Dripping Springs to address affordable housing

DRIPPING SPRINGS — The city of Dripping Springs is working to address the need for affordable housing for residents.

On April 4, Dripping Springs City Council adopted a resolution declaring a need for a regional housing authority within the city limits and authorized an agreement with the Texas Housing Foundation. THF is a Texas Regional Public Housing Authority that was established as a tool to create, develop, acquire, administer, manage and provide services to affordable housing projects through business entities and for the residents and communities in which they are located.

“The communities are crying out for it [affordable housing] across the entire state,” said Mark Mayfield, president/CEO of THF. “We started with 100 units and now we have almost 7,000. We go in and address affordable housing issues in communities across the state. Since the city of Dripping Springs does not have a public housing authority, then they can through this resolution, allow the Texas Housing Foundation to exercise its authority as a public body within your jurisdictional boundaries. We can begin to address the affordable housing needs here.”

THF currently has agreements with Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Williamson and Llano counties.

This is not the first time that the city has tried to address the affordable housing issue. It was brought up before in 2018.

“There was not a specific reason it didn’t move forward,” said council member Taline Manassian. “We were just trying to get familiar with it in general … It was informational [and] we did some due diligence. My memory, I thought we were going to act on it and I don’t know why we didn’t. I think it just sort of fell off. Then, the world changed. I think everybody liked the idea; we were fact-gathering and we got distracted.”

Council member Geoffrey Tahuahua said that this is just the first step.

“The way I view it is this is the first, initial step and really any future projects are probably going to come back to us anyways because we are essentially agreeing to authorize their existence within the city limits,” he said. “It’s in the county and it’s probably going to require multiple agreements. We will see where it goes.”

Mayfield confirmed that if they propose a project, it goes through the same process as any other development, meaning that this is not the only time it will be before the council.

“I am really excited about this opportunity,” Mayfield said. “It’s time to go to work.”

For more information about the THF, visit www.txhf.org/.