Committee on People with Disabilities urges Council to mention group homes in land use regulations



Thursday, July 11, 2024 by Chad Swiatecki

City code changes that could affect the regulation of group homes for seniors and people with disabilities prompted the City Council to make further adjustments to the land development code.

The Mayor’s Committee on People with Disabilities voted last month to approve a recommendation to re-establish some basic guidelines for group homes that were eliminated or weakened as part of December’s HOME initiative.

The changes in question are intended to remove limitations on how many unrelated people can live in a home based on the classification of a single-family home, making it easier to expand co-housing options for college students.

The rule change also removed definitions of two types of group homes that are typically operated as for-profit businesses, raising concerns from local disability advocates that Austin rules and Austin Fire Department inspections of safety and operations would be called into question or that qualified facilities providing medical care would not be accepted.

The committee urged the council to require conditional use permits for group homes in single-family residential districts with between seven and 15 people, reinstate licensing and inspection requirements for homes with seven or more unrelated adults, and remove language about third parties providing food to residents.

The commission first heard about the impact to group homes at an April meeting, when Planning and Zoning Commissioner Betsy Greenberg suggested group homes with up to 15 residents could pop up in the city with little regulation or oversight.

Pro Tempore Mayor Leslie Poole, who spearheaded the policy proposals for HOME and HOME 2, said Greenberg is using the group home issue to stoke opposition to HOME’s larger efforts to increase housing density. She said group homes are subject to the city’s building codes and that the city retains the authority to inspect and regulate these businesses to ensure the health and safety of residents.

Poole and his staff said similar changes have been made in other cities across the county and that eliminating or loosening occupancy limits is necessary to address high housing prices and discriminatory practices.

“We’re simply moving the building code items out of the zoning chapter. They still exist, but they’re in a different part of the code. That’s basically what’s happening,” she told the Austin Monitor in April.

The agenda for the commission’s Friday meeting does not include any action related to the group home issue.

Photos are published under a Creative Commons license.

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