Directed by Austin filmmaker Steve Mims, Zoned Out: The Legacy of CodeNEXT is an independently funded investigative documentary focusing on the City of Austin’s repeated attempts to rezone our community’s established neighborhoods. It takes a hard look at the economic and political forces that fueled the failed CodeNEXT plan and that pushed for its […]

In May, the Austin City Council sent City Manager Spencer Cronk a controversial set of instructions for his rewrite of our community’s land development code, a project the local media has nicknamed “Son of CodeNEXT.” Those instructions called for the creation of “transition” zones, large areas of Austin’s single-family neighborhoods where the city council wants […]

Nicknamed “Son of CodeNEXT” by the local media, the City of Austin’s latest land-redevelopment scheme threatens virtually every neighborhood in our community. In June, we released this map showing areas of the city (“transition” zones) where local officials plan to forcibly rezone homes later this year, an attempt to “densify” Austin’s neighborhoods. That rezoning will […]

No one who drives by 4700 East Riverside Drive today would notice anything out of the ordinary. It’s just under 100 acres in size and contains a handful of unremarkable-looking apartment complexes, all built in the late 1990s and early 2000s. For the moment, though, the site is serving as ground zero for Austin’s twin […]

Last year, the members of Austin’s land-development industry were stunned when everyday Austinites rose up and forced the withdrawal of CodeNEXT, a rezoning plan that would have worsened our community’s affordability crisis and displaced scores of families from their homes. It was a temporary setback for those land developers, not a knockout blow. This May, […]