City addresses more and more affordable housing issues

Affordable Housing

City addresses more and more affordable housing issues

By Sharon Carter

Liza Ann Nevarez boldly approached the public speaker’s podium at City Hall and candidly addressed the Planning and Zoning Commissioners about the conditions her family endures while living in a crumbling home on the Creek Road property they have owned since the 1940s. 

Because of her words, at the Sept. 25 meeting, P&Z is recommending that City Council grant a city zoning ordinance variance to allow her old homestead to be replaced by a HUD-code 3-bedroom manufactured house, which is awaiting donation to her family via a private benefactor.

The property meets all the requirements for a re-zoning variance according to the city staff report, as long as expected provisions and regulations are performed. The Nevarez family has abided for generations on property now zoned as SF-1, in an old house (beyond repair or code), which has been shifting and cracking with its added rooms since the 1970s. 

“In our house, without central heating or AC, the leaking boards produced a toxic mold in the home environment, which caused my son, Benny, to be sick with asthma,” Nevarez said, who paused for a moment to suppress tears, before expressing her gratitude to the network of caring individuals that brought the attention of Dripping Springs Hometown Missions to her family.

Benny’s father (aka as Benny III) said, “I am very grateful to Gay Klassen, my son’s 5th grade teacher, because of her help last year.” Klassen noticed that young Benny IV was missing class due to his asthma, and she sought help from her church, Dripping Springs Presbyterian, and Hometown Missions, who actively began taking the steps, beginning in 2017, to acquire a new home for the Nevarez family.

  Dripping Springs Hometown Missions board members Chuck Lemmond and Robin Robinson were present at the P & Z meeting to support Nevarez. Their mission is to “help under-served neighbors acquire safe, healthy housing and improve life skills.” It is a backyard 501c3 non-profit organization made up of volunteers who are ready to help local families in crisis. They are concerned about the 25% of Dripping Springs children who live below poverty level.

The group secured the manufactured house for Nevarez, and plan to hire professionals to demolish and haul off the old one, placing the new house over the site. Kyle Dehart would install a septic system, while volunteers plan to build a porch and back landing, and then help refurbish the new home. “We hope for a 120-day turnaround,” said Lemmond.

The approved motion was made by P & Z chairman, Mim James, which allows the family to take up to a year to accomplish the task, and that the applicants be subject to conditions of the staff report. The next step for Nevarez will be to take this zoning issue before the Oct. 9 City Council meeting for approval, then acquire permits for wastewater utilities, environmental health/OSSF, and any other requirements attached to the variance.

“ I would also like to see if the city staff could come up with some simpler options for such rezoning variances of SF-1 properties, in the event that more and more requests arise--other than going down the long road of P & Z and City Council hearings one family at a time,” James said. “Options that would help generations of families remain on their land.”     

Earlier this month the DS City Council approved a request for a SF-1 city zoning ordinance variance allowing a manufactured home on a neighbor’s Ramirez Lane property: the Espinosa family has owned and lived on their land for 54 years. The neighborhood is subject to other manufactured homes grandfathered in, as well as recreational vehicles and other houses in poor condition. Families have lived there for generations. All fear higher taxes due to the high-priced building developments spreading throughout the Dripping Springs countryside.

“This addresses the true housing issue in Dripping Springs, as tracts of land become developed, putting affordable property further and further out of reach,” said Hometown Mission Board Chairman Lemmond, who has been volunteering his service to Dripping Springs since 1981. (Hometown Missions is an eight-year-old organization.)

“The question arises, and begs to solve the rising dilemma of how low-to-moderate income families and individuals can afford to live in Dripping Springs, as former ranches continue to turn into upscale subdivisions--and how a community can work together to help one another lighten this burden which faces the many whose jobs provide valuable service to both Austin and Dripping Springs residents and businesses, alike,” Robinson said.