The VMU Overlay and ECC Neighborhood

The recently passed Design Standards Ordinance that offers special incentives for projects that meet the requirements for Vertical Mixed Use (VMU) developments.The city has recently notified the ECC Neighborhood Planning Team and other planning teams across Austin that we have 90 days to opt-in and/or opt-out of these requirements for specific properties in our neighborhood.

Since VMU is a big, complex topic, I'll break the subject down into multiple entries:

• What is VMU?
• Why Does the City Care about VMU?
• How Does the VMU Overlay Encourage More VMU Development?
• What Areas of ECC are Affected by VMU?
• What Does the ECC Planning Team Need to Do?

For more details, see the recent Austin Chronicle article on VMU, but please note that it gets the commercial corridors in our neighborhood wrong: Cesar Chavez is not listed, but 5th and 6th street are.