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Planning Department outlines timeline for station-area, downtown and district planning work
Summary
Staff from Austin’s Planning Department briefed the commission on a schedule of long-range planning initiatives including potential council adoption of North Lamar and South Congress station-area plans, a downtown historic resources survey, an industrial study and ongoing district planning work.
The Planning Department presented an overview of multiple long-range planning initiatives and expected timelines, including station-area visions, downtown studies and district-level planning.
Sarah Kalik (referred to in the meeting as Miss Leek), an officer with the Planning Department, told the commission the department expects potential City Council adoption in May of the North Lamar and South Congress transit center station-area vision plans. She said the department anticipates completing a downtown historic resource survey and an equity overlay study by July, and an industrial land study by September.
Kalik also described work expected by year’s end on urban design guidelines and an update of the Great Streets plan and standards. Longer-running projects include the Northeast District plan and the East Riverside Corridor vision update, which the department expects to keep active over the following year.
Kalik said additional initiatives remain in scoping because they require cost estimates or more policy direction: updates to Imagine Austin, the Greater 78702 initiative, a Downtown Austin Plan update, a transfer-of-development-rights analysis for historic buildings, a district-planning framework and an update to the Crestview transit-oriented development plan.
Commissioners asked about the agriculturally focused neighborhood study (a council-mandated resolution), density-bonus program timing and how district planning boundaries will be set. Kalik said staff are coordinating with the city’s demographics team and will use census tracts and other data-driven boundaries to help define district geographies and projections for planning work. She said density-bonus code amendments are tracked on a separate timeline and that staff may return to council with a resolution this summer to guide how density-bonus programs and equitable transit-oriented development overlays should interact.
The presentation was informational and did not require a vote.
