Meet Kirk Watson, the former — and potential future — mayor of Austin

With his wide grin, easy twang and penchant for short-sleeve button downs, Texas State Senator Kirk Watson seems like the type of politician who likes to court his voters over beer and barbecue. But Watson is not just a gladhanding good-old-boy: As the former mayor of Austin, and Democratic member in the conservative state senate for 13 years, Watson has proven to be one of the state’s deftest Democrats, a bridge builder capable of representing a blue dot in a red sea.

Before getting into state politics, Watson served a term as mayor of Austin from 1997 to 2001. In City Hall, he famously united environmentalists and real estate developers as the city experienced a tech-fueled boom. But the city he hopes to lead once more has changed since the early aughts. Austin’s population has grown by 45 percent since 2000, according to U.S. Census data. Home prices have risen acutely, making housing the pre-eminent issue in this year’s mayoral race. Watson has built his career around finding consensus, but Austinites may not be interested in a bridge. They want an affordable house, and facing off against Watson is a self-declared “Realtor with opinions.”

State Representative Celia Israel, who sells homes when the state legislature is out of session, carries support from the Austin American-Statesman, as well as some of the city’s larger pro-development grassroots groups like Friends of Austin Neighborhoods and AURA.

Both candidates agree that housing is the key issue of the race and call for easing restrictions on development to meet the city’s astronomical growth. Watson leads the race in endorsements and cash, and has received donations from some of the city’s top real estate development firms. But with very little daylight between the two on matters of housing policy, the race has become one of vibe as much as substance. With just one week until Election Day, it’s anyone’s race. Will Austin’s former mayor also become its future mayor, or will the city choose to chart a new path?

“Two words: Kirk Watson”

Watson was born in Oklahoma City and graduated from Baylor Law School. After working as a civil litigator for 17 years, he ran for mayor of Austin and won at a time of extreme growth for the city. Just one year into his term, Fortune Magazine named Austin America’s best city for business, a surprise for one of Texas’ most heavily regulated cities.

“What happened?” wrote Robert Barnstone, an Austin real estate developer and former council member, in Texas Monthly. “Two words: Kirk Watson.”

Growth in a city tends to polarize its denizens into conservationist and expansionist camps. The former want to preserve what drew people to the city; the latter wants it to grow to accommodate the new population. In his time as mayor, Watson played both sides.

“He’s turned environmentalists into developers and developers into environmentalists,” Bill Bunch, a member of the pro-environment Save Our Springs Alliance, told Barnstone.

Watson used the powers of his office to promote the city’s growth as a regional tech hub. He expedited construction permits and roadbuilding so that Dell could build a plant in Northwest Austin. He also boosted housing development. When locals balked at a proposal to bring a large retail development to Triangle Park, north of the University of Texas at Austin campus, Watson urged the developers to add a residential component. The project was soon approved, even as its bulk grew to twice the size of the original proposal.

During his mayoralty, Watson championed an approach to development he called “SMART Growth.” The program, supported by real estate developers and environmental groups, encouraged dense, center-city development as opposed to the sprawl that characterized the growth of Houston and Dallas.

Under SMART Growth, the city established “desired development zones” in East Austin close to the city center and away from the prized Barton Springs watershed. Critics argue that, by shifting incentives and development toward low-cost urban districts, it led to the gentrification of historically Black and Latino East Austin.

After one term, Watson left to run for state attorney general against Republican Greg Abbott. He lost the race, while Abbott went on to become Texas’ Governor.

The cash race

Watson holds a major lead in the fundraising battle.

In the first half of the year, the Watson campaign reported raising nearly $1 million, according to election filings. From July through August, the Watson campaign reported $200,000 in campaign expenditures and $821,000 other cash raised.

Some of that support has come from real estate. In the first half of this year, Watson received donations from 23 employees of Endeavor Real Estate, the Austin development powerhouse behind the Domain. William Ball of Kemp Properties bundled $2,400 for him, and Scott Flack of Live Oak bundled $4,500. Will Nichols, a partner at Stream Realty Partners, another leading Austin developer, also threw Watson some cash.

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Celia Israel’s real estate support is limited to several small-dollar donations from local broker types — $50 here, $25 there.

Zach Faddis, president of Austin urbanist group AURA, said his members voted overwhelmingly to support Israel over Watson.

“Celia is the only candidate who would advocate for the structural changes to our laws around housing that would fix our current crisis,” Faddis said. “Kirk will do what he feels he can on the margins, but is not willing to stick his neck out to fight for the significant changes that need to happen.”

Reform vs. revolution

At a recent candidate forum hosted by AURA, the two leading candidates gave the best look yet at their housing priorities.

“You have people wanting to come here, and yet supply doesn’t meet demand,” Watson said. “We have a broken process for being able to get housing on the ground.”

Both candidates agreed that the city needs more housing and that its zoning code is out of date, but Watson was more measured, while Israel advocated for sweeping change.

“We are treating a 300 unit complex the same way we treat a fourplex,” Israel said. “We are a system that’s gotten used to not building and not moving quickly.”

A key difference is that, while both want to build more housing throughout the city, Watson was more amenable to focusing development on “appropriate” areas. As an example, Watson pointed to the land around Lake Walter E. Long, a 1,200-acre lake surrounded by 2,500 acres of parkland. He called for transforming the area into a mixed-use, master-planned community that would connect to downtown by Capital Metro’s proposed Green Line.

Israel wants to focus instead on downtown development. “It drives me crazy to hear people continue to refer to outlying areas and the so-called ‘eastern crescent,’” she said. “It’s overlooking the obvious, which is we’ve got a transit system and an arterial system that is not being fully utilized right now.”

The difference extended to their views on reforming the land use code.

Watson calls for a more piecemeal approach to zoning and development code reform. As mayor, he would allow council members to propose district-specific land use codes so that those who want to encourage more development could get it done without waiting for citywide reform. Districts that implemented pro-housing policies would qualify for an “affordability annuity,” which could be spent on parks, pools, libraries, displacement prevention or rental assistance.

For more than a decade, Austin has been debating CodeNEXT, a sweeping overhaul of the city’s land use and zoning codes that would encourage more density and development. But after years of community input and drafting — a process that has burned more than $10 million — CodeNEXT has stalled in the face of intractable local opposition. Mayor Steve Adler, formerly a supporter of the reform, in 2018 asked the Council to end CodeNEXT and restart the process.

To supporters, the policy is a way to get around the city’s land-use paralysis. But critics argue that without a means of overcoming local resistance, parts of the city will not pull their weight in housing production, and that will hurt the entire city.

“We can’t just view our neighborhoods as these sort of isolated areas that are not part of a larger community that we have to be a responsible part of,” said Roger Cauvin, treasurer of Friends of Austin Neighborhoods, the pro-housing group that has endorsed Celia Israel.

No matter who wins, there’s still the question of whether he or she will have the time to pass anything significant at all. This race’s winner will secure only two years in City Hall, as Austinites voted in 2021 to switch the mayoral election schedule so they fall on years with presidential elections. That means whoever wins will have to stand for another election in 2024 to secure a full four-year term. Passing an overhaul of the land development code will take serious political capital and risk alienating a not-insignificant number of voters, something a mayor almost instantly forced back on the campaign trail will certainly notice.