Urban Design Projects Form-Based Codes

Opticos Awarded the Austin Comprehensive Land Development Code

We are very excited to announce that we have been awarded the rewrite of the Austin Comprehensive Land Development Code. This project, spanning over the next couple years, is the final “priority project” of the Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan, adopted in June of 2012. As the first code update in over 30 years for the City of Austin, it will implement the Plan’s powerful new vision to create a compact, connected, and complete community.

We are thrilled to have a strong multidisciplinary team with national and local experience. Our coding team includes Lisa Wise Consulting, with whom we partnered on many recent citywide hybrid coding projects, including Flagstaff, AZ, and Livermore, CA; Peter Park, who recently led the City of Denver through a comprehensive zoning update as Planning Director; Dan Slone of McGuireWoods, and Fregonese Associates. Our local design partners include McCann Adams and Taniguchi Architects; Cultural Strategies in partnership with Group Solutions RJW and Mark Yznaga; Robert Charles Lesser & Co. and ECONorthwest; and Urban Design Group and Kimley-Horn & Associates.

Fregonese Associates will be utilizing their Envision Tomorrow software, first debuted in Austin’s Sustainable Places Project, to provide an immediate assessment of the Code on Imagine Austin’s key indicators, such as fiscal impact to the city, infrastructure cost, housing/jobs balance, affordability, connectivity, and carbon footprint. This approach will allow us to build a very credible code that will be vested in community values and economic viability.

Many thanks to our team members for a great process so far. We are very excited to be working with the City of Austin!

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