Austin staff and AECOM outline Central City District scenario‑planning process

City planning staff and consultants briefed the Planning Commission on the Central City District plan and a scenario‑planning approach meant to test long‑term choices for downtown, the UT West Campus and the South Central Waterfront.

Janisha Johnson, who said she leads Austin Planning’s district planning team, told commissioners that the project responds to a 2024 resolution and that an existing‑conditions draft is under interagency review. “The report will be available for public review through our Speak Up Austin project page in April,” Johnson said. She summarized phase 1 engagement and noted roughly 285 survey responses that flagged crime, personal safety and public behavior as top concerns downtown.

Johnson and Chris Ryerson, a division manager in Austin Planning, described the plan’s vision and eight goals — including housing affordability, multimodal mobility, arts and culture, heritage and identity, economic and social accessibility, parks and sustainability, and public safety — and said the needs‑and‑gaps analysis will inform scenario testing.

Consultants from AECOM, led by Aaron May, described the technical approach: use a 2025 baseline and evaluate up to three scenarios over a 15‑year horizon, develop key performance indicators and metrics, and deliver an ArcGIS urban model and a staff guidebook so city planners can update the model after adoption. “Scenario planning…is really focusing on how to achieve a desired outcome, using policy objectives to understand what that outcome could be,” an AECOM presenter said.

Staff said engagement will continue in phases. Phase 2 will include 15 focus groups across three subareas; staff aim for 12–15 participants per focus group and will conduct outreach and sign‑ups in advance. The consultants said they will test extremes and produce a preferred scenario that partner agencies can then use for more detailed transportation modeling.

Commissioners asked several pointed questions during the discussion. One commissioner urged stronger explicit language on walkability in the final materials, saying Imagine Austin prioritizes walking as the top access mode. Staff replied that the plan emphasizes multimodal connectivity and that walking is one of the modes they intend to support, and they agreed to clarify language in the final products.

Multiple commissioners asked how the 2025 baseline will treat recent zoning decisions and large projects, including a cited case in which the planning commission recently approved a significantly taller building than earlier assumptions. Staff said project teams have tracked notable zoning cases during the existing‑conditions work, that staff provided input on specific cases when possible, and that the scenario work will weigh both current approvals and alternative outcomes so commissioners and partner agencies can see differences between build‑out assumptions.

Commissioners also asked whether the scenario outputs will be detailed enough to test ambitious multimodal targets such as a 50/50 mode‑share goal. AECOM and staff said the scenario process will produce place‑type build‑outs and KPIs; those outputs are intended to be forwarded to partner transportation modelers to run travel‑demand analyses against the scenario designs so that impacts on jobs access, housing access and mode share can be quantified.

The commission did not take any formal action on the plan at this meeting. Staff and consultants said they will proceed with the technical work, begin phase 2 engagement in mid‑April, and return with draft scenarios, KPIs and modeling outputs for further review.

Next steps: staff will advance the existing‑conditions draft to the interagency technical advisory group, launch focus‑group recruitment, continue scenario workshops with stakeholders, and provide the commission with the scenario products and recommended KPIs for review.