Public Draft of Austin’s CodeNEXT Land Development Code Now Live!

After intensive public outreach, diagnosis, and drafting, the City of Austin recently released the public review draft of its CodeNEXT Land Development Code. As lead consultant for the project, Opticos introduced the code to the public at a meeting of the City’s Code Advisory Group on February 1st. (Teaming partners Lisa Wise Consulting and Peter J. Park were also on hand to unveil.)

Missing Middle Housing Close Up: Carriage Houses

Calling all small-scale developers and entrepreneurial homeowners: make Smart Growth happen right at home and provide a little space for grandma. It’s happening across the country, and we look at why.

Five Reasons Demand for Walkability is Growing Across America

To continue our discussion of walkability, today we’re taking a look at the some of the leading reasons behind the growing demand for walkable community design across the country.

The West Leads the Nation for Percentage of Households That Walk & Bike

The U.S. Census Bureau added new questions to the 2013 American Housing Survey to determine how many American households use public transit, walk, and bike as a means of transportation, how often, and how convenient it was. The Bureau also collected ...

Dan Talks Missing Middle Housing on Strong Towns Podcast

Opticos Principal Dan Parolek is at the Congress for New Urbanism’s annual conference in Dallas/Fort Worth this week, where he sat down with the Strong Towns podcast to talk about urban planning in the Bay Area, how to retain the ...