CodeNEXT Draft 3 Release Punted to February

Word is out: CodeNEXT draft three won’t arrive on Nov. 28. A new deadline’s set for three months from now: Feb. 12, 2018. Zoning & Platting Commission chair Jolene Kiolbassa relayed the news tonight from project executive lead Greg Guernsey.

Guernsey’s notice comes 24 hours after Tuesday’s joint meeting of the ZAP and Planning commissions, in which he actually shot down Kiolbassa’s question about a rumored extension on the final draft of the land use rewrite. Rumors bounced around the city this week that an extension was in the works, but Guernsey stayed mum, both with the commissions' and our inquiries. On Wednesday evening, Kiolbassa gave word that she’d received a voicemail from Guernsey breaking the news. She said he acknowledged his misleading response at Tuesday’s meeting, but wasn’t at liberty to announce the extension at that time. According to Kiolbassa’s updated timeline, PC and ZAP will most likely take action on CodeNEXT’s final draft in March, sending it to Council by April, hopefully.

Staff have spent the past two months citing Nov. 28 as the release date for draft three despite calls from stakeholders and city commissioners for more time to get things right. Kiolbassa said the City Manager’s Office will release a memo with more information on the extension on Thursday morning. Here’s hoping that includes an explanation of why staff decided to delay the release, and what they hope to achieve with that extra time.

This news of course arrives 50 minutes before the beginning of Thursday morning, when this week’s issue goes online with a story about everything leading up to the extension. Check "CodeNEXTension?" for that, or your local newsstand.

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For more on CodeNEXT, see also this week's "Point Austin" and "Public Notice" columns.