, is there something you can do to like encourage your neighbors to join? What what is what is their your the role of someone who maybe bought a house and join the neighborhood association? What is something that they can do?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Um, one model that I've looked at a lot is in Hyde Park, there's, there's the Friends of Hyde Park, and I something I've learned from them is that they have switched their voting to be online or to provide different opportunities for voting. I think that some organizations can. Another way of not including a lot of voices is not having a lot of different opportunities to vote or different, like methods of voting on different on you know, Things that will affect your neighborhood or in different ways to have your voice be heard. And so I think that's one thing that people can do is, is make sure in some way to make sure that the neighborhood association that they're a part of or neighborhood groups that they're a part of, allows for many different options and ways for people to have their voice be heard. I also think that it's it's also looking again, at friends of Hyde Park, they also include businesses, and I've just been looking at this, this one model in particular, but I think that, that in general, advocating for your neighborhood association to include as many voices that are part of the community as possible, is really important. And then so that then, together you can more equitably define or determine maybe other organizations you'd want to support or other If there's just other ways you can come together, but it and, and support the community but in a way that actually includes the voices of the diverse people in the community and diverse ways in which you are a part of a community.

 

Steph Douglass 

I love that you said, an online voting option. I know the neighborhood association that I live in right now. There's just so few people that speak for the whole neighborhood. So I love the idea and the only way to vote is to be there. And I'm sure that's common. I mean, it's a lot of times people aren't able to join or they aren't aware of so an online voting option is amazing. That's such a good thing to advocate for if you are a member of your neighborhood association.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah, that was I had heard I think one of the people who started the Friends of Hyde Park neighborhood association had initially thought to start it because when they joined the neighborhood and and wanted to join the I think it's just called the Hyde Park homeowners association. They found it difficult to have their voice be heard because of their experience with having. It was like maybe they were late to a meeting or I don't remember the exact details, but they, they found it. They found like, they felt like they were showing up to things and still were like ineligible to vote for some reason, or I'm not really sure. But I know that that was one reason why they were wanting to start a new organization that increased the ways in which people can have their voices heard, because I think I remember reading one time that they were just saying like, this is way too difficult. They've made it way too difficult for her voice to be heard.

 

Steph Douglass 

Exactly. And there's I mean, it's it can be simple as scheduling conflicts. I know. This neighborhood association meets on Saturday morning. I live in Holly and that's not always easy for people to make especially if you're on town if you are You know, working. So I think that's a really good idea. These are very, very actionable steps that people can take. And I really do. I encourage everyone out there, even if you're a renter to join your neighborhood association. It's just it's, it's really cool. And it's really I mean, you I'm sure, you know, better than anyone, but it's amazing how powerful a neighborhood association can be. Yeah. And then on the flip side, like how weak I mean, developers can just come steamroll if there's not an active homeowners or Neighborhood Association Association.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Definitely. And in Austin, there is a lot of power in neighborhoods we have. We have neighborhood plans that were created with the intention to give neighborhoods a lot of power. And so recognizing that I guess that's just something that's important to recognize. Because if if a neighborhood has that much power, but the But not everyone's voices in the neighborhood are able to be heard, then it really puts a lot of power on very few. And so I think the creation of the neighborhood plans in some ways has, there was I think there was a lot of good intention. But I think in some ways it's hurt some neighborhoods and helped others. So I think making sure that neighborhoods in general have just the voices being heard as done in a more equitable way is going to be really important.

 

Steph Douglass 

That's exciting to me just just because I think now is the time that people are really feeling very active and getting involved. And so I think this is a really good way to do it. And I, affordable housing is so important and just like the economic disparity between races is so big, especially I mean in all cities, but especially in Austin, and that is largely having to do with property ownership.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah. And I also with just kind of things to look out for if you're involved in your neighborhood organization. One thing is understanding. I know, we talked a little bit at the, at the investor meetup meetup about different ways affordable housing can be built in Austin. And, you know, we mentioned ADUs earlier, but other ones that provide or other options that provide, you know, more units like affordable housing on a larger scale is usually it's all it's pretty much all going to be done by developers. And so while there's one way in which I guess this is this kind of goes to there's a there's a common argument in Austin and probably many other places, but definitely an Austin that's very pro development or anti development. And I think when I first started getting interested in all of this, I was really surprised to see the affordable housing side being very pro development, because I think I had been kind of on this mindset of feeling pretty anti-development prior. But understanding that a huge problem that we have is lack of housing stock. But then also that the options we have in Austin to, to build affordable housing are pretty much all through developers. And so one thing is to be aware of when a development that is being proposed is either an affordable housing development or has an affordable aspect to it. And just being in support of those because the hardest thing in Austin is people are one one big barrier in Austin is is people not wanting development in general. And then that makes it really hard to build affordable, affordable housing.

