District 9 - Katie Kam
What is your favorite historic building or legacy business in your district, and why?
I can’t choose just one. My first thought: The UT Tower building for several reasons. First, I love how it has served as a distinctive landmark that also communicates information to onlookers based on the colors on the building: full bright orange? Something big happened! All dark? Let's pause and remember loved ones lost. Fireworks? Congrats graduates! Second, I grew up in Austin and one of my favorite places to hang out was the Life Sciences library inside of the tower building. Third, it is the type of distinctive building that when seen in real life, video, or print, people automatically think: Austin! My second thought: I love the old North Loop area (with Epoch, Monkey Wrench, I Luv Video, vintage shops, etc); that is a slice of the Austin I fell in love with in the 90s and I’m so glad it still exists, fully intact.
In 2024, Austin City Council adopted the Equity-Based Historic Preservation Plan to replace Austin’s 1981 historic preservation plan with a more inclusive, community-oriented vision for the City’s preservation program. Its proposed policies, programs, and tools aim to protect Austin’s unique heritage and shape an equitable, inclusive, sustainable, and economically vital future for all. The plan's future success will rely on buy-in from Council to execute its recommendations.
If elected, would you support the plan’s recommended policy changes, and the budget allocations needed to support them, to ensure that the future of preservation in Austin is proactive, collaborative, and accessible to all? Please explain.
An enthusiastic yes, with the tasks for Goal #10 being the KEY set of changes to make asap to strengthen historic preservation efforts. I support additional staffing and we can do that now by directing hotel occupancy tax (HOT) revenue to develop city ambassador staff positions focused on historic preservation tourism with overlapping tasks for continued development of historic preservation office.
Historic places play a significant role in Austin’s economy. South Congress, the Paramount Theatre, and Barton Springs are beloved to locals and tourists alike, as are legacy businesses like Broken Spoke, Cisco’s, and the Continental Club. These places support local jobs and local dollars in addition to embodying our local heritage. They define our identity and make Austin a destination in so many ways.
If elected, how would you leverage historic places to generate economic benefits for Austin?
Two ideas come to mind. First, I was recently at a forum where a representative from Visit Austin said they produce great commercials to attract people to Austin but that Austinites do not get to see those videos since they are shown in other places. I think Visit Austin should have those commercials shown in Austin as well since many Austinites are not necessarily aware of the wide variety of legacy businesses. To be fair, we should balance support for legacy businesses with promotion of new businesses and "middle aged" businesses :) Second, we need to market ourselves like Mexico City does. The proposed Austin Convention Center needs to be stopped because that is consuming an obscene amount of HOT revenue for the next 30-40 years for debt payments and annual operating subsidies (the centers never make a profit). Texas tax code allows for HOT to be used for promotional programming and a cultural venue (i.e., visitor information center) and we should pursue those with HOT by promoting the historic places. I elaborate more in the next question.
In 2023, City Council officially proclaimed October as Legacy Business Month in honor of Preservation Austin’s inaugural Legacy Business Month passport program, which encourages Austinites to support participating businesses and broadly promotes their heritage. The city’s explosive growth has made protections and financial support for legacy businesses more important than ever. City governments in San Francisco and San Antonio have adopted ground-breaking legacy business programs to protect and support their cities’ legacy businesses through designation, education, and directly supporting businesses with financial resources.
If elected, would you support creating a similar program for the City of Austin? Why or why not?
By stopping the Austin Convention Center project, then a big pot of money (hotel occupancy tax (HOT)) opens up for historic preservation, including for legacy business promotion and support. Here's how: the Texas tax code allows HOT to be used (without a % limit) for promotional programming and for the creation of visitor information centers (i.e., cultural venues). An interactive/immersive exhibit about Austin's legacy businesses in the cultural venue would generate visitor interest in going to the legacy businesses. For instance, a standing exhibit on dance venues in Austin would explain the origin story of each and how each of them differ. HOT revenue can also be used for public transportation services for visitors so a service could be offered to take visitors to the legacy businesses. I had this type of experience at the Nashville Country Music Hall of Fame where I started a tour there and then took a bus (with a tour guide narrating) to the RCA recording studio B (where Elvis and Dolly Parton recorded). Though the studio was not a business, it was an amazing experience and I could see that replicated, for instance, taking visitors to the Broken Spoke and to the old Threadgill's site (revived) on North Lamar to see where Janis Joplin played. We need that HOT revenue back for Austin's culture, not subsidizing corporate events. Austin has lost its "Keep Austin Weird" local economy, especially along South Congress and IH-35 frontage road (where it is being expanded). We need to go big with Austin's culture, not with empty convention space. Otherwise, historic preservation will always compete for limited tax revenue sources.
