Tack another couple hundred thousand dollars onto the bill for the city's massive land development code rewrite, but file this one under postage stamps.

In all land use cases—zoning changes, variances, etc.—law requires the city to mail notices to all surrounding property owners, informing them of the date and time of the case's public hearing to offer residents a chance to provide input or gain a deeper understanding of how they could be affected by the proposal.

CodeNEXT—the city's overhaul of the land development code— proposes to change every zoning designation across the city, and mailing notices to all property owners within city limits is not cheap.

Austin City Council granted the $200,000 request from the Planning and Zoning Department on Thursday to fund the 700,000 public notices that will be sent to property owners across Austin when the CodeNEXT draft goes in front of the city's sovereign land use commissions—Planning Commission and the Zoning and Platting Commission—in August.

Alina Carnahan, public information officer at the Planning and Zoning Department, said the next phase of CodeNEXT will play out like a citywide land use case

The $200,000 postage cost, combined with the payroll for the team of project consultants, brings the total bill for CodeNEXT to $6.7 million.