 

Steph Douglass 

Yeah, that's a really good point, because it's kind of a it's very nuanced. As you said at the at the investor meetup, but there's words like development that can be really triggering and really have a bad connotation. When when you look a little deeper, that might be the answer to the affordable housing issue in Austin as an affordable housing consultant, is there a city that's doing it right?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Um, I, I don't know that I would say there's a city that's doing it right. I think Well, I think just in general, a lot of the afford a lot of affordable housing is, at least the ones that I'm more familiar with are more mandated at the state level. And so as a state, we have a lot of barriers to affordable, affordable housing. And so we use a lot of the same tools to pursue affordable housing. Yeah, so sorry, I'm not so yeah, I know about a about a particular city that would be doing it drastically different than another? If so, cities that have and I'm not super familiar with with the land use of most cities in Texas but a city that that has more multifamily zoning is gonna be better set up to pursue affordable housing.

 

Steph Douglass 

Right. And Austin has struggled with that. The multi multifamily zoning, correct?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yes. Austin has definitely stuck struggled with multifamily zoning and then also with I know that some of it is would still be under single family but it's single family three or single family like the different categories. I don't know. A couple more units and we generally have also struggled with allowing not necessarily, I think in Austin, we have either Single Family or we have huge multifamily complexes but there's not, there's not a lot of what what they what we say like in the planning world is missing middle housing. And so there's not a lot of like triplexes, fourplexes and kind of those those mid level that mid level density.

 

Steph Douglass 

Right. And if you live in Austin, you can totally see that it's like either it's a one house on on a lot, or it's like 500 unit apartment complex or condo complex. So totally that's that's so interesting now, I mean, I just feel like after hearing you speak and this conversation, I'm just gonna look at everything so differently in the city.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah, and I think that that's, that's definitely something that planning school did to me. I was just started studying land like looking at the city so much differently than I did.

 

Steph Douglass 

Totally. And we deal with zoning I mean as as realtors because if you want to build another unit, it has to be SF three like unit mentioned single family three, and the three doesn't mean three units. It's just I think it's the third. It's just like in order SF one SF to SF three. And I think SF two and one. I don't see SF one very often I am not actually sure that it exists but SF two you cannot build on another unit. And I see it often. There's so many houses that I see on the market and that my clients buy that are SF two zoned, and they just have no options.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah. And then do you see Have you seen a lot of times also where something will be maybe SF three or something else but then have zoning overlay? That Yes, that's

 

Steph Douglass 

yes from in the zoning overlay or like the deed restrictions. Is that the same thing?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Um, no, but a lot of, well, a lot of times these things work. And if it's not done in one way, it's another way. Yeah. But I think the the zoning overlay that I was thinking was more like the neighborhood Conservation District, but also deed restrictions that also don't allow for a lot of different things. Yes,

 

Steph Douglass 

I've seen some very awful things in deed restrictions, just because I believe they were they were written. I mean, years and years and years ago, when these houses a lot of these houses on the east side, were built in the 20s and 30s. And so there's definitely, I mean, some deed restrictions that have racist language and in all sorts of ways.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah, no, I, I've definitely heard that a lot. And I've heard that there's a there's a vibe of course, that's not well, some things if they are sort of implicitly racist, then they might still be enforceable, but or you know, still be impacting the, like, racial landscape, but if they are explicitly racist, they obviously wouldn't be legally, legally enforceable anymore. But it's also, I personally wouldn't want to, I would not feel very comfortable having, you know, signing or owning a house with a deed restriction that says that, you know, nobody who's not white can own this house. I mean it because it's just like, even if, even though it's not legally enforceable, it's just a really unfortunate thing to have in the deed restriction. You know, it's really like I don't want to support this by signing anything that has this sort of language in it.

