Page 10 - 2022 San Antonio Housing Forecast Magazine

Young People are the Future of the Home Building Industry
Thank You 2022 Housing Forecast Partners
Kristi Sutterfield GSABA Executive Vice President
As we look back on 2021, we are proud to share that your association members accomplished a lot in the political and regulatory arena despite the pandemic. It wasn’t an easy year by any means, but it was a productive one.
Your Government Affairs leadership team has been extremely involved on the local, state and national levels by meeting and working with local council members, state legislators and our elected officials in Washington, D.C. We continue to strive for certainty, expediency and cost-efficiency for each issue we champion on all three levels.
We are grateful to have a seat at the table with the City of San Antonio on issues that involve single family building, remodeling and construction. Our relationship with Michael Shannon and the Development Services Department (DSD) team in San Antonio continues to thrive. We were able to give substantive input and effect change on the Good Night Ordinance, we are engaged on the Unified Development Code (UDC) as well as the adoption of the 2021 Codes and much more.
Our City Team program continues to be highly effective, and we have had success with several initiatives in the cities that our Builders,
Remodelers and Members are working and building in. We still have challenges in a few cities, but our team leaders are diligent in breaking through barriers and improving the overall permitting and inspection process. We are also very involved with CPS Energy and have a strong working relationship with their executive and construction teams.
The 87th Legislative Session kicked off on January 12, 2021, with three special sessions called by the Governor. The third special session ended on October 19th. The priority of the third special session was to create new boundaries for U.S. Congressional and state legislative districts which determine who will represent Texans in federal and state government for the next 10 years. Governor Abbott signed the new map into law on October 25th, but numerous lawsuits have been filed arguing that the maps fail to account for the explosive growth of Texas’ minority population.
On the State level, codes took center stage with re-districting and we are happy to report that, thanks to the Texas Association of Builders (TAB) along with the local associations lobbying efforts, we were able to pass HB 3215 which provides a new flexible, and verifiable compliance pathway for the state energy code. We will be conducting energy and building code training in 2022 so please visit the GSABA calendar in the 2nd and 3rd quarters for a list of training dates that will be held in conjunction with the City of San Antonio’s DSD.
At the federal level, we met with several members of our Congressional delegation and 2021 President Ed Berlanga was involved in conference calls with Senators Cornyn and Cruz last year. We have weighed in on our supply chain issues, stayed very involved with the code making process and have provided testimony and letters of information and requests for support on the costly lumber tariffs. The March primaries are coming up and several of our strong incumbents are up for re-election.
Staying engaged with our members and being relevant and a trustworthy resource to the Cities and Counties we build and remodel in remains extremely important to the Association. In my many years as a leader for non-profit builder’s associations, I have never been contacted more by the media and homebuying public as I was in 2021.
As always, your support of our Political Action Committee and your personal contributions make a huge difference and the 3PAC event in October helped us raise over $20,000 for pro- housing candidates and incumbents on the local, state and national levels. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the San Antonio Builders PAC. We can’t do what we do without your financial support.
Thank you for attending the Housing Forecast today and for your membership. We are here to help you in any way!
Warm Regards,
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2022 HOUSING FORECAST