Five years ago, the city of Austin set out to develop the first major rewrite of the city’s land development code in 30 years. The new code, named CodeNEXT, is the city’s answer to crucial issues such as diminishing natural resources, household affordability, and transportation. However, in a recent interview with Austin Business Journal, Jackson Walker partner Pamela Madere revealed the code still needs work.
“There are substantial issues in all of those chapters that still need to be addressed. It’s important to get this right,” Pam said. “It doesn’t matter how dense zoning is if you can’t build it based on other sections of the code. And, currently, that would be the case.”
Pam, who chairs the Real Estate Council of Austin’s Board of Directors, shared that the Austin Planning Commission ran out of time to examine certain environmental, transportation, drainage, and legal aspects of CodeNEXT. The current draft, released in February 2018, underwent numerous public hearings with the Planning Commission from April 28, 2018, to June 2, 2018, and is now under deliberation by the City Council.
For more information, read Austin Business Journal’s “RECA: Current CodeNext draft extremely lacking, would make Austin ‘less affordable, less sustainable, more sprawling.’” A subscription is required to view the full article.
Meet Pam
Pamela Madere is a partner in the real estate and land use section, representing clients before state and local governments. Pam develops strategies for clients dealing with real estate contracts, zoning, subdivisions, site plans, development permits, development agreements, easements, condemnation, Municipal Utility Districts, environmental matters, water and wastewater regulations, and traffic issues. Pam is an adjunct professor at the University of Texas Law School, where she teaches a course on negotiations, and is Board Certified in Personal Injury Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. She is actively involved with the Real Estate Council of Austin, the Central Texas Commercial Association of Realtors, the Texas Association of Defense Counsel, and the State Bar of Texas.
