City Manager Spencer Cronk has selected the team that will handle the creation and adoption of the city’s new land use code, with the goal of completing the process by the end of 2019. In a memo issued Tuesday, Cronk gave City Council an outline of the plan he has created for restarting the process […]
Land Development Code
Posted inLand Development Code
Mis-measured fence must come down to size, according to BoA
City code considers a swimming pool to be a backyard hazard that should be securely encircled by a solid fence – sometimes a fence that is higher than the 6-foot standard. However, a fence of increased height is only permitted if there is a structure within reach that would reasonably allow a child to hop […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Affordability Unlocked gets ZAP approval, with concerns
With a $250 million bond geared toward affordable housing, a goal to preserve 10,000 affordable units over the next 10 years and a City Council resolution seeking ways to increase the number of affordable units, city staff members brought forward a draft ordinance outlining plans for increasing the quantity of affordable housing within the city. […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Growing up: Council wrestles with competing water and housing needs
Between an invasion of zebra mussels, an extended boil-water notice due to continued flooding and the concerning results of the Atlas 14 regional rainfall study, city water problems have crowded to the surface in the months since the last land use code rewrite attempt was scrapped. Preparing to pick up where that process ended, City […]
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Council directs city staff on code rewrite
Austin City Council has spoken: It wants a new Land Development Code and map to look at and consider for adoption this year, ready to pass on first reading in October. Council voted during a special session Thursday afternoon to direct City Manager Spencer Cronk and staff to explore writing a new code and draft […]
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BoA debates fences and pool safety
Barring a handful of exceptions, fences in Austin are generally 6 feet tall. A fence may exceed that standardized height, however, if “a structure, including a telephone junction box, exists that is reasonably likely to enable a child to climb over a 6-foot fence and gain access to a hazardous situation, including a swimming pool,” […]
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Development code vote kicked down the road
City staffers are not quite in the clear to officially start work drafting a new Land Development Code. City Council was preparing to make a vote this week that would provide direction to City Manager Spencer Cronk regarding the code, but that vote had still not come up by the time Council adjourned its meeting […]
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Council to consider jump-start to small area planning
The city’s Planning and Zoning Department could be getting outside help to clear an anticipated decades-long backlog of planning documents for activity centers specified for growth in Imagine Austin. An amendment up for consideration at today’s City Council meeting includes possible use of outside consultants as part of the process to complete small area plans […]
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Council debates preservation of special zoning districts
City Council members have come to a loose consensus on the five questions in City Manager Spencer Cronk’s land development code memo. Council is fundamentally in agreement that a new code is necessary and that a zoning map should be drafted along with the zoning text for the eventual approval of both components at the […]
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Board of Adjustment grants unpermitted carport permission to stay parked
After a bitter neighborhood battle took place last month over a carport, the owner of the unpermitted car shelter was given a verdict to take down the structure that had stood for 16 years. However, the owner gave it one more fighting chance, presenting the Board of Adjustment with new evidence at its April 8 […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Bastrop’s land use revisions aim to cater to new development, while maintaining ‘authenticity’
Bastrop residents and city staff got their first look at ideas to help mitigate the city’s flooding problems at the Transportation and Drainage Rodeo on Tuesday. The community event was part of the process to update land use regulations after concerns that ramped-up development is impacting the drainage system in the growing city of almost […]
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Land development code rewrite: Council works through responses to Cronk’s memo
According to Brent Lloyd, development officer at the Development Services Department, Austin City Council has already provided the “raw material” that will be necessary to guide city staffers as they begin to take up the task of writing a new land development code this year. Council members have been drafting their responses to City Manager […]