Austin’s land use code will be a big topic of discussion today at Austin City Council.
Several proposals made by other council members are alarming to Councilmember Leslie Pool. She said some of the issues she has include increasing “by-right” entitlements on corridors within the urban core is counter to their goal of encouraging growth and density in all Imagine Austin centers. “Off to the eastern part of the city we don’t have any transit in our future plans, that’s a huge gap in our planning,’ Pool continued, “and I think we need to do something about that.”
Pool believes many of the other proposals disregard environmental safeguards and dismiss the Imagine Austin plan as a quaint notion.
Pool said the Council needs to listen and respond more to the community before taking a vote.
However on the other side of that argument stood Mayor Protem Delia Garza. Garza felt the council is already bogging down the rewrite process through marathon work sessions over the code.
She sees some on council wanting certain phrases being included in the rewrite as possibly limiting and would rather give City Staffers charged with writing the code draft more flexibility.
As for the community input, Garza said she will still sit and listen to people’s comments on the land code, but she dosn’t see the need. Garza claimed it’s the same people who show up to council saying the same things they’ve been saying for the last several years.
(Photo:Shutterstock/Roschetzky Photography)