 

Steph Douglass 

I know it's, it's a it's a really awful and I think the I know that it was not legally enforced. There should be something there should be a way to get those deed restrictions taken off, and I don't think that there is an avenue for that yet.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah, I like I found in one Reddit thread one time about someone who said that their uncle is a lawyer and they were able to get it off of theirs. But it was through like, connections and a lot of different, like things are like this clearly isn't something that a lot of people are able to do.

 

Steph Douglass 

Right, right. Pursuing legal action isn't in the cards for most so yeah, it's been. It's been really fascinating. I mean, obviously, gentrification has been around for years and years, and this conversation has been, like, constant and bubbling under the surface and I'm, I'm just so grateful that more people are wanting to hear about it. I definitely am learning so much. And it's it's very cool that you've chosen a path, a career path to help. I mean, many, many people in different cities have have access to affordable housing.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah, I mean, I, I, I love it. I think it's challenging, which is fun. It's, it's really cool to just, I mean, I, in the same way we're where you guys are providing education to make homeownership more accessible, but kind of going and going through, you have to be creative with how you're finding homes for first time buyers. A lot of that is pretty I feel like pretty similar to to developing affordable housing and that you just it takes a lot of creativity. You kind of have to bend the rules here and there not been the rules but but I was like I actually don't know when affordable housing but I just think that you. Yeah, I think that's it's fun. Because it's it is helping to. It's just hoping, obviously helping to house people. And, and there's a lot of there's just a lot of creativity that goes into all the different ways in which people can provide more affordable housing options. That may be specifically the income restricted, affordable, but also through, like we've talked about ADUsor through these different ways that people can can provide affordable housing.

 

Steph Douglass 

Yeah, it doesn't have to look the same as we have affordable housing in our head.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Right.

 

Steph Douglass 

I have a question that I've wondered just from seeing things come onto the market. And it was just very common in Austin for developers to offer affordable housing, but the units are like studios or one bedrooms and I just wondered, are you seeing more people doing like two and three bedroom units?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Oh, yeah. So, I mean, generally, anytime someone's going to develop, they're going to look at the type of demand. And so if there's a lot of demand in that area, generally for one and two bedrooms, and that's, that's what will be built there. But there are, there are definitely a lot of affordable housing developments that include three bedroom and some other larger, more family size units.

 

Steph Douglass 

Good. That makes me that makes me hopeful. And then this is more like, right in my neighborhood. But there's, there's some affordable housing communities right around the corner from me and at one point, they were all empty in a row. And I was just like, Oh my gosh, did they just kick out all of the people that lived in these houses and really, they we're building new ones that were higher density and knocking the older ones down to it looks like I'm really paying close attention to it, it looks like they're they're kind of doing this in a really systematic way in phases. Are you seeing that often with like older units being upgraded and moving families into newer nicer places?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah. And I wish I knew more about the actual process of the, the process of the people who lived in the in the housing that was there if there spots reserved for them in this new housing. I'm not I'm not probably changes from, you know, but with different developments, but I'm not super familiar with that process. But I do know that that it isn't uncommon for if if some type of affordable housing development has gotten to sort of at end of life cycle building wise to build, build more affordable housing and in place of, you know, on that site, I do see that. And I think it might be because of who, like maybe the city already owns that land, or other ways in which it's not on. It's not on the market. And so it's able to be restricted to affordability or to affordable housing.

 

Steph Douglass 

Okay. I've wondered this too, with with just like massive gentrification and land costs going up so much in such a short amount of time. Is the city able to sell that land ever? Or is it designated affordable forever?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Sometimes there are, there are ways in which deed restrictions are used to to determine land as affordable I mean, I don't know that it's forever but for a very long time, like they'll have, you know, maybe it's 40 years, maybe it's 100 years, they'll have a lot of times there's there's some sort of limit or not limit. But yeah, I guess restriction to that saying that, that anything built on that has to be affordable, or that's definitely a part of a lot of affordable housing developments is you have to make sure that that property, like has to stay affordable for a certain amount of time because you you wouldn't want someone building something and then, you know, maybe they got whatever incentive out of it and then five years later tearing it down and building something else. Right. Nothing affordable. So there are there are restrictions to keep that land affordable. But sometimes I think sometimes the city buys land, and it doesn't necessarily have a restriction like and so I guess they They could then do whatever they want. But I'm thinking in particular, I think trying to remember exactly how they put together Mueller, but I know that, one big thing with that was the reason it was possible was because the city owned the land. That was one way where the city was able to get really creative in how they sold or lease I don't remember exactly how they did it, but how they basically passed off the land to the entities who first like the developer and then the people the the organization that is in charge of the whole development. But the reason that they were able to get I think it's about 25% of their housing is income restricted affordable, and was because it's was originally owned by the city and I don't think that the land has has a affordability restriction on it might but i think i think it's just through other financing mechanisms out there that they have. It's a really cool development that I think I'm hopeful that that's something that the city will continue to try and like, will try to play a role on affordability in the same way that they did with Mueller.

