In an unconventional maneuver, four Planning Commissioners hosted an impromptu press conference Thursday at City Hall, announcing their opposition to voices critical of the CodeNEXT timeline. Commissioners Chito Vela, Greg Anderson, Jeffrey Thompson and Angela De Hoyos Hart all made statements urging the city to proceed as planned on the current draft schedule. The land […]
City of Austin Planning Commission
This commission addresses issues of land use as assigned to it by Austin’s City Code. These include the abilities “[t]o make and amend a master plan, recommend approval or disapproval of proposed zoning changes and control land subdivision within neighborhood planning areas and submit, annually, a list of recommended capital improvements.” It has sovereign authority, or the right to make final decisions on certain cases.
Posted inLand Development Code
CodeNEXT density increase could mean parking requirement decrease
The spirit of road rage sometimes goes beyond Austin’s congested highways and injects itself into debates revolving around the city’s transit problems. That angst could be felt at the Oct. 10 Planning Commission meeting, when staff presented how parking requirements would shift under CodeNEXT 2.0. In the Mobility Code Prescription paper published in July 2016, […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Commission casts aside CodeNEXT timeline
A code rewrite is by nature a precarious undertaking, where even an informal conversation can trigger a tectonic shift in the entire process. At its Oct. 10 meeting, the Planning Commission played around with the idea of shifting gears to a different timeline for CodeNEXT. “I don’t think this commission should be worried at all […]
Posted inLand Development Code
The new ‘old code’ zoning category makes waves at commission
If adopted, CodeNEXT will be a total rewrite of the Land Development Code, but as comprehensive as the revisions will be, remnants of the old code will remain. At their Oct. 3 joint meeting, the land use commissions learned about the proposed zoning category for these vestiges of the current code: Former Title 25, or […]
Posted inLand Development Code
CodeNEXT 2.0 facilitates affordable housing, but where?
The Halloween deadline for CodeNEXT’s third draft recommendations is closing in for the land use commissions, and the sense of urgency that has driven the review process thus far teetered on full-blown panic at Tuesday’s joint meeting. The new land use code’s promises, like enough affordable housing to meet the Strategic Housing Blueprint’s goals, continue […]
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 inDevelopment
Injunction granted over Champion tract site plan
Under an injunction issued Friday, the city of Austin may not move forward with issuing a site plan for a multifamily development on City Park Road at FM 2222 until there is a final judgment in the lawsuit filed by neighbors. In that lawsuit, a neighborhood group called the Lake Austin Collective Inc. alleged that […]
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 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 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 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 […]