The Austin Monitor had an article about the Planning Commission meeting on Tuesday where Planning and Zoning Director Greg Guernsey said that single-family occupancy would remain 4 unrelated adults as it is now, but then Nuria Zaragoza had him clarify that under T3 zoning a duplex + ADU would have multifamily occupancy of up to 18 unrelated adults.
The article is at https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2017/09/single-family-occupancy-limits-drop-back-four-codenext-second-draft/ but is behind a paywall. (The Austin Monitor is an excellent non-profit source of high-quality local news and I encourage you to sign up for their daily email and a pay subscription.)
The key part of the exchange is:
She proposed a hypothetical scenario under CodeNEXT T3 Neighborhood zoning where a site had a duplex in the front and an accessory dwelling unit in the back. Guernsey clarified that the standard occupancy limit for a single-family residence would no longer apply, because the site would be considered a multifamily product.
“So the occupancy limit of four would no longer apply to T3 sites that were developed to the entitlements of the code?” Zaragoza asked.
“That’s my understanding,” Guernsey said, “but I would need to go back and look.”
Zaragoza said that would mean that any properties currently zoned Family Residence (SF-3) that would be rezoned to T3 Neighborhood under CodeNEXT could see an occupancy limit jump from four to as high as 18. Guernsey confirmed her logic, but he also said that there were additional occupancy limits based on building size.
This clearly has big implications for Heritage and also undermines our CodeNEXT proposal to have greater density along our corridors in exchange for T3 zoning in our interior with an occupancy limit of 4. I’ll be following along and providing updates.