Late last week, the members of the Austin American-Statesman’s editorial board weighed in on Proposition J, the November ballot initiative that gives local residents the right to vote on big changes to our local land laws.

Their verdict?

“We support a yes vote on Prop J.”

That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who followed the disastrous CodeNEXT process. City leaders spent five years and nearly $10 million in taxpayer funds on the controversial land-code-revision process, but shelved it after the community realized that land developers had seized control of the plan. Those land developers had quietly shaped it into a blueprint for displacing low- and middle-income Austinites, replacing them with wealthy newcomers, and maximizing profits for builders.

If Proposition J passes this November, it will ensure that nothing like CodeNEXT happens again.

“City Hall broke trust with many residents over a mismanaged CodeNext process,” the Statesman’s editorial board wrote. “Prop J is more likely to produce the process that Austinites deserve, one that thoughtfully heeds public input—and, we hope, one that tackles revisions in bite-size pieces instead of the mouthful that CodeNext attempted.”

Proposition J is very simple. It calls for a short waiting period and a public vote before any big revision of Austin’s land-development laws (like CodeNEXT) can be implemented. It applies only to comprehensive, once-in-a-generation rewrites of those laws—so it will not impact specific development projects, incremental changes to the code, or individual programs like flooding mitigation or affordable-housing initiatives.

That hasn’t stopped the land developers who pushed for CodeNEXT from spreading misinformation about Proposition J, claiming that it will hurt the environment, for instance. (It won’t, says Bill Bunch, Austin’s best-known environmentalist.) Those land developers are getting desperate: They were planning on resurrecting CodeNEXT after the November election, and now they’re afraid Proposition J will get in the way.

They’re right. Proposition J will indeed prevent the “next” CodeNEXT, and that’s why the Statesman endorsed it.

This November, take the Austin American-Statesman’s advice. Have a say. Vote YES on PROP J!

Paid Political Advertisement by Community Not Commodity, Austin Texas.