Chris Bradford
Recent Posts
Maintaining the Status Quo
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The CodeNEXT maps are out and, predictably, hand-wringing has ensued. The City released a tool allowing one to compare the old and new zoning side by side. People have begun looking up their neighborhoods to see what has changed. Even modest changes have provoked cries that the consultants are proposing to bulldoze neighborhoods.
CodeNEXT and Parking
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I've been critical of CodeNEXT so far, so it's time to point out one of its positive changes: Parking. Take residential parking. The current draft cuts required parking by half.
Testing the transect zones: the Heritage neighborhood
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The Statesman interviewed me and Jim Duncan, a member of the CodeNEXT citizens advisory group and former head of city planning, last week to discuss how we expect the Heritage neighborhood to be zoned under CodeNEXT. Applying the proposed form-based...
A CodeNEXT Explainer, Part 1
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I have not become a CodeNEXT expert in two weeks. But after spending more time than I’ll admit reading the code, both alone and in groups, I think I can shed light on some of the regulations. In this part, I will take a stab at explaining CodeNEXT’s transect zones.
Let’s leave setbacks alone, too.
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As with the minimum lot-size changes, CodeNEXT will upend standard setback regulations that have governed SF-3 housing for decades. Current SF-3 regulations require side setbacks of 5' (15' for a street side yard), and a rear yard setback of 10'....
Let’s leave shallow lots alone
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CodeNEXT proposes doing some good things (reducing parking requirements!) but also some bad things. Two of those bad things -- and they're very bad -- are setting a minimum lot depth for single family homes and increasing the required minimum...
The Missing “Missing Middle”
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I have created a table* to show which building types are allowed in which of CodeNEXT's 13 transect zones. The highlighted rows are the "missing middle" types of housing we've heard so much about the last four years. (Click to...
Good Street Networks Do Not Emerge; They Are Designed
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The last time I blogged -- a long, long time ago -- I wrote about the extreme disconnectedness of the South Lamar neighborhood. The maps below, for example, show two points near the geographic center of the neighborhood. Although they...
Disconnectivity, Illustrated
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Last Thursday, Council adopted a resolution directing the City manager to gate a future extension of Aldwyche Drive. Aldwyche Drive is a short street in the Barton Oaks neighborhood in South Austin. It dead-ends at a vacant tract, just a...
South Lamar’s Getting a New Ped Crossing, But It’s in the Wrong Place
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South Lamar is getting a pedestrian beacon across from the Bird's Barber Shop/Black Sheep Lodge retail strip just south of Oltorf: This is one of the few places along South Lamar that has steady pedestrian traffic. The reason it has...
The Problem With South Lamar, in Two Minutes
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Last Sunday afernoon, I took two minutes of video of South Lamar that illustrate (almost) everything wrong with the street. For a relatively narrow, 3-mile long commercial street running into the heart of a big city, South Lamar does a...
AURA’s Proposal for Accessory Dwelling Units
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Last June, Council initiated a Code amendment to reduce the regulatory barriers to accessory dwelling units a/k/a "garage apartments," "secondary unit" or "granny flats." Staff has drafted a proposed ordinance that would reduce some of the sillier barriers to ADUs,...