[KevinFromTexas]

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/ne...-land-use.html

Chamber: Want to tackle traffic? Tackle land use first

Sep 21, 2016, 2:55pm CDT

Michael Theis
Staff writer
Austin Business Journal

Chief among those suggestions: a focus on Austin's CodeNext process, a dramatic but delayed overhaul of the city's land development code. In a subsection of the report titled "Land Use (The Original Sin)", the Chamber notes that the number of rush-hour commuters has increased 21 percent over the past 10 years. The vast majority of those rush-hour commuters are driving alone — and an increasing number come from the suburbs.

"Mobility and land-use planning are intimately linked," reads the report. "Outward expansion and demographic growth are not concerns per se. However, a low-density development scheme in which land uses are strictly segregated is ill-suited to the task of managing Austin's immense population boom."

In its report, the Chamber recommends that the city adopt a "form-based" land development code to replace the current "use-based" land development code. A "form-based" code regulates development based upon the physical character of a building or neighborhood, whereas more traditional "use-based" codes regulate development activity by the type of activity that is expected to take place on a given parcel. It also argues that these form-based codes would allow the development in Austin of a wider variety of "missing middle" housing options — such as what a middle-income household might be able to afford.