Hello Contact Team Representative,
On Friday January 13th I sent an email to contact team members stating, among other things, that Neighborhood Planning Staff were bringing forth a proposal to the Planning Commission’s Codes & Ordinances subcommittee to change the Neighborhood Plan Amendment section of the City's Code 25-1-801 through 25-1-811 I understand that the proposal to remove the February and July neighborhood plan amendment application window, by allowing submittals year round, has created some controversy and caused great concern to some of the contact teams and their members.
I want to share with you the outcome of the Subcommittee meeting and what will happen next with regard to the proposed changes.
At the January 17th Codes and Ordinances Subcommittee meeting, a code amendment was not initiated regarding the neighborhood plan amendment process. Instead, the Subcommittee directed staff to present the proposal to the Neighborhood Plan Subcommittee. This meeting will be held on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at City Hall. 6:00pm Executive Session Room.
The public is welcome to attend all PC Subcommittee meetings. Since these are not “public hearings” like the full Commission meetings are, public comments are taken at the discretion of the subcommittee members. While staff cannot speak for the commissioners, I can say that this subcommittee typically is receptive to input from Contact Team members.
The reason staff is proposing changes is because inefficiencies have been made apparent in the Neighborhood Plan Amendment Process and staff would like to create a more efficient process for the contact teams. Staff will provide a report that presents the current issues and potential solutions. The staff report will be released once we have sent it to the NP Subcommittee. At the Subcommittee meeting staff hopes to receive guidance from the Subcommittee on how to proceed forward.
You can view the subcommittee meeting agenda and staff report several days before the meeting on the City’s website at:http://www.austintexas.gov/
Since I sent the January 13th email, I have received a few emails with your comments. However, I have seen on the ANC listserve many more of your concerns. I am glad to hear your opinions on the matter and want to encourage you to email or call me directly with your questions or concerns.
Some of what I have heard follows:
- Eliminating the window will result in being hit with rezoning applications every day and the process is already burdensome.
- This is another example of City staff attempting to change policy, which they have no authority to do. We need to keep our amendment windows; it is much more efficient and keeps us from meeting to death.
- Many neighborhoods were no doubt just very recently informed of this proposed code amendment and perhaps have yet to meet, let alone take a position.
- Perhaps the city could provide this survey as it was distributed and all the responses?
- Can someone please explain to me why other Contact Teams are OK with being forced to consider Plan amendments year round? Am I missing some sort of potential Neighborhood friendly upside here?
- …what does the neighborhood get in return to balance what is lost if the plan amendment windows are removed and neighborhoods have to deal with ongoing zoning and plan amendments throughout the year?
- I think we need to ask staff exactly what they are trying to accomplish and whether something else will achieve the desired result without putting neighborhoods at risk of constantly dealing with zoning and plan amendments.
- 27 survey responses from a group of 417 survey recipients is not representative.
And finally, I would like to remind you that in on April 29, 2011 I sent an email to contact teams asking them to take a survey about the proposed changes. Perhaps I could have sent a follow up email to contact teams reminding them of the survey deadline (May 13, 2011) but I interpreted the low response as a sign that contact teams didn’t have a preference to the questions being asked of them. In the future, I will be more diligent in any attempts to get feedback from contact teams.
I look forward to future conversations and hope that open minds will prevail as we move forward. As always if you have any questions or concerns feel free to contact me.
Margaret
Margaret E. Valenti
Senior Neighborhood Planner
Contact Team and Education Coordinator
City of Austin
Planning & Development Review Department
505 Barton Springs Road, Austin Texas 78704
Please note: E-mail correspondence to and from the City of Austin is subject to open records requests
