Whether it’s discarded by our city council or voters themselves, CodeNEXT is probably on its way out. So it’s time to start talking about the steps our elected officials should take after it’s gone—steps that will really make Austin more affordable and ensure its existing residents are protected from gentrification and displacement.

We have a detailed plan for making that happen, but before discussing it let’s catch up on some recent news:

 

City of Austin’s Own Documents Show Local Residents Don’t Want CodeNEXT

Austin’s city council had planned to make a decision on CodeNEXT in April, then rescheduled their deliberations for June. Now the matter has been bumped to August. Why all the delays? The answer is simple: opposition from people like you. Throngs of CodeNEXT opponents attended a series of four hearings held by the city and warned public officials not to do anything to worsen our affordability and displacement crises. According to documents provided by the City of Austin and our own review of archival video, a whopping 64 percent of local residents who appeared at those hearings did not support CodeNEXT.

If that had been a public vote, it would have been a landslide. That’s why we believe our city council refuses to allow a public vote on CodeNEXT to take place, despite the filing of a legally certified petition that demands one. That petition was signed by more than 31,000 local residents and would give Austin voters a chance to express their voice on CodeNEXT this November.

 

Court Expected to Rule on CodeNEXT Ballot Challenge Soon

A handful of the Austinites who signed the CodeNEXT petition took the City of Austin to court after elected officials denied their right to the ballot. Travis County District Judge Orlinda Naranjo heard them argue their case on July 2 and is expected to release a ruling soon.

Whatever decision she makes, it looks like Mayor Adler will stand by it rather than file an appeal: According to the Austin Chronicle, he said CodeNEXT would go on the ballot if that’s the way the court wants it.

 

Travis County District Attorney Asks Texas Attorney General to Investigate Austin’s Planning Commission

The recommendations of Austin’s 13-member Planning Commission are a legally required part of the CodeNEXT process. Commissioners are appointed by the city council, and they hold more sway with that group than anyone else when it comes to the issue of land use. According to our voter-approved city charter, no more than two-thirds of the Planning Commission may be made up of individuals with professional ties to the land-development industry, an effort to steer the commission clear of conflicts of interest.

That law is now being violated. More than half of the Planning Commission’s current members work in land development or are tied to those who do, a problem that Austin’s mayor and city council have known about (but ignored) since 2015. A group of concerned residents filed a complaint with Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore several months ago, but her office lacks civil litigators, so she referred the matter to the Texas Attorney General. His office took action last week, asking a local court to remove eight of the Planning Commission’s members.

Austin should be governed by Austinites, and it’s regrettable that our local district attorney had to reach out to the state’s attorney general to ensure the Planning Commission follows the rules. But those who have attacked CodeNEXT’s opponents for “conspiring with Republicans” don’t just have their facts wrong: They’re also putting partisan politics above the rule of law, a mindset that’s more at home in the White House than our own City Hall.

 

Councilmembers won’t be able to take CodeNEXT up again until August 9, when they return from vacation. The annual debate over the city’s budget will be in full swing by that time, along with reelection campaigns for the mayor and roughly half the council. Odds are slim that they’ll be able to approve a complex and controversial 1,500-page land-redevelopment package with distractions like those.

We recommend they instead enact this step-by-step plan for addressing Austin’s affordability and displacement crises. It calls for the freezing of all funds that are earmarked for CodeNEXT consultants but remain unspent, along with a thorough performance review of the entire process. It would require the reconstitution of the Planning Commission as per local law and accelerate the adoption of East Austin’s People’s Plan, a community-designed program for fighting gentrification and displacement that the council has already begun to address.

Only then should our elected officials begin to make changes to Austin’s land code—and when they do, they must follow the process mandated by Imagine Austin, which was approved by our city council in 2012. That means City Hall must assess the adequacy of the existing code when it comes to the preservation of neighborhood character, promote any new code’s consistency with neighborhood and area plans that have already been adopted, and preserve affordability and the ability of current residents to stay in their homes.

Until then, let’s keep fighting for policies that protect our community and against those that do nothing but enrich land developers and other special interests.

Together we can build an Austin for everyone!