A reference site. We take a city’s adopted development ordinances, read them section by section, and write down what they require in language a person can act on. Every figure on every page names the section it comes from and the date we last checked it.
Today we cover Houston: 10 pages drawn from 36 sections across five archived chapters of the Code of Ordinances.
Two audiences, with the same problem from opposite ends.
Builders, developers and architects who need to know a rule before committing design work, and for whom "check with the city" is an answer that costs weeks.
Homeowners who have been told something about their lot and want to know whether it is true.
The authoritative text is public and almost unreadable. The readable summaries are frequently wrong, and rarely tell you which they are. We are trying to be readable and checkable at the same time — which mostly means showing our source and being explicit about what we could not determine.
Not a law firm. Nothing here is legal advice. We describe what the adopted text says; whether it applies to your situation is a different question.
Not the city. We have no role in approving anything, and no access to how a particular application will be treated.
Not a substitute for the code. Every page links the section. If the two ever disagree, the code is right and we are wrong — and we would like to know.
If something here is wrong, that is worth more to us than most things. Every page carries the sections it rests on, so a correction can be specific: name the page and the section, and we will check it against the archived text and fix or explain it.
How we verify covers the archive, the checks, the independent review, and the things this method cannot catch.