Executive Committee Meeting Agenda October 10, 2017 (7:30 pm) at 2100 Stamford Lane

Executive Committee Meeting Agenda October 10, 2017 (7:30 pm) at 2100 Stamford Lane

Neighborhood Plan Contact Team Meeting to update NPCT ExComm membership with PHNA appointees and to discuss CodeNEXT status and consider one or more of the following actions.

1.  Send a letter to Council and the Planning Commission requesting additional time for the CodeNext process.  We’ve already sent one such letter to Council.
2. Vote on whether to support the “Communities Not Commodities” petition and efforts.
3. Vote on whether to circulate a message to our neighborhood expressing our opposition to the current draft of CodeNext.  Set forth below is a drafted message to discuss, but improvements are welcome.

Message from Central West Austin Combined Neighborhood Plan Contact Team:

“There’s no sense in shoving density where it would ruin the character of the city we’re trying to save in the first place, where it’s not wanted by its neighbors, and where we would never get enough of the additional housing supply we need anyway.”  Mayor Steve Adler, State of the City Address, 1/28/2017

Out of concern that CodeNext will damage our community, we want our City Council and staff to know that the new CodeNEXT draft and map should be stopped and reworked because the current draft will ruin the character of our Central West Austin neighborhoods by:

1. Increasing residential density to our interior neighborhoods with the proposed R3 zoning which allows 3 units for any lot over 5,000 sq. ft. — a 50% increase in houses per lot.
2. Increasing “on-street” parking in our residential neighborhoods by reducing on-site parking requirements for residential and commercial properties while increasing commercial traffic and residential density.
3. Authorizing higher-traffic businesses without adequate parking near Casis Elementary, Tarrytown Shopping Center, and Deep Eddy neighborhood, threatening the safety of students and pedestrians.
4. Inflicting environmental damage to our neighborhood’s Water Supply Suburban Watersheds through increased urban runoff and pollutants into Lake Austin, Lady Bird Lake, and our drinking water supply.
5. Increasing the complexity of our Land Development Code with new, overly complex regulations that are not fully understood by our Planning Commission and Zoning and Platting Commission, much less our community.
6. Upzoning commercial properties to permit more intensive uses that would damage our single-family neighborhoods.
7. Authorizing staff approval of development errors over building limits while reducing “interested party” appeal rights to challenge erroneous staff decisions.
8. Eliminating our Neighborhood Plan protections which preserve the existing character and integrity of single-family neighborhoods to reflect the historical nature and residential character of the neighborhood.

How to Contact City Council and Staff:

There are three important ways to let the City know of your concerns.

First, you can enter comments about the proposed zoning on a specific parcel or zoning district at the bottom of this page, https://www.codenext.engagingplans.org/codenext-comparison-map.

Second, you can let the Planning Commission members know of your concerns using the following emails: bc-Stephen.Oliver@austintexas.gov;  bc-James.Shieh@austintexas.gov; bc-Fayez.Kazi@austintexas.gov; bc-Greg.Anderson@austintexas.gov; bc-William.Burkhardt@austintexas.gov; bc-Angela.DeHoyosHart@austintexas.gov; bc-Karen.McGraw@austintexas.gov;  bc-Tom.Nuckols@austintexas.gov; bc-Patricia.Seeger@austintexas.gov; BC-Ann.Teich@austintexas.gov; bc-Jeffrey.Thompson@austintexas.gov; bc-Jose.Vela@austintexas.gov; bc-Trinity.White@austintexas.gov; bc-nuria.zaragoza@austintexas.gov

Finally, you can also contact the City Council members directly with the following group email page, https://www.austintexas.gov/email/all-council-members.

Background Information:

If you want to check out the proposed zoning for your own property, you can find your house by entering your address on the map at the following address:  https://www.codenext.engagingplans.org/codenext-comparison-map

You can then look up what your zoning code means at:  https://codenext.civicomment.org/chapter-23-4-zoning-code-0.  Look under the Section D….

And here is a map showing the new zoning for our entire neighborhood (right click and open in new window to view):

https://westaustinng.com/dev2021/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/CodeNext-WANG-Map-Sept.-2017.jpg