Planners and other people associated with the CodeNEXT effort were shocked to learn Monday that John Fregonese had died, and they passed this information on to the Austin Monitor. Fregonese and his associate, Alex Steinberger, were leading the effort to understand affordable housing and housing capacity as it interacts with land use regulations. Fregonese was well known in Central Texas before the CodeNEXT effort, in part because he was the lead consultant for Envision Central Texas. Evidently, Fregonese indicated that he was ill and that he would not be back in Austin two or three weeks ago. Prior to starting his firm, Fregonese Associates, in 1998, Fregonese was director of community development for Portland, Oregon, and before that he had the same title in Ashland, Oregon. The lead consultant on the project is Opticos Design Inc.
Jo Clifton is the Politics Editor for the Austin Monitor. More by Jo Clifton