Letters are posted as we receive them during the week, and before they are printed in the paper, so check back frequently to see new letters. If you'd like to send a letter to the editor, use this postmarks submission form, or email your letter directly to mail@austinchronicle.com. Thanks for your patience.

Dear Editor,
    Thank you for your eye-opening report "Mapping Our Transitions" ["Public Notice," News, Aug. 30] on the new land development code due to be adopted in an alarmingly short time. It is something that the city will live with for decades. The code aims to fill the gaps on affordability and public transport and replace private motor vehicle commuting.
    But there is a cookie-cutter approach that does not seem to examine if and where “missing middle” housing is really missing. Instead, it appears to assume that all "mobility corridors" lack this. It plans the conversion of entire strips of the city into high-density multifamily units. These mile-long blocks of middle-rise, high-density housing without on-site parking will line the transport corridors.
    This is irrational. Transport corridors will (realistically speaking) be serviced by buses. Buses stop frequently. They must pull out safely without cars and bicycles blocking them. In the urban core, several bus routes also overlap for considerable distances.
    If all residents of the new units dutifully ditch their cars, there will assuredly be delivery vans for various goods illegally parked. Not to speak of construction traffic while this densification is constructed …
    So unless corridors are serviced by a procession of magic carpets, the new plan will pretty certainly generate massive gridlock along the so-called mobility corridors. If they are to really work, then rather than densify without parking, the plan should freeze densification along corridors except where little-used strip malls with vast parking lots offer real opportunities for clusters of mixed residential-commercial development with bus stops.
    Finally, strange but true, water will not run uphill. Increasing permeable cover on Mount Bonnell (say) will not alleviate flooding on Onion Creek. Waller and Shoal creeks converge Downtown. Are the planners considering public gondola transit during rainy months? They should.

Dear Editor,
    I loved your article on cooking classes, and I realize you can't list them all ["16 Austin Cooking Classes to Spice Up Your Kitchen," Food, Aug. 30]. However, I think you missed an opportunity to share Freda's Kitchen with your readers. Freda's is a group of international chefs and home cooks who share their family recipes through interactive, hands-on culinary experiences for small groups. They also specialize in Iron Chef competitions run by an executive chef who used to judge on the Food Network and is currently an instructor at the Culinary Institute of America. They have been connecting people though cooking for almost four years. I hope that you will take a look at them and consider running a feature article or at least a mention in your future reporting.