District 1 - Steven A. Brown
What is your favorite historic building or legacy business in your district, and why?
My favorite historic building in District 1 is Ebenezer Third Baptist Church. Ebenezer was founded in 1875 and has stood at East 10th and San Marcos since 1885. In 1938, its Bright and Early Choir became the first African American choir to perform on commercial radio in Texas. For 150 years, it has been a cornerstone of Black Austin.
For me, it's personal. I attended Ebenezer's early childhood program, and so did my sons. So when I think about historic preservation, I don't just think about saving old buildings. I think about protecting the places where Austin families grow, learn, worship, and build community.
Ebenezer isn't a museum. It's a living institution that still shapes families and neighborhoods today. Protecting it means protecting a piece of Austin's history, and a piece of my family's history, for the generations still to come.
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.
Historic places are how a city remembers who it is. I support the plan's recommended policy changes and the budget needed to carry them out. A plan without funding is just a document.
For me, the test is whether it delivers for the communities preservation has too often overlooked. In East Austin, Black and Brown churches, homes, and businesses that anchored our neighborhoods for generations are disappearing under rising property costs and rapid redevelopment. I'll push to make sure those places get their fair share of attention and resources. Preservation is truly inclusive when it starts with the people most at risk of losing their history.
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?
Our historic places already bring dollars into Austin, and we can do more. The City's Heritage Preservation Grants, funded by hotel occupancy taxes, show what's possible when tourism dollars are reinvested in the places that draw visitors here (e.g., look at what's happening with the The Driskill Hotel).
I'd work to grow that investment and make sure it reaches beyond the landmarks everyone already knows, though. East Austin's Black and Latino heritage, from historic churches to legacy businesses like Hillside Pharmacy, is a story visitors want to hear. Heritage tourism done right keeps local dollars circulating in local businesses and gives longtime residents a stake in the growth happening around them.
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?
Yes, Austin's legacy businesses are part of what makes this city worth visiting and worth living in, and right now many of them are one lease renewal away from closing. San Francisco and San Antonio have shown that a city can step in with designation, technical help, and direct financial support.
In District 1, I've watched longtime businesses pushed out by rising rents and property taxes, and with them goes part of our history. I'd support creating an Austin legacy business program that builds on Preservation Austin's Legacy Business Month and gives these businesses the tools to stay rooted in the communities they helped build.
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?
Preserving older homes is one of the best ways to keep housing naturally affordable, and I support the goal behind the Preservation Bonus. But I've been clear about how HOME was handled. Working with East Side churches and the Givens Park Advisory Board, I raised early concerns about the lack of transparency, and I spoke at City Hall against both HOME Phases (1 & 2). In 2025, I stood against Proposition Q for the same reason:
East Austin residents felt the City was moving too fast, without enough time, outreach, or clear information for the communities most affected.
I'd support expanding the bonus where it truly preserves existing homes and keeps longtime residents in place, not where it fuels speculation. Any expansion should come with anti-displacement protections, support for longtime and heirs' property owners, and a careful look at impervious cover so we don't trade one problem for flooding in neighborhoods that already struggle with drainage. Most of all, it should be shaped with the neighborhoods it affects, not handed down to them.
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, surveys are the foundation of everything else in preservation. You can't protect what you haven't documented. The Rogers-Washington-Holy Cross district, Austin's first local historic district dedicated to Black heritage, exists because the 2016 East Austin survey did the groundwork.
Many East Austin places tied to Black and Latino history have never been fully surveyed, and some are being lost before anyone records them. I'll support annual funding for surveys and the Historic Preservation Office, with priority given to the neighborhoods changing the fastest.
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, but not without the neighborhood. I grew up in East Austin, and I’ve watched too many of the places that made our community what it is disappear. Austin hasn’t designated a single new local historic district since the state law changed in 2021. When historic resource surveys identify a district as a priority, especially one that preserves the history of communities this city has overlooked for generations, a handful of objections shouldn’t automatically shut the door.
That doesn’t mean steamrolling anyone. Every owner deserves to be heard, and designation has to be done with neighbors, not to them. That means real outreach before any vote, clear information about what designation would mean, and support for longtime and lower-income homeowners with the costs that can come with preservation. Preservation should protect our history and help families stay—not become one more thing that prices them out.
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 push for an equity review of the City's historic preservation spending: where the dollars go, which communities they reach, and which sites keep getting left out. I believe that review will show what many East Austin residents already know. Minority heritage sites have been underfunded for decades.
From there, Council can set clear targets to close the gap and make sure surveys, grants, and designations reach the communities that need them most. These sites belong to all of Austin, and every Austinite benefits when they're protected.