 

Steph Douglass 

I mean, I love the Mueller development, but just the concept of it. I've had people buy two and three bedroom units in there in an affordable way. And I agree, I think it's such a good model. And I hope that there's more that that's like that everybody loves Mueller. There's so much that's walkable. It's just such a good. Yeah, it's a good model for future developments. And yeah, for people who don't know, Mueller was the old airport. And in Austin and it was the it was the major airport until Austin grew. And it just it's kind of like a relic. They still have the old flight tower. And it's cool to see. I mean, it's cool. And also kind of interesting to see that Austin really wasn't planning on growing this big.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah, no, seriously, whenever you think like, oh, the airport was right there and now it's just like that's basically like downtown.

 

Steph Douglass 

Yeah. You I mean, you're five minutes from everything. And that's, you know, our airport. Most airports are kind of out of the way. So I think it's so fascinating, but they've done really cool things with it.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

And from like, every standpoint, like it's a really cool development, from the environmental side of how they like cleaned out, I mean, the land underneath an airplane runway is not considered very healthy at all to live on, but they've done a lot of just like environmentally how they've cleaned it cleaned up that whole land and there's a lot of environmental environmental protections in that area. And then also lot like a much higher density for having still, in some areas a single family feel but also, I think that's probably the only or one of the only areas where you'll find a fourplex or that missing middle housing that I mentioned earlier. Yeah, they just have like every housing type in Mueller.

 

Steph Douglass 

They really do. I mean, there's there's really nice big single families but they're, and there's not huge yards but there's still outdoor space, there's plenty of parks, there's pools, there's Yeah, there's single families to you know, you have your 500 unit complexes, it's it's really cool and the quality of life is just so high from being so accessible to everything. So I I'm excited. I think that that I remember I in college, what What year were you in college?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Um, I graduated undergrad in 2016.

 

Steph Douglass 

Okay, we missed each other but I I graduated in 2011. And they were just starting it. The new development was just starting, and it's been fun to see it grow.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

I think that developer might be working on working with the city on another on another project in colony park or maybe the development will become colony Park, but I think it's, it's in that general area. Yes. So I'm not I'm, I think it's, you know, beginning of, you know, planning stages for that, but I'm excited about that, because I think they made a really awesome partnership in the past.

 

Steph Douglass 

Yes. And colony Park is currently called colony Park and I have had so many people buy houses there. And they're all kind of built in the late 90s. It there's so much land out there. Have you ever been east of one of the three it's a lot of space. And so it's really it's a great place. They're not displacing anything, there's no one there or there's nothing, nothing was there before they're not bulldozing anything, and they're just going to make that what is now a food desert, hopefully, a way more livable place.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah. And I think that it also will prevent because I know that obviously a big concern for several reasons is a lot of people are concerned about sprawl. I think that generally with with some development and colony park that was initially there was some concern around sprawl and how from the transportation side, like the difficulty it could, it could be to travel into downtown if people work downtown, which, obviously that would still be the case. But I think with something like if there's kind of like a new Mueller over there that provides also a lot of access to jobs that are closer just having something thing that is more mixed use so that people aren't required to go, you know, all the way into the city to like live their life.

 

Steph Douglass 

I agree. And I think then even in Mueller, there are offices for big companies. There's which makes sense. So hopefully, it will kind of create a new center.

 

Anjelica Rivas 

Yeah. Or even if it's just for restaurants or for other things that just allow people to just to live more of their life kind of in that area rather than having to drive so far for everything.

 

Steph Douglass 

Yes. How exciting. Okay, so we covered so much I'm so I'm so happy that you that you agreed to come on and yeah, we're so happy to have you as part of our community now. And is there a place where people can like find you do you want people to find you?

 

Anjelica Rivas 

I just don't use mine,

 

Steph Douglass 

Which is also fine. And what I'm going to have people do if they have questions for you, I'm going to have them emmail us. So if you have questions for Anjelica,  email us at podcast@openhouseaustin.co. Anything else? I think that's it. I'm so excited. Thank you. Thank you so much.

