Would you like to have a little more say in the revision of Austin’s Land Development Code? The city is collecting input from residents to confirm that assumptions about the area such as development costs, rental/sale prices and market conditions that it used to develop CodeNEXT’s Affordable Housing Bonus Program are accurate and up to date. The program allows developers to construct more units in exchange for setting aside a percentage of on-site units for low-income residents. The models that it used to determine the appropriate percentage of affordable units to require were based on those area assumptions. Visit the Affordable Housing Bonus Program website to find the form where you can view the information the city and its consultants used to make their models and develop the program and suggest alternative numbers if you see fit. The city is also collecting ideas for ways that developers could meet their affordable housing requirement other than by requiring on-site affordable units; the link to that input form is on the same website. The deadline for providing input is Aug. 20.

Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo, who represents City Council District 9, has been working for several months to gather signatures so that she can run for a third term. She told the Austin Monitor that she intends to file those signatures with the city clerk around noon on Tuesday. Council members are allowed to run for two four-year terms, and Tovo has had just one. However, she also served for three years on the previous Council before voters decided to elect their representatives by districts. Tovo will probably turn in significantly more signatures than the 3,500 needed to get her name on the November ballot. Her opponents are Danielle Skidmore and Linda O’Neal. Skidmore, a transgender woman with an engineering background, has gathered significant support from the tech community, while O’Neal appears to be a less-than-serious candidate. O’Neal filed her campaign treasurer designation on July 2, and that document shows that she does not intend to raise or spend more than $500 on the race.

Meet Her Hands, the annual collaboration between the Boss Babes ATX art nonprofit and the Elisabet Ney Museum, is wrapping up this summer’s series of Texan women artists with a showcase by conceptual artist Cindy Popp. Popp shared a description of her work on the Facebook event for the opening of her exhibition: “As Cindy Popp, I use found objects, clothing and makeup to transform myself into anyone I want and my empty home into an audience. Finding examples of women—particularly women of color—using makeup and fashion to take control of their own image in a way that isn’t meant to be attractive to men can be very hard to find and I want to fill that void. I’m interested in an exaggerated version of femininity, with notes of pop culture and drag. My influences are fashion editorials, makeup artists on Instagram, B movies, clowns, and comedy. I always want my photos to be imperfect, indulgent, and a little gross.” The opening reception will be on August 9 at 6:30 p.m., with complimentary refreshments by Austin Cocktails, and it includes a museum tour at 7 p.m. and an artist talk at 7:30 pm. The museum hosted two previous exhibitions in the series: one by animator and illustrator Alie Jackson and one by documentary photographer Deborah Valcin. The event is free with an RSVP, available here.

At the July 18 meeting of the Environmental Commission, City Case Manager Sherri Sirwaitis informed the commission that Circuit of the Americas is preparing to develop 1,037 acres at 9201 Circuit of the Americas Boulevard. This planned unit development (PUD) will consist of 852 acres of commercial space, 186 acres of mixed-use space and 248 acres of open space. According to Sirwaitis, the amount of open space that is allocated in the PUD design is 10 percent above minimum requirements. In order to execute the design, Sirwaitis said that the project applicant will be “requesting to seek 10 modifications to the land development code requirements.” Modifications will relate to critical water quality zone crossings, critical environmental feature setbacks, impervious cover, slopes, and cut and fill. Michele Lynch with Metcalfe Wolff Stuart & Williams, who was representing the applicant, said that although there is currently no formal proposal, “we’re hoping to submit the formal application in late August or September.” Commissioner Andrew Creel asked Lynch to return with a master plan that outlines the project in more detail so that he can better see how much the proposed development overlaps with current development. “There’s a lot of impervious cover out here on the site as it stands now,” he said. The project will return to the Environmental Commission for review in several months. City Council will receive a briefing on Aug. 9.

This weekend, all of Austin is invited to the groundbreaking for the new Montopolis Recreation and Community Center. Not only will ground be broken, as a city press release reports, but the public will also have a chance to see a photography exhibit by Rene Renteria and help select which images will become part of the new center. Speakers will include U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, Mayor Steve Adler and District 3 Council Member Pio Renteria. The new center will include youth development programs, a gym, a boxing and fitness room, and health education. Construction is slated to continue through spring 2020. The groundbreaking will take place Saturday, July 21, at 9 a.m. at the current recreation center, which is located at 1200 Montopolis Drive.

Electric vehicles are getting a new boost in visibility within the city now that Uber is working with Austin officials on the city’s Smart Mobility Roadmap and bringing its electric vehicle pilot program to town. Uber will now provide information in their drivers’ newsfeed about Austin Energy’s Plug-In EVerywhere network of charging stations available throughout the city. Uber passengers too can participate and will receive a notification when they are paired with an electric vehicle. After a rider has taken a trip in an EV, they will receive an email containing additional information on the pilot program. Feedback about drivers and charging stations’ statuses will be shared from the app with Austin Energy. Austin is one of seven cities participating in the pilot program, along with Los Angeles, Montreal, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. Although Uber is partnering with Austin Energy to help expand the electric vehicle initiative, they are not making any infrastructure investments in the DC Fast charging stations that Austin is looking to acquire.

