Some CodeNEXT changes to the city of Austin permitting process drew concern from some Board of Adjustment members during a Monday presentation about the upcoming land development code rewrite.

Under the proposed new code, conditional overlays would no longer exist and any existing land uses permitted by the city in error would not longer be grandfathered into compliance—two points of contention during Monday’s presentation.

Board members said conditional overlays were a tool used by City Council, boards and commissions to negotiate and fine-tune zoning applications. Eliminating this tool would be disadvantageous, they argued.

Greg Guernsey, director of the Planning and Zoning Department, said the one-off characteristic of conditional overlays is comparative to spot zoning and thus harmful to neighborhoods and more time-consuming for staff than necessary. However, existing conditional overlays would remain in the new code, but no new overlays will be used in the future.

“It gets down to a place where it may be questionable,” Guernsey said.

One board member said the idea that an existing use issued in error by staff could be grandfathered into compliance put his “hair on fire.”