Preservation Austin, Austin Infill Coalition, and AIA Austin partnered on a Preservation Bonus that City Council adopted as part of HOME Phase 1 in 2023. The bonus exchanges increased development entitlements for preserving single-family homes built before 1961 to preserve more naturally affordable, historic-aged homes while supporting density. Since the adoption of this tool, however, fewer than 10 residential infill projects have used the Preservation Bonus. Research conducted by Cedar shows that expanding entitlements for Preservation Bonus projects, such as increased impervious cover and allowing four units per lot, could generate 10x as many housing units as the current bonus allows, and save more historic-aged houses from demolition (see report HERE).
If elected, would you support increasing entitlements for Preservation Bonus projects to preserve existing housing and support Austin’s affordability goals? Why or why not?
Considering the historical preservation plan goal #5 (support environmental sustainability), I recommend that HOME be revised to be a neighborhood special use (only applied to property selected during a neighborhood planning process) that is ONLY an option if the existing home is preserved for a period of 10 (or 15, 20, etc) years or more (enforced by restrictive covenant) and the new homes are designed and integrated on to the lot to appear as an extension of the neighborhood in design/character. In other words, rather than a preservation bonus, we turn preservation (and neighborhood planning & design) into a requirement before being able to use HOME. This new proposed approach will address ALL of the concerns that have been raised about HOME (lack of neighborhood input, displacement, loss of naturally occurring affordable housing and neighborhood character, and impacts on drainage and tree canopy). Consideration of any increase in impervious cover limits must be done within neighborhood and watershed planning efforts. Reliance on small in-ground on-site detention ponds to manage increased peak flow is problematic because of no oversight for maintenance so neighborhood drainage infrastructure would need to be sufficient assuming no on-site detention.
Historic resource surveys inventory historic neighborhoods and make recommendations on buildings and districts eligible for historic designation. Accurate and up-to-date surveys enable City staff, elected officials, and citizens alike to make decisions about which properties and neighborhoods ought to be protected. For example, in 2020, the Rogers-Washington-Holy Cross neighborhood successfully became Austin's first local historic district dedicated exclusively to Black heritage. This effort relied on data gathered in the 2016 East Austin Historic Resource Survey to define the district's boundaries and identify contributing structures. Without this survey, this historic district may not have been possible.
If elected, will you support annual funding for historic surveys and the City’s preservation office? Please explain your answer.
Yes I will support annual funding for historic surveys and the City's preservation office and will also want the efforts amplified by students and teachers at Austin ISD, Austin Community College, St. Edward's University, The University of Texas at Austin, and Concordia University so students have real world historic survey investigations. I'm a former Austin ISD teacher, and a program like that would be a dream way for teachers to connect their students to the community. I will encourage pursuit of grants and augmentation of efforts by Austin historic preservation and philanthropy organizations. I want the survey to also be proactive in identifying likely "future" historic preservation needs, such as homes and neighborhoods that do not meet the age threshold but that are showing signs of historic importance as they approach the qualifying age. That effort will allow for proactive efforts to prepare for their potential historic preservation.
Local historic districts, established by City Council through historic zoning overlays, are one of the most important preservation tools available to protect Austin’s historic and cultural resources. The City of Austin’s existing historic resource surveys include recommendations for designating dozens of new local historic districts across our city. Proactive zoning efforts for historic districts are the most effective way to protect heritage in a city changing as rapidly as ours. Before 2021, a simple majority of City Council votes was required to establish a local historic district as long as 51 percent of all property owners within a proposed district’s boundary approved. Since 2021, however, state law requires a supermajority vote by Council to designate a local historic district if just one property owner within the proposed boundaries objects. Austin currently has only 8 local historic districts and has not designated a district since state law changed.
If elected, would you support the proactive designation of local historic districts that the City’s historic resource surveys identify as priorities? Would you do so even if a minority of property owners object? Why or why not?
Yes, I would support the proactive designation of local historic districts and this is needed more than ever as Austin has lost a noticeable amount of our historic fabric with the current Austin City Council. I would be a part of the required supermajority vote needed to create the historic district. Since I am a civil engineer, I see private property rights differently than someone who thinks the city should not require historic designation when a property owner disagrees. I know that every property depends highly on the citizens of Austin to pay taxes to support water, wastewater, drainage, lighting, and street infrastructure to reach properties. The property has value because of the citizens paying taxes and the city building and maintaining the supportive infrastructure. Therefore, if the citizens elect representatives that want historic districts, then the citizens have a say as well.
As a member of Austin City Council, what is one policy or initiative you would enact to ensure the preservation of our city’s historic and cultural heritage?
Stop the Austin Convention Center project. The state law caps historic preservation at 15% of the hotel occupancy tax (HOT) revenue but does not cap use of HOT for creation of a cultural venue (i.e., visitor information center) or city ambassador positions. Rather than a convention center on the site, we should build a cultural venue that celebrates Austin's past and present in writing, film, music, art, dance, theater, historic buildings and institutions, green building, and food that serves as a launch point and hub for exploring Austin's cultural heritage within the venue and in Austin. The cultural venue will reinforce Austin's marketed reputation as live music capital of the world and be the anchor for historic preservation efforts around the city.