As Austin grows, the need for more housing grows as well. With that goal in mind, there was a recent overhaul of Austin’s land development code. The first draft of the new code was released at the beginning of October, and it determines what can be built where throughout the city.
The Austin City Council has a goal of increasing the housing capacity by 405,000 units. The current draft of the new land code would create capacity for 397,000 additional housing units in the city in the next decade, just a few thousand housing units shy of the council’s goal.
This is also a vast improvement from the city’s current land code, which only has a capacity of 145,000 additional housing units over the next decade. The newly proposed land code focuses on bringing middle housing to high opportunity areas and expanding affordable housing bonuses to more places across the city.
If you’ve been exploring Austin and are curious about where these 397,000 housing units would go and if they would be in outside areas that are inconvenient to visit, that’s not the plan! It is said that the new code’s housing capacity is within a half-mile of transit priority networks and activity centers and corridors. In fact, a lot of the additional housing capacity is planned for the Central Austin district.
While achieving the housing goal is top of mind, council members are taking a look at how the new codes, bonuses, and developments will impact already established single-family residential areas. The next steps for the new land code include public testings, open houses, public hearings, and rewrites until the land code is approved by the city council.
Central Austin and the surrounding areas are already seeing a lot of new developments, so we’ll be watching the new land code closely to see how this will impact the future growth in Austin. If you’re curious about what this could mean for you and your family, contact Prism Realty. We keep our finger on the pulse of the city to keep you in the loop on how new projects can impact your home and neighborhood.
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