In 2012, Austin began the process of rewriting the city’s land-use regulations. The project came to be named CodeNext, and it has been mired in controversy, animosity, and finger-pointing ever since. While detractors have raised numerous points about the process of developing CodeNext, they haven’t questioned the principles underlying it. And those principles are the…
I have previously written, albeit briefly, about both the economic and moral aspects of opposition to Austin’s CodeNext. The debate over the city’s proposed new land-use regulations is an example of the gang warfare that permeates modern American politics. On one side we have developers and their lobbyists. On the other side, we have community…
In the last post, we briefly examined the contradictory goals of some opponents of Austin’s proposed new land-use regulations. The opponents support regulations that limit density and impose other controls on developers that add as much as 40 percent to the cost of new housing. In this post, we will examine the moral component of…
For the past five years, the city of Austin has been working on a revised land-use ordinance called CodeNext. The ordinance has grown to 1,500 pages and is attracting a great deal of controversy. Opponents have organized a petition drive to submit the plan to voters. One group opposed to the the new ordinance, Community…
In November 2015, the Austin City Council passed a temporary moratorium on new licenses for Type 2, non-owner-occupied short-term rentals (STRs). A few months later, the moratorium was made permanent. At the same time, the city prohibited “assemblies” of more than six people between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., effectively banning backyard cookouts and birthday…