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Environmental Investment Plan Public Hearing
March 27 @ 6:00 pm
The Austin City Council passed a resolution on Feb 15, 2024, directing the City Manager and the Joint Sustainability Committee (JSC) to develop recommendations for an Environmental Investment Plan that will provide funding to close the gap between currently available resources and what is needed to implement the many ambitious sustainability plans and achieve the environmental goals that the city has adopted.
The JSC has created a working group focused on this topic and will host a public hearing at 6pm on March 27 in the City Council chambers to get input from the community. Members of the public will be able to speak in person or remotely for 3 minutes each and are also encouraged to share written suggestion via this form.
Please email rohan.lilauwala@austintexas.gov by noon on Wednesday, March 27 to sign up to speak remotely. In-person speakers can sign up at the meeting as long as there are still speakers in line.
The JSC also welcomes recommendations from other city commissions. Because the JSC will need to vote on final recommendations at its April 24 meeting, it will best be able to incorporate ideas that are shared with the commission by the end of March.
Projects, programs, and investments will be prioritized that:
- Reduce carbon emissions
- Decrease water usage and improve water quality and detention
- Advance the sustainability of City operations
- Improve community resilience
These project ideas can come from the following city plans:
- Austin Climate Equity Plan
- Austin Water Forward
- Watershed Protection Strategic Plan
- One Austin: Climate Resilience Action Plan
- Austin Strategic Mobility Plan
- Austin Resource Recovery Comprehensive Plan
- Austin Energy Resource, Generation and Climate Protection Plan
- Austin Parks and Recreation Long Range Plan
- Austin Parks and Recreation Land Management Plan (Recommended Land Management Strategies and Climate Vulnerability Analysis)
- Austin/Travis County Community Wildfire Protection Plan
- Central Texas Regional Air Quality Plan
- Austin/Travis County Food Plan (under development)
Providing the following information will help move your recommendations forward:
- General Scope / Description
- Identification of which Plan and goal within the plan it aligns with
- Timeline
- Approximate Cost
The intention of this effort is to go beyond business-as-usual spending or incremental annual progress. We are tasked with identifying the delta between our current trajectory and fully meeting our council-adopted environmental goals. Focus on proposals where we can easily defend how an investment would achieve the goal. The final product delivered to Council in May will be a full menu of projects and programs with costs that could be funded in various ways to move the needle on climate change mitigation and sustainability in the next 5-10 years. Council will then work between May and August to match projects with available funding sources.
