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 […]
CodeNEXT
CodeNEXT is the name given to the land development code rewrite process undertaken in the early 2010s by the City of Austin.
Posted inLand Development Code
Misgivings clear the way for an East Austin ADU
Doubts about CodeNEXT and a belief in the capricious nature of city staff added up to a win for the future of an East Austin accessory dwelling unit at the most recent meeting of the Board of Adjustment. Jim Wittliff spoke on the behalf of Guillermo Sach Sanchez, who owns the property at 2017 E. […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Push on at Council to delay CodeNEXT vote
Council Member Leslie Pool is pushing to further delay a vote on CodeNEXT, the controversial rewrite of Austin’s Land Development Code that is already years behind schedule. In a message to fellow City Council members Monday evening, Pool suggested rethinking the April deadline that Council had informally set for final adoption of the new code. […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Mapping CodeNEXT: Units and Height
Austin’s proposed land use code rewrite would line major city corridors with narrow strips of dense, mixed-use development zoning. But just behind those ribbons of mixed-use street design, vast swaths of Central Austin neighborhoods would remain much less dense. These two effects are brought into stark light by two new interactive maps produced for the […]
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 inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: More like Fist City
And the most music-friendly city in Texas is?… Not Austin. At least not according to the Texas Music Office and its new Music Friendly Communities program, which last week recognized Fort Worth as its first member. The program is part of the state’s effort to get cities around the state thinking and acting with musicians and […]
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 inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Oompa Loompa, doompa-dee-doo
I’ve got another puzzle for you… The “downtown puzzle” continues to, well, puzzle. At the moment, Mayor Steve Adler’s plan for downtown that includes funding for music, homelessness, and Austin Convention Center expansion using Hotel Occupancy Tax revenue and a tourism improvement district is scheduled for this Thursday’s meeting. But even that scheduling is causing […]
Posted inRadio
Austin Monitor Radio: CodeNEXT with Community Not Commodity
This week, Community Not Commodity’s Michael Wong and Barbara McArthur join Austin Monitor editor Liz Pagano to talk CodeNEXT. The discussion, which tackles the second draft of the code, how the rewrite could negatively impact neighborhoods and why the group is concerned about things moving too fast, is embedded below: Curious about how we got […]
Posted inCity Hall
Longtime Austin activists team up to petition for a public vote on CodeNEXT
On the eve of the release of the second draft of CodeNEXT, longtime Austin activists Fred Lewis and Linda Curtis threw the city a curveball related to the Land Development Code rewrite: a petition that, if successful, would put the final version of CodeNEXT to a public vote. Curtis, who now lives in Bastrop, led […]