Blood, Sweat, Tears, and the LDC

Dear Editor,
    The Austin City Council voted last week to base the Land Development Code rewrite on city staff and consultants’ Draft 3 of CodeNEXT. A universal criticism of CodeNEXT was that it was too driven by city staff and consultants. Virtually everyone on Council acknowledges that the city needs to rebuild trust among the citizenry. Much of the past mistrust was directed toward city staff and consultants. How does using city staff and consultants’ Draft 3 as the baseline for the LDC rewrite not perpetuate those problems? The Planning Commission I once sat on took months of public comments on the LDC rewrite. After intensive deliberations in marathon meetings, we recommended amendments to Draft 3. Council should trust the Austinites it appoints to serve on its boards and commissions. The hard work done by us and the Austinites we heard from should not be cast aside. Those amendments should factor into what the next iteration of the LDC rewrite looks like. Doing otherwise does a huge disservice to Austinites who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into rewriting the LDC.