How to Learn More About the Land Development Code Revision

The Land Development Code and map that are posted on the project's main page, www.austintexas.gov/ldc, are still the Oct. 4 version; it's unclear when they'll be updated to reflect the changes that have been proposed since, and passed by Council this week. But the LDC timeline shows the revisions going to Council for "2nd or 2nd & 3rd Reading" by "Early-Mid Jan." Most of the info is on the Code Drafts tab:

Staff report PDF: This 50-page summary of the Oct. 4 first draft is a good place to start your reading about the code.

Proposed Zoning Reviewer gives a side-by-side comparison of current and proposed zoning for every lot in the city.

Code text is available as one 1,366-page file, or broken into its 12 chapters (Chapter 3 is the 500-page breakdown of all the zoning codes).

Council Criteria for Mapping Transition Areas Viewer is an interesting interactive map showing how every tract ranks on City Council's criteria for where to map missing middle residential zones.

Proposed Land Development Code Revision Timeline is on the Resources page, along with a lot of other useful info, and has been recently updated to show Council's "2nd or 2nd & 3rd Reading" by "Early-Mid Jan."

New This Month:

The city's Supplemental Staff Report #2 describes a number of significant changes, particularly to the mapping of transition areas. These incorporate the proposals in Report #1 and were adopted by Council unanimously.

Planning Commission recommendations were issued in a Nov. 22 report, available from the LDC Resources tab; staff's response is incorporated, and Council approved on consent those with which staff concurred.

Land Development Code Revision Related Programmatic Elements identifies 25-30 programs or functions that aren't part of the code, but that city government will have to start doing in order for the code to function as intended – split into the broad areas of Administration and Enforcement, Housing Affordability and Supply, Capital Improvements and Infrastructure, Drainage and Water Quality, and Parking.

On the Other Hand:

Community Not Commodity is the most prominent group in opposition to the code rewrite as it's being managed. See their take at CommunityNotCommodity.com, including a simple online form for property owners to protest their property rezoning.

Austin Upzoned: The "mom-and-pop" architectural team of Chris and Gina Allen has been doing modeling for what can be built under the various residential zones.