The Austin Independent School District Board of Trustees has hedged its bet on passing the largest bond in the district’s history by asserting that it will not raise the tax rate. At its Sept. 25 meeting, however, the board was confronted by many non-believers who accused the district of intentionally misleading the public about the […]
Joseph Caterine
Posted inWhispers
Save East Austin Schools Group protests school bond
Braving the rain outside Austin Independent School District’s Sept. 25 board of trustees meeting, Save East Austin Schools held a press conference protesting the 2017 school bond. Speakers accused the AISD board and district of racism and perpetuating inequality through the bond by singling out schools east of I-35 for consolidation. Because of this inequity, […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Will CodeNEXT help protect against the next big flood?
When Hurricane Harvey inundated Houston last month, the city’s flood mitigation deficiencies came under fire. In Austin, the Halloween Floods of 2013 and 2015 raised similar questions about Austin’s infrastructure, so commissioners at the Sept. 19 joint land use meeting grilled consultants and staff on how the second draft of CodeNEXT would improve protections before […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Commissioners poke holes in consultant’s housing capacity predictions
Austinites would like CodeNEXT to solve a lot of the city’s problems, and the housing crisis is chief among those problems. At the Sept. 19 meeting of the joint land use commissions, John Fregonese of Fregonese Associates claimed that the second draft of CodeNEXT would put enough carrots out on sticks to surpass the goals […]
Posted inLand Development Code
CodeNEXT 2.0 is here, but supplemental materials are missing
At the Sept. 19 joint land use commissions meeting, the dazzling presentations detailing the new aspects of the second CodeNEXT draft could not overshadow supplemental information that was missing. Commissioners expressed frustration with city staff and consultants who they said had not followed through on prior requests for supportive data. The Planning and Zoning and […]
Posted inAISD
School district drums up support for upcoming bond package
In its campaign to get inform voters about most expensive school bond in Austin’s history, the school administration has counted on the age-old aphorism that seeing is believing. Last Thursday, the Austin Independent School District hosted a media tour of three facilities in an effort to illustrate to the public how a bond can revitalize […]
Posted inPlanning
Commission recommends East 12th stay on urban renewal course
No speedometer exists for the vehicle of urban renewal, so the Planning Commission at its Sept. 12 meeting had to rely on guesswork to decide whether sections of the booming East 12th Street corridor should maintain their current pace of redevelopment or if they should be slowed down to accommodate one adjacent neighborhood. In the […]
Posted inZoning
Rezoning denial may not matter after CodeNEXT
When the world (of the current Land Development Code) is coming to an end, a single property zoning decision can seem insignificant. At the Zoning and Platting Commission’s Sept. 5 meeting, commissioners denied what one Northwest Austin community perceived to be a threat to the character of their neighborhood. But commissioners warned the unsuspecting residents […]
Posted inDevelopment
Rezoning denial could mean east side showdown
Planning commissioners took a united stand Tuesday night by voting to deny a rezoning application for an east side property that contains the former Montopolis Negro School. The case has drawn controversy as it has moved through other city commissions, thanks in large part to the strong opposition of community members. Property owner Austin Stowell […]
Posted inZoning
Rezoning applicant loses rematch with neighborhood
A property owner expected different results at last Tuesday’s Zoning and Platting Commission meeting when making the same rezoning application for a Northwest Austin property. The zoning had been previously cut down by City Council, and the commission decided to stick with Council’s prior ruling for its new recommendation. “I feel like you didn’t get […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Council gets preview of CodeNEXT 2.0
Many of the answers amounted to “wait another week,” but City Council was able to pry some information about the second draft of CodeNEXT from consultants and staff at a special called meeting Wednesday. One of the main criticisms of the first draft was its hybrid nature, which proposed, for the most part, a form-based […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Single-family occupancy limits drop back to four in CodeNEXT second draft
There is a two-sided nature of the CodeNEXT drafting process. On the one hand, staff and third-party consultants meticulously work through the details of the new land use code on a daily basis. And, on the other, the land use commissions receive updates and weigh in every couple of weeks, resulting in some significant changes […]