City Manager Spencer Cronk announced this week that Council should expect to first vote on the new Land Development Code in early December – not October, as proposed by Council in May. According to the newly released timeline, Cronk has set Oct. 4 for public release of the new code draft and zoning map. Although […]
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
Cronk names team, spells out process for land use code rewrite
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 […]
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 […]
Posted inLand Development Code
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 […]
Posted inLand Development Code
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 […]
Posted inLand Development Code
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 […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Chopped
Bueller?… Council Member Alison Alter took time from Tuesday’s work session to highlight a concern that current appointees to some city boards and commissions have been racking up absences, creating an issue of making quorum at several points. During discussion on a consent agenda item to approve some new appointments, she noted that the city’s […]
Posted inLand Development Code
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 […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Reshaping the land development code conversation
Still haunted by the misinformation battles of CodeNEXT, the Pedestrian Advisory Council passed two recommendations Monday, April 1, to help shift the land use conversation and support City Council as it takes up discussion of a new development code beginning later this week. The first recommendation is a predictably pedestrian-oriented response to City Manager Spencer […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Council lines up next steps to revise land use code
Austin City Council members came together Tuesday morning for a preliminary discussion about City Manager Spencer Cronk’s five big questions about the city’s land development code that he released in a memo earlier this month. In the wake of the death of CodeNEXT, some Council members were clearly eager to jump back into the work […]
Posted inLand Development Code
City manager presents options for a new land development code
City Manager Spencer Cronk released a memo on Friday proposing the first steps of a new process to rewrite the land development code. The memo comes seven months after City Council voted unanimously to suspend its last land use code rewrite effort, CodeNEXT, and instructed Cronk to propose a new process. Cronk’s memo outlines five key […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Planning Commission wonders what to do after CodeNEXT
CodeNEXT might be dead, but most members of the Planning Commission seem to agree that they can’t give up on making big changes to the Land Development Code. For over a year, discussion of CodeNEXT has been a standing item on the commission’s agenda. Although the commission did not always exercise its right to take […]