 

Kristina Modares 

Oh my gosh, that was such an awesome conversation. I feel like I learned a lot. And it was so valuable.

 

Steph Douglass 

Yeah, she just knows so much. And she has a really unique way of looking at buying real estate. She is really tuned into like the affordable housing side of it. So that's just like, it's it's important for us to keep that in mind.

 

Kristina Modares 

Yeah, I really loved. I think my takeaway from this was like, we need more Muellers. Like, we need more communities that have everything like they're walkable. They they offer affordable housing. There's a grocery store. There's like entertainment. And there's like a hospital. Like, how can we have more Muellers? Yeah,

 

Steph Douglass 

And like a range of housing,which you and I just talked about, kind of is like, they have large apartment buildings, but also single family homes. It was like, a very, it's I when Mueller started happening, I was living in Austin. And oh, I think I said that. It was just like, I thought it was bad because any development in my mind is like, oh bad, because that's just kind of what we're conditioned. But it's interesting to hear from Anjelica, like, not all development is bad.

 

Kristina Modares 

No, and actually, quite the opposite. development can be very good, especially for a city that is lacking affordable housing, because if you are developing more, and you kind of want a denser city, so there'll be more housing. Otherwise like prices will be jacked up. So I think I also had that mindset that development was not good a long time ago I was just like oh yeah, I think people are like oh in Austin they like oh there's another crane up you know downtown. So you kind of associate that with like, Oh yeah, there is like that's that's negative. But the thing is, like people are continuing to move here and if we don't keep developing it's just gonna it's gonna be less affordable to live here. Yeah, so it's so that was interesting. I also liked how she brought up I mean, this is kind of very local to Austin and but I don't know maybe this is for other cities as well that we're missing middle housing. So like we don't have we don't have a lot of duplex triplex fourplex situations. I think that's why me and you Steph like we we often like to teach people about the sneaky duplex, which essentially is like adding on to your house, like putting an ADU or even doing what you're doing Steph and house hacking in, in your house like you blocked off a section of your home and are renting out half of that, or the someone doesn't have to be in your house, but it's so it's kind of like a duplex in a way. Yeah, so I thought that was very true. Like, we don't have a lot of that. And we kind of need the land laws in Austin kind of restrict a lot of development in that way. And we need to be able to build more like triplexes, fourplexes. So housing can stay affordable.

 

Steph Douglass 

Yeah, denser in the closer areas to things that people need, like you said, like the grocery stores like we, if we're all very far into the suburbs are far away, then everyone's going to have to travel travel into the city for the things that they need. So I like I mean, more Muellers, but more centers, you know, like everybody right now has we're so centered around downtown, which is why the Domain is good. Mueller is good. And then we're going to see and I think we're going to Just keep on seeing these pop up, which is great because it means people have to travel a shorter distance to get to the things they need.

 

Kristina Modares 

For sure. And I think I've often told clients that what I see in Austin is we're going towards like a neighborhood city like we're doing those like little pockets where before everyone was like, I have to be downtown because that's where everything is. And as Austin grows, we're kind of like, we're having our own little neighborhoods and things are going on in there more so like more neighborhoods are having like walkability even further away from downtown. Yes, we're before that wasn't always the case.

 

Steph Douglass 

Totally. And that's the reason that everything within a mile to two mile radius of downtown is so expensive, because people want that lifestyle. But if we can bring that lifestyle into further away parts of the city, then we've been more people can have it.

 

Kristina Modares 

For sure. Like who wouldn't want to be able to like walk to public transit and their grocery store? A hospital or movie theater, whatever like that is living your best life? More affordable.

 

Steph Douglass 

Yes. I love it. Well, thank you so much for listening everyone. And again, please join the waitlist for our course should be should be out within 2020 and email us with any questions if you have any questions for Anjelica. I'm sure she would. She's just so sweet. She'd for sure be open to answering.

 

Kristina Modares 

And when you buy in gentrified neighborhoods, don't be a dick. Just be kind to your neighbors. be an advocate for people who have lived there for many years.

 

Steph Douglass 

Yes. Yes. That's a great sign off, join. Join the neighborhood association and raise people's voices. Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, thank you, everybody, and we'll talk to you guys on the internet.