CodeNEXT is the talk of the town. So it’s no surprise the main topic of conversation at the Environmental Commission meeting Wednesday evening was no different. The commission heard recommendations from the Watershed Protection Department, but took no formal action on the suggestions presented. Erin Wood, principal planner with the Watershed Protection Department, said CodeNEXT […]
Land Development Code
Posted inLand Development Code
CodeNEXT review process to get makeover
With only a few months left to provide its recommendations on CodeNEXT, the Planning Commission is talking about scrapping staff’s prescribed review process for one of its own making. “I don’t think we’re going to get where we want to get with reviewing the code if we keep doing the status quo,” Chair Stephen Oliver […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Human Rights Commission ponders CodeNEXT
The city’s Human Rights Commission is taking a look at CodeNEXT in an attempt to understand the implications of the controversial overhaul of Austin’s land development code on vulnerable populations. On Monday, the commission, which last year urged City Council to recognize gentrification as a “human rights issue,” heard from voices in support of increasing […]
Posted inLand Development Code
What does CodeNEXT mean for Austin parks?
Parks advocates hope that the ongoing effort to overhaul the city’s land development code will make it easier to develop parks of all kinds throughout Austin. On Tuesday night, the Parks and Recreation Board voted to recommend three changes to the current draft of CodeNEXT, which City Council is currently in the process of reviewing. […]
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CodeNEXT maps unveiled
The consultants hired to craft a new land-use code for the city of Austin have finally unveiled maps showing what their proposed new system of zoning would look like. But as City Council begins its examination of the proposed CodeNEXT maps, it is far from clear how closely they will resemble the final product put […]
Posted inLand Development Code
CodeNEXT, as explained to a 6-year-old
Two people – one grown, the other growing – sit in a University of Texas office. The younger one, a girl of just 6 years old, wears a gray T-shirt, pink leggings and cowboy boots, which dangle from the edge of her chair. The other, a woman, wears a blue linen top and bangles on her […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Barton Springs redevelopment changes hit a wall at the Environmental Commission
The Watershed Protection Department proposed a number of amendments to the Watershed Protection Ordinance at the Environmental Commission’s April 5 meeting. Andrea Bates, the environmental program coordinator at the Watershed Protection Department, said most of the amendments presented were cleanup items to “either clarify or increase the consistency of current code requirements,” with the exception […]
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Austin Monitor Radio: Mary Ingle and David King on CodeNEXT
Austin Neighborhoods Council president Mary Ingle and Zoning and Platting Commissioner David King join Austin Monitor publisher Mike Kanin to chat about CodeNEXT. Audio is embedded below: [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/317953109″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
Posted inLand Development Code
Creative community supporters pushing live/work CodeNEXT additions
Austin creatives are stepping up their push to amend future drafts of CodeNEXT so that the city’s future building and development road map makes specific allowances for music and artistic spaces. Dave Sullivan, a member of the CodeNEXT advisory group and vocal supporter of Austin music, has begun circulating a proposal that would amend the […]
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CodeNEXT consultants discuss the fate of conditional overlays and PUDs
Like magicians before a skeptical audience, the CodeNEXT consultants asked the land use commissioners at their March 21 joint meeting to suspend their disbelief and envision an Austin with very few planned unit developments and zero conditional overlays. Since they replaced conditional zoning site plans in the mid-1980s, conditional overlays have been used to tweak […]
Posted inLand Development Code
CodeNEXT consultants respond to accusations of dividing city
Two weeks after the Zoning and Platting Commission passed a resolution stating that the CodeNEXT draft text “provides two very different, separate codes,” the CodeNEXT consultants reassured commissioners during the joint land use work session Tuesday night that the draft does in fact propose only one code. The draft has two different types of zoning categories: the form-based […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Report inspires city leaders to look at gentrification in CodeNEXT
Two weeks ago, a draft report authored by a city task force accused CodeNEXT, the proposed overhaul of the city’s land use rules, of being a “tool of institutionalized racism.” The report, which was leaked to media outlets and reported on by the Austin American-Statesman, bemoaned the city’s failure to prevent the displacement of longtime […]