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When Jennifer Bittner moved to the Austin area in June 2023, she feared her family would need to make frequent, hours-long trips to Houston to access specialized care for her children.

Bittner, who has three medically complex children, said specialty services were still expanding when her family first settled into the area.

“When we first moved here … [Texas Children’s] wasn’t finished yet, so we were really concerned that we’d be traveling back and forth to Houston every couple of months,” she said.

Today, Bittner’s family makes just two trips to Houston each year for care related to her sons’ rare disease. Both boys receive regular care at Austin’s Texas Children’s Hospital while her daughter receives care at Dell Children’s Medical Center in Central Austin.

For families like the Bittners, the opening of new hospitals in the Austin metro has expanded access to specialized programs much closer to home.

By the numbers: Between 2017 and 2024, Williamson County’s child population increased by 19.2%, or 26,034.

Some city officials and residents are pressing for added environmental protections and community benefits in the sprawling Dog's Head, the 4-square-mile area being primed for future development after its recent annexation into East Austin.

The details: Endeavor Real Estate Group is helming redevelopment of the more than 2,600-acre Dog's Head, largely an industrial mining area along the Colorado River, into a mixed-use district over several decades. Attorney Richard Suttle, representing Endeavor, likened its potential to a new city where developers "can almost do anything."

While billed by the city as a major boost for Austin's economic development prospects and revenue generation, recent developments in the Dog's Head have been routinely criticized by community members this spring and summer. On July 1, the city Environmental Commission unanimously asked to delay next steps in the city's approval process, launch environmental reviews and adopt a slate of ecological, building and oversight provisions for the area.

Nonprofit Emancipet is adding Saturday service to its free mobile veterinary clinic through September, offering free spay/neuter surgeries, rabies vaccines and microchips at rotating Austin locations for Travis County residents.

The nonprofit operates 10 onsite clinics nationwide, four in Travis County, and a mobile clinic that operates according to a posted online schedule. The mobile clinic also offers low-cost wellness services with the office visit fee waived on free days.

What it means: CEO Cheryl Katon said the extra day could allow roughly 2,000 more spay/neuter procedures over the three-month span.

Affordable veterinary care helps reduce shelter intake in two ways: it allows owners facing cost barriers to keep their pets, and it lowers the lifetime cost of pet ownership from an estimated $8,000 to $25,000 at market rate down to $2,000 to $3,000 through Emancipet, Katon said.

What’s next: Whether the third clinic day continues beyond September depends on the city's budget, Katon said, deferring further detail to city officials.