The city of Austin recently released a report about CodeNEXT Sound Check—a week of collaborative design between Austin residents, city staffers, planning experts and designers about how best to rewrite the land development code. The process of rewriting the code is dubbed CodeNEXT.

At a Feb. 1 meeting of the CodeNEXT Advisory Group, Matthew Lewis, project leader for CodeNEXT, said Sound Check was an insightful process.

“We think that we have the right solutions with the citizens’ help,” he said.

During Sound Check, from Nov. 16- 21, test sites were used to experiment with what certain code changes would look like on the ground. The US 183 and McNeil Drive corridor was used as an example of a highway node; six other test areas represented neighborhood nodes, major corridors and neighborhood commercial nodes, among others.

Jim Robertson, project manager of CodeNEXT, said hundreds of people attended the workshop.

“We had about 600 sign-ins over the course of six days,” he said.

Robertson presented the Sound Check report to the advisory group. In the report, members of the CodeNEXT Team, including city staffers, lead consultants Opticos Design Inc. and consultants from Portland-based Fregonese Associates, whose Envision Tomorrow regional planning suite was used to test development options during the workshop, said affordability and traffic were residents’ top concerns.

According to the report, the Austin Transportation Department’s Strategic Mobility Plan will replace the Austin Metropolitan Area Transportation Plan. The new plan will take into account how heavily trucks, cars, pedestrians and bicyclists use a street when zoning it. The new mobility plan is due for completion in fall 2017, according to the report.

The report also said the new code will play a major role in promoting household affordability. Robertson said Density Bonus programs, for example, would enable flexible building standards, such as additional height and floor area ratio in exchange for community benefits, such as affordable housing units.

The new code will also allow more “Missing Middle” housing, such as duplexes and small multifamily residences that provide more housing options, but continue to fit each neighborhood’s character, according to the report.

From March to October, the CodeNEXT team plans to release Code Prescription papers that will detail specific solutions for the city, Robertson said.

He said those papers will focus on Austin’s built and natural environment, mobility, household affordability and fiscal health—a look at the land development code in the context of financial accountability in city planning and investments.

“We will be articulating in essence what the community can expect,” Robertson said.

He said the papers would likely be presented to city boards and commissions, the advisory group and City Council.

A draft code is scheduled to be available for public review by January 2017, he said.