Zoning

Starting Friday, landowners can apply to split their land into smaller lots. But builders in Austin say existing regulations will likely make this hard to do.

The Save Our Springs Alliance alleged council members violated state law by not properly notifying nearby residents about exactly what they were voting on.

For the first time in 80 years, Austin's elected leaders have voted to lower the amount of space needed to build one house — down to 1,800 square feet of land.

Council members on Thursday will consider changing rules governing building height, the amount of land needed to build a house and development rules near future light-rail stations.

Last summer the City Council approved the plan that would allow a developer to build 1,400 apartments, 220 hotel rooms and hundreds of thousands of square feet of offices, shops and restaurants.

The Austin City Council on Thursday approved changes to land rules that will allow more properties to be zoned for day care services. The move is intended to help reduce costs and long waitlists.

Affordability Unlocked is a program that lets developers ignore certain building restrictions. In exchange, they must rent or sell half of the homes they build to people earning low incomes.

Austinites voted last year to reinstate a ban on public camping. In other words, voters made living on the streets a crime. Experts say solving homelessness means building or finding thousands of homes for those who don’t have them. And that housing has to go somewhere.

The hope is to allow developers to build more housing, which experts say could ease the rise in housing prices. But some elected officials worried the changes they made did not go far enough to help.

Austin City Council members on Thursday will consider this question in an attempt to allow more housing to be built.