On November 21, the City Council of Austin unanimously passed the “Bird-Friendly Building Design” resolution. This resolution directs the City Manager and staff to “return to Council with updates regarding the City’s implementation efforts of Lights Out Austin, a City-wide initiative that aims to raise awareness of the risk of light pollution for migrating birds, explore bird-friendly building techniques including the impacts on cost and time on developments, and develop recommendations for amendments to City Code or guidelines to incorporate bird-friendly building standards for construction of new buildings.”
The sponsors of the resolution were: Mayor Pro Tem Leslie Pool, Council Member Zohaib ”Zo” Qadri, Council Member José Velásquez, Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, and Council Member Paige Ellis
There is still work ahead of us over the next six months to support staff as they review development code for ways to implement bird-friendly standards. The Bird-Friendly Design working group will undoubtably call upon you to be part of the public comment and process to thoughtfully craft the next steps. From start to finish this has been a collaboration of the conservation and built environment communities, and it will continue to be as we enter into the next phase.
As chair of the working group, I want to say thank you to Maura Powers and the Travis Audubon advocacy committee for contracting with Heidi Trudell to present to the boards and commissions. That action triggered the Environmental Commission to establish a working group. This is a great example of perseverance and citizen led collaborative impact.
Thank you to Travis Audubon for lending us the meeting space and for all their members who submitted letters of support. Audubon Texas, your efforts with Lights Out Texas and Bird City, have helped build the case and, more importantly, showcase solutions to save the birds. We support all of your efforts to engage more cities with bird-friendly design strategies.
A giant thank you to everyone who gave service on the twelve member working group and to those who took the time to submit a letter of support. Of course, this would not have gotten to the point of being a resolution without the support of Mayor Pro Tem Leslie Pool and her staff, Atha Phillips.
The birds get a win today because of each you!
Sincerely,
Jennifer Bristol
Author, Cemetery Birding and Parking Lot Birding
Chair, Bird-Friendly Design Working Group
Secretary, Environmental Commission
Bird-friendly Design Best Practices and References:
US Fish and Wildlife Services – Bird-Friendly Building Tool Kit https://www.fws.gov/library/collections/bird-friendly-building-toolkit
American Bird Conservancy – Bird-friendly Building Design
https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Bird-friendly-Building-Guide_2015.pdf
The Yale Bird-Friendly Building Initiative
https://bird-friendly.yale.edu/usa-policy-database
The Law, Ethics and Animals Program at the Yale Law School (LEAP)
https://bird-friendly.yale.edu/policy-report
Rethinking the Future
Timothy Beatley, The Bird-friendly City Creating Safe Urban Habitats, Island Press, 2020
