Why don Big Box supercenters have a separate zoning category already?
Austin’s Land Development Code was drafted decades ago, before anyone imagined 24-hour stores over 100,000 square feet in size. If the code were written today, it would certainly include a separate zoning category for these massive boxes. Austin’s Land Development Code does strictly limit height in nearly every zoning category, to protect neighbors from inappropriate development. But despite well-documented problems with supercenters, the code makes no distinction based on a project’s “footprint” size for either the structure or the surrounding parking. It’s high time to patch this hole in the code.
