Austin TOD initial regulations: the rules until a station area plan lands

Everything here has an expiry date

§25-2-766.11 is one sentence and it governs the whole subpart: these rules apply in a TOD district until council adopts a station area plan.

Adoption is a rezoning — the land becomes a TOD base district and Subpart B stops applying entirely, replaced by whatever the plan says. So this is not the standard for a TOD site; it is the holding pattern for land waiting on its plan. Which of the two you are in is the first thing to establish, and it changes every number below.

Nine uses out everywhere, houses out near the platform

Nine uses are prohibited across the whole district, and the list has a clear theme — automotive sales, automotive washing, basic industry, convenience storage, equipment repair services, equipment sales, recycling centre, scrap and salvage services and vehicle storage. Land-hungry, car-dependent uses next to a rail platform. A use with a drive-in service is prohibited on the same logic.

Then the surprise: houses are prohibited too, and the closer you are to the platform the more of them are prohibited.

A maximum of 15 feet, a minimum of "the lesser of"

The maximum front and street side setback is 15 feet — another rule that pushes buildings toward the street rather than away from it.

The minimum is written unusually: the lesser of 10 feet, or the setbacks prescribed by §25-2-492. Because it takes the lesser, it can only reduce the base district requirement, never raise it. If your district already demands less than 10 feet you keep that; if it demands 25, this cuts you to 10.

These only bite on a new building, or an addition over 5,000 square feet of gross floor area, or one that grows the site by more than half.

The gateway zone asks for a proper ground floor

Three requirements apply only in the gateway zone, and together they describe a building that can hold a shop even if it does not have one on day one:

• Entrances on the principal street, and on a street with transit service if there is one.
• 15 feet floor to ceiling, for a depth of at least 20 feet, where the building is built along the setback line. Not a ceiling height for comfort — a commercial floor-to-structure dimension.
• 50 percent glass on a ground level wall facing a public street, between two and ten feet above grade, with a visible transmittance of 0.6 or higher.

The transmittance figure is the detail people miss. Ordinary tinted glazing will not clear 0.6, so it is a rule about actually seeing into the building, not about the area of the opening.

Nothing in front, and plan for your neighbour

Where a building sits 15 feet or less from the front lot line, parking is prohibited between the lot line and the building. Given the 15-foot maximum setback, that covers most compliant buildings — the effect is that the car park goes behind or under.

And a quieter obligation with a long horizon: a rear parking lot on a site larger than three acres must be designed to permit future driveway and sidewalk connections to adjacent non-residential property. You are being asked to leave the stubs for a network that does not exist yet. The director may waive it where connections are impractical, unsafe, or the neighbouring land use is incompatible.