Austin station area plans: the rezoning that ends TOD overlay status
Adoption is a rezoning, not a policy document
A station area plan is not guidance that sits alongside the zoning. §25-2-766.05(B) is blunt about it: council's approval of the plan is a rezoning of the property as a TOD base district, and once that happens the initial district regulations stop applying altogether.
So a TOD district is one of two quite different things depending on where it is in this process — an overlay sitting on top of your existing base zoning, or a base district in its own right. The plan is the hinge between them.
What the plan is allowed to do
§25-2-766.22(C) gives the plan a wide brief, and two of its powers are unusual for a planning document:
- It establishes the permitted and conditional uses, and prescribes site development regulations including maximum and minimum development parameters.
- It prescribes requirements for street, streetscape and other public area improvements.
- It may modify or waive an identified requirement of this title — that is, of the Land Development Code itself.
- It may set standards for its own administrative modification later.
- It may move or omit a gateway, midway or transition zone shown in Appendix D.
The waiver power is the one to notice. Whatever this hub says about an Austin rule, a station area plan may have identified that requirement and set it aside for land inside its district. The plan for your station is the document that governs.
| Tenure | Stated goal — outside a CPR zone |
|---|---|
| Overall | At least 25% of new housing in each TOD |
| Home ownership | Households at or below 80% MFI — 10% at 70–80%, 10% at 60–70%, 5% at not more than 60% |
| Rental | Households at or below 60% MFI — 10% at 40–60%, 10% at 30–40%, 5% at not more than 30% |
§25-2-766.22(C)(7). The ownership and rental ladders are alternatives by tenure, not cumulative. These are goals an analysis must address, not obligations on a development.
A community preservation and revitalization zone goes deeper
Where council has established a community preservation and revitalization zone, §25-2-766.22(C)(8) replaces the goal with a deeper one. The headline change is on ownership: households at not more than 60 percent of median family income, against 80 percent outside such a zone.
The overall 25 percent target is the same, and so is the requirement that what the plan contains is an analysis rather than a commitment. Note that this division does not define which land is in a CPR zone — it says only that council establishes one.
Who writes it, and who gets a say
The director prepares the plan — it is not owner-initiated. §25-2-766.21(A) then names who may participate: Capital Metro, the Austin San Antonio Inter-municipal Commuter Rail District, the neighborhood plan contact team if there is one, neighborhood organizations, business owners, property owners, and other affected persons.
Where the director proposes moving the district's boundaries, participation stops being optional: the director must allow the people affected by that modification to take part.
And the plan does not stand alone. Where there is an adopted neighborhood plan, the station area plan must be included in it, through the neighborhood plan amendment process — except that the director may propose, and council may enact, that amendment at any time, which is a deliberate bypass of the ordinary timing.
You cannot ask to change it for a year
Council may amend a plan by zoning ordinance at any time, and land owners may propose amendments at any time. But §25-2-766.23(D) stops the director accepting an application to amend until one year after the plan is adopted.
After that year, applications relating to an individual property may be accepted at any time. The effect is a quiet year in which the plan is allowed to settle, followed by an open door for site-specific changes. If the plan for your station is less than a year old, that door is shut.
Common questions
Send us an address and we will tell you what we find
We do this research ourselves on every project we take on — zoning, floodplain, watershed, trees, whether it is a legal lot. Send us an address and we will run it and tell you what we find. It works the same whether you own a vacant lot, a house you are thinking of adding a unit to, or a house you are thinking of replacing. No charge and no strings, and if it is a bad lot we will say so.
Send us an addressWe are homebuilders, not the City of Austin. This page explains how we read the code in practice — it is not legal advice and it is not an official determination. Always confirm with Austin Development Services before you rely on it for a project. The authoritative text is the Austin Land Development Code; permitting questions go to Austin Development Services Department.