District 5 - Ryan Alter
What is your favorite historic building or legacy business in your district, and why?
Westgate Lanes has a special place in my heart because we used to go there as a family when I was young and I just loved it. My kids aren't quite old enough yet to bowl there, but one day, I hope to make new memories with them just like I had.
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.
Yes. I supported this plan and the resources necessary to ensure it's success and I will continue in that support.
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?
We should do more to promote the historic places that aren't as well-known as Barton Springs or the Broken Spoke. We have some real hidden gems people don't know about and doing this kind of additional promotion would be a win-win for the business and the City. I love what Preservation Austin does with legacy business month, but would like to take this type of effort and expand it so we are highlighting these businesses all year long.
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?
I would absolutely be interested in supporting such a program, but given our budget constraints, would need to understand if it is possible to do it in addition to existing programs or at the expense of something else. But one thing I do know is that we cannot afford to lose these places.
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?
Likely yes, but I would be most focused on the impervious cover changes. We cannot flood our neighbors nor harm our sensitive watersheds, but I would be open to policies that increase the usage of the preservation bonus without these types of consequences.
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. We can't protect something if we don't know it exists or have documented the need to save it.
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?
I would be inclined to support such a designation, but would want to fully consider the arguments of those who disagree. I have supported historic designations in the past that were opposed by either the property owner or minority of stakeholders, and am generally disposed to preserve these areas/buildings, but will weigh all the positions before making any final decision.
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?
I would like to do more to actively program the preserved spaces we have - they shouldn't just be passive spaces occasionally visited by tourists. We have an opportunity to make these active community spaces that carry forward some of what made the buildings or their associations to history important in the first place.