In 2018, Austin was embroiled in a feud between the luddite NIMBYs and Johnny-Come-Lately’s. The stakes? Deciding what the Austin of 2050 would look like. Those of us in the know called this political duel: CodeNEXT.
As an organization that advocates for Real Estate agents and promotes private property rights in Central Texas, the Austin Board of Realtors had skin in this game, and wanted to mobilize its 13,000 members to put the heat on at City Hall.
What's CodeNEXT again?
Funny you should ask – a lot of ABoR's members had that same question. If we were going to mobilize our members to act, we needed them to first understand what they were acting on.
The goal was the break CodeNEXT into a digestible bits of information for the perspective of your friendly neighborhood REALTOR – our average member.
I won an award for Excellence in Online Video for this piece from the Communicator Awards – putting me in the good company of brands like Pepsi, Tostitos and Mercedes-Benz.
OK - now what?
The city published a tool to help stakeholders learn if their land was going to be impacted (Spoiler alert: it definitely was).
ABoR wanted everyone access this tool to convince holdovers that CodeNEXT would come knocking at their door, and they were best getting active and engaged before it was too late.
Eventually, the vote was shot down, and Austin remains saddled with the same Land Development Code it passed in the 1980s. But, it wasn't for a lack of effort on behalf of the local Board of REALTORS!
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