2019's Big Stories Shaping Austin's Path Into a New Decade
Never a slow news day
By the News Staff, Fri., Dec. 20, 2019
(Page 11 of 11)
Dec. 11: City Council Approves Revised Land Development Code on First Reading
It's been a big year for Austin's exhausting, fraught, but hopefully beneficial rewrite of its Land Development Code. For the first time, City Council took a vote on the revised code text and zoning map, after the better part of a decade and millions of dollars in consulting fees and staff time. On Dec. 11, Council moved the process toward completion – for real this time – with a divided 7-4 vote; fitting, as there has not really been a moment of consensus throughout the effort.
But let's go back to this spring, when Council recommenced in earnest the LDC rewrite process that had ground to a halt in 2018. In April, your pack of Chronicle News reporters set out to ask the question, "What land use code do we need to build the city we want?" The answers we got sound familiar now: a code that makes it easier to build more housing while preserving housing that's already affordable; one that puts more people near transit to increase usage of those services; and above all, one that is actually complete and usable, because people are moving here at a record clip, and they – along with the natives who might be displaced – need houses.
A few weeks later, City Manager Spencer Cronk put his first stamp on the LDC Revision when Council answered his own questions about what kind of code was needed for the city we want. Those answers were compiled into a document henceforth known as the "May policy guidance" memo, and they gave staff a clear, concrete direction with a definitive 8-3 vote by Council.
Five months later, staff revealed to the public its first draft of the revived rewrite: a land use code filled with new designations (the R4s and the RMs among the most contentious) and a map shaded with deep reds that marked those contentious codes on the edges of Austin's central neighborhoods – too far into the interiors for some, not far enough for others.
Over the next three months, tweaks were made and the same policy disagreements that were ostensibly settled in the May guidance memo continued to dominate land use debate. But now, in mid-December, LDC work is done for 2019. Council will take a second-reading vote in February and a final vote in March; unless, that is, a group of homeowners who recently sued the city have their way (see "City Sued Over Land Use Code Revision" for more). – A.S.
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