A few years ago I pitched a couple of school board members that AISD could solve several problems at once by redeveloping AISD properties and even school campuses to offer housing to teachers, staff, city and county employees, and families with children enrolled in AISD schools.
The families would get slightly* below market rate rental housing in 3 and 4 bedroom apartment, row home and courtyard bungalow units. The district would get an infusion of young families with kids AND a recruiting and retention tool, and by offering it to other parts of the public sector AISD would strengthen interagency cooperation and open up other potential sources for financing and land. It also makes transportation more efficient, Austin would get some missing middle housing, etc.
Because, you see, AISD’s biggest problem is a mismatch between the places where the schools are (Austin) and the places where young families and teachers can afford to live (suburbs).
Anyway, one nonsensically said it seemed like “a cash grab for developers.” The other said “the neighborhood groups will burn me at the stake if I suggested something like this.”
*not subsidized or offered through rental assistance, just priced a little cheaper.