I reported and wrote this story as a class assignment in fall 2022.
Environmental code updates hold big change for Austin
By Aislyn Gaddis
The Austin City Council is scheduled to vote on environmental updates to the Land Development Code later this month, including an increase in green space requirements and flood protection.
While city officials praised many of the changes, some said the updates do not do enough to consider Austin’s changing climate or to fix infrastructure and environmental problems in East Austin.
“We have such wonderful resources here that really, we’re lucky to have,” said Liz Johnston, an environmental program coordinator with the Watershed Protection Department, which is in charge of writing the updates.
She said she hopes everyone can “continue to advocate for continued preservation of our water resources in the future.”
The main goals of the amendments to the Austin Land Development Code are to implement green stormwater infrastructure, increase the amount of green space in the city and reduce flooding risk. The amendments also encourage developers to build more middle-sized, affordable apartments by lowering certain city requirements for smaller projects.
The updates come after the city council passed a resolution in June directing the Watershed Protection Department to draft amendments modernizing the Austin Land Development Code. The last major code update passed in 1984.
The city council has been trying to update the code since 2015, but previous drafts have failed largely due to zoning issues.
Because land development updates can be so hard to pass, some environmental commissioners have voiced concerns that the updates won’t fully address future challenges.
“Updating land development code is literally a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” said Environmental Commissioner Richard Brimer. “It’s important that anything that we do when we update it addresses the problems we’re going to have 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now.”
Brimer recommended that the updates accommodate EV chargers in new developments and make sure the required landscaping will be appropriate for Austin summers that are becoming hotter and drier.
At the Sept. 21 commission meeting, Environmental Commissioner Rachel Ann Scott recalled a time when greenery was planted in her own neighborhood.
“It looked really beautiful for about three months, and then we went through a drought, and most everything that was there is dead now,” Scott said. “It was just a complete waste of money and a lost opportunity.”
She suggested that the city should insist that plants and trees in developments be maintained. Additionally, the greenery should be native trees and plants that are “best adapted to our changing conditions” as Austin gets hotter, Scott said.
Part of the code updates are focused on lowering the current environmental requirements of small apartment buildings to encourage developers to build more affordable housing.
Many of the smaller developments will be allowed in historically minority neighborhoods and may contribute to less desirable housing still being concentrated in East and Central Austin, said
Environmental Commissioner Ana Aguirre, who worried about continuing “systemic racism.”
Many of the existing properties in these areas were built before the Watershed Protection Department required modern environmental review.
Additionally, because of historical segregation in Austin, the infrastructure—such as poor drainage systems that contribute to flooding—in these zones is already not as good or modern as wealthier parts of the city, Aguirre said.
“It’s discriminatory if you don’t provide all people the same equal environmental protection,” she said.
Aguirre recommended that environmental review of these overlooked properties be included in phase two of the updates. The second phase will address further issues such as erosion that have not been included in the current proposal. Phase two is planned to be discussed at a later date depending on whether the council passes the proposed updates.
Despite these concerns, others lauded the environmental protections the amendments provide.
Luke Metzger, the executive director of Environment Texas, cited that 36% of Austin creeks have unsafe levels of fecal bacteria and that nine dogs have died from toxic algae in the last few years in Austin area lakes.
He said that the updates will “significantly impact people in Austin by reducing the water pollution of our creeks and our lakes, helping make sure that our dogs or our loved ones aren’t made sick by swimming in our waterways.”
Not only will the updates help reduce water pollution, but they will help reduce the heat island effect and air pollution with the increased greenery, according to Metzger.
“It’ll just make it a much lovelier city,” he said.
The Austin City Council is scheduled to discuss and possibly act on the updates at their meeting on Oct. 13, after the updates have been reviewed and recommended—with their own additions—by each relevant city commission.
If passed, the updates will affect generations in Austin yet to come.
“I’m a grandmother, and when I think about decisions, I’m not making decisions just for me,” Aguirre said, “I’m making them for my kids but also for my grandchildren.”
“We need to be forward-thinking,” she said, adding environmental protections are not just for the present.
Aislyn Gaddis 