City Council, AISD Board adjourn for summer with work left to do
BY NICK BARBARO, FRI., JUNE 30, 2017
And so the doldrums begin. Both City Council and the AISD Board took care of business this week (sort of), and are now on their summer hiatus, heading into July without the pre-holiday fireworks that might have been expected from their final meetings.
…
On a brighter note (??), City Council got some unexpected news Wednesday, in the very last of their seemingly hundreds of special meetings, work sessions, and briefings on various aspects of CodeNEXT, the land development code rewrite: You know all that code and mapping you’ve been trying to decipher for the past months? Well, never mind all that; we’ve got a whole new idea, that’s a lot simpler and more intuitive, and won’t use any of the terminology and definitions that you’ve been struggling over in the first draft of the code. Umm, thanks, but where was this a year ago?
It was an idea first rolled out in the joint Planning/Zoning and Platting Commission meeting the evening before, and it has met with considerable, if guarded, enthusiasm: Having heard the public feedback that the first draft code was too complex, and its split between “transect” and “non-transect” zones too stark and strange, staff and consultants have indeed taken that to heart.
The result came in a truly bizarre presentation from Opticos consultants Peter Park and John Miki – the first half explaining how the transect and non-transect zones will be formatted to look more similar to each other; the second half explaining that they’ll be doing away with the transect and non-transect zones and code altogether, and replacing them with a new unified set of codes. It was as though they didn’t come up with the idea until after they’d already done the first half of the slide show. Indeed, Planning and Zoning Assistant Director Jerry Rusthoven confirmed, “This is an idea that just came up in the last couple of days.”
It’s a radical enough departure that all concerned took turns restating the proposition in as simple terms as possible, to make sure Council understood the import of what was being proposed: Acting City Manager Elaine Hart wanted to make clear: “As we move forward in the draft, we will not see the transect and non-transect codes.” And Rusthoven repeated that the new draft will “not maintain the transect and non-transect zones” and will “get rid of the nomenclature of T zones and non-T zones.” Replacing them will be a simplified list of R1 through R4, each allowing the indicated number of residential units by right per lot, plus RM1 through RM6 for increasingly dense multifamily residential. The idea is so new that “we haven’t had a chance to tackle the commercial zones” at all, said Rusthoven. With few clues to work on and given the general distaste everywhere for the first draft, Council gave the new direction their blessing, and sent the planners off to figure out what it consists of by August.
So of course, what everyone’s talking about as the second draft – or version 2.0 – will functionally be more like a first draft of a new code, with discussion and revision now to be compressed into a much shorter time frame, and as yet no plans for another public comment opportunity for the largely rewritten draft. And I guess we’re all okay with that, too.
In their last half-hour, Council settled all questions regarding neighborhood plans, small area plans, parking, flooding, environmental issues, infrastructure, and Imagine Austin. And everyone went home happy.