A working group examining CodeNEXT and its impact on the lives of Austin’s artists and musicians is preparing to issue a public statement highlighting the pieces of the proposed development code that could change Austin for those communities, and also addressing issues that have been left out of the document’s multiple revisions. The working group was formed as a joint effort of the city’s Arts and Music commissions, and has spent recent months working with the leaders of dozens of arts and music organizations to inform them and get their input on CodeNEXT ahead of its adoption by City Council and possible referendum vote in November. Brad Carlin, a member of the group, told Arts Commission members on Monday that the statement is not meant to be an endorsement or refutation of the code, but a way to alert arts communities about how live/work spaces and other building codes affecting creatives could be impacted. Among the included items the group plans to highlight are the code’s improved definition of a live performance space and music venues, adding live music as a defined community benefit for development projects and an expanded definition of cultural use. Carlin said the group will also call attention to the code’s lack of a section of policies specifically dedicated to arts and music amid its failure to separate live music venues from bar/nightclub use as one of the areas where city leaders need to continue to work. The statement is expected to be released next week.

The Development Services Department has been working on changes to its demolition permit process, which City Council requested in December 2017 after an August 2017 audit showed areas for improvement. As part of the ongoing revision, the department has been holding community input meetings, and the next one has been scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 18, 1-3 p.m. at the Mexican American Cultural Center. Feedback from this meeting will be used to finalize changes to the staff recommendation. For those who can’t attend the meeting, the demolition permit page at SpeakUpAustin.org will open to receive comments from Aug. 18 to Sept. 2.

Today, Austin families are invited to take part in a roundtable discussion about the Metz-Sánchez-Zavala Modernization Project. The project aims to construct a “modernized elementary school” at one of the campuses using funds from the Austin Independent School District’s 2017 bond. Families will be able to learn more about plans, which will be presented by the Community Planning Team, and give feedback during the meeting, which will take place from 6 until 7:30 p.m. today, July 19, at Martin Middle School (1601 Haskell St.).

The Austin Independent School District prides itself on a focus on nutritious meals, and it now has received funding to pilot a small-scale, centralized kitchen and distribution center in order to create a plan to implement this focus throughout the district. The pilot kitchen project, made possible by a grant of $550,000 from the St. David’s Foundation, will begin in the fall at McCallum High School. The grant provides funding for trained culinary staff and new kitchen equipment to be brought to the school, allowing for the creation of an expanded menu with made-from-scratch items, which will be distributed to the district’s after-school programs. “We are so excited to be receiving this support from the St. David’s Foundation,” said Anneliese Tanner, AISD’s executive director of food services and warehouse operations. “This will change the way we are able to serve our students healthy meals throughout the district. This has been a priority for me since arriving at the district and I couldn’t be more thrilled to begin planning for a centralized kitchen and distribution center to serve Austin’s children.” The grant will also make it possible for Nutrition and Food Services staff to visit other school districts with successful centralized kitchen systems in place. The district intends for the pilot to inform the creation of a master plan for a Central Production Kitchen, which would then use the McCallum kitchen as a satellite distribution center.

Today, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced that the city of Austin is one of 14 finalists in its Public Art Challenge. Over 200 cities applied to the challenge, which invited cities with 30,000 residents or more to submit proposals for “temporary public art projects that address important civic issues, and demonstrate an ability to generate public-private collaborations, celebrate creativity and urban identity, and strengthen local economies.” Bloomberg will select “at least three finalists” to receive a grant of up to $1 million to actualize their proposals over the next two years. Austin’s proposal is to fill “public parks in under-served communities with artwork to shine a light on cultural equity. The City of Austin seeks to encourage collaboration with artists by creating works that reflect the city’s unique cultural heritage and identities.” The city plans to partner with the Contemporary Austin and artist collective SUPERFLEX to create the installations, if it wins the funding. “Public art that is accessible to all Austin residents is an important measure of equity,” said Mayor Steve Adler. “We are thrilled to be a finalist for our proposal to install culturally relevant public artwork throughout public parks in our underserved Eastern Crescent, and to shine a light on cultural equity.”

The possible relocation of the Columbus Crew soccer team to Austin is playing out as something of a two-front war for club owners Precourt Sports Ventures, with the push for a stadium land deal in Austin joined by a legal fight in Ohio that observers there think could grind on for months. PSV offered its latest volley in the legal fray Tuesday with the release of a 21-page memo responding and mostly restating its claims that the state’s so-called “Modell Law” to prevent sports teams from relocating without proper notice is unconstitutional. The biggest possible impact on the Austin relocation effort at this point is the possibility of an injunction against the team and its courtship with Austin, though Tuesday’s memo doesn’t have much bearing on the case itself, which is in the midst of a 90-day waiting period. Here in Austin, city leaders and representatives from PSV are presumably involved in negotiations on a deal to possibly use the McKalla Place property for a 20,000-seat stadium. City Council is expected to vote on the results of that negotiation process at the Aug. 9 meeting.