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The Vertical Mixed Use ordinance promotes quality redevelopment and accomodates extra density by returning to traditional development patterns found in Texas courthouse squares and New England villages.

Until the enactment of the VMU Overlay, mixed use developments like Newport, Rhode Island and Lockhart's courthouse square were actually illegal in most of Austin. Austin's zoning code (like most American zoning codes) prohibited apartments above shops, and it prohibited bakeries, cafes and dry cleaners on the ground floors of courthouse square-scale offices. As a result, Austin's old single use code promoted development that was low in quality and high in traffic.

The new VMU ordinance is a form-based code that for the first time describes the type of development that Austinites want, instead of describing the development we are opposed to. VMU requires a mix of uses, and it increases density while reducing traffic through more efficient land use. The ordinance also contains the Austin region's most far-reaching affordable housing density bonus program.

VMU accomplishes all of this while establishing rigorous design requirements to ensure high quality development that will replace commercial strips with pedestrian-oriented areas more reminiscent of 2nd Street than of I-35.