educational estimating tool - not professional advice. a screen, not a determination. read the full disclaimer.
what can this lot hold?
type an austin address. this page reads the lot from the city's public maps and runs it through the other tools on this site: what the lot is, what it may hold, what the street plan could take, where the water service steps, and a cost-vs-rent check on your own numbers.
the address
1 · the lot
2 · what the code allows
run this lot in the full lot-yield tool → (change setbacks, the district or the lot, and see all three plans drawn)
3 · what the street plan could take
see the street-plan tool → (every lot in hyde park on a map, the method, and the cap and relief in the code)
4 · the water-service step
run the fixture count in the utility tool → (where one more bathroom or one more unit trips the next meter or service size)
5 · cost vs rent, on your numbers
| line | figure | how |
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open the full cost vs rent check → (the massing drawing, the sensitivity grid, and every input)
what this does not check
- the survey. lot lines here are appraisal-district lines as the city publishes them. a boundary survey can move them, and with them every area on this page.
- deed restrictions and private covenants. a subdivision's own restrictions can cap units, height or use below what zoning allows. they sit in the deed records, not in any city map layer used here.
- neighborhood conservation districts, conditional overlays and other combining districts. the page names the ones the city maps on the lot; it does not apply their rules. an nccd or a conditional overlay can change any figure above.
- compatibility, the floodplain rules, the watershed's impervious limits and historic review. flagged where a layer shows them, not modeled.
- trees. protected and heritage trees can take more of a lot than any setback, and nothing about them is in these layers.
- utilities in the street. the size and depth of the water and wastewater mains, and whether the existing tap can carry more, come from the utility, not a map.
- the ground and the access. slope, soils, driveway spacing and fire access are not read.
- what the land is worth. this page never estimates a land price or a value. that is a question for a licensed appraiser or broker.
a full study goes further than any map: the survey, the title, the trees, the utility letter and a drawing of what fits. if you have a lot you are weighing, talk to Mark about a full study of the lot.
sources
- City of Austin ArcGIS Online layers, queried live from your browser when you read a lot (no key, no account): loading the list of layers.
- street plan. Austin Strategic Mobility Plan street network table, REQUIRED_ROW_ALPHA per segment; level 1 "58 or 64" read as 58 ft where the base district caps height at 40 ft or less, 64 ft above (asmp staff, email of 2022-03-30, in the city's public record). dedication triggers, cap and relief: ldc 25-6-21, 25-6-23, 25-6-53, 25-6-54(e), 25-6-55(a), 25-6-81(b), 25-6-86; site plan exemption for four or fewer homes: ldc 25-5-2(b)(1). the method is
row_take.py's, the same as tool-row-take. - setbacks and height by district. ldc 25-2-492 site development regulations table (municode, read 2026-10-31 for the street-plan tool). sf-4a and sf-4b use the base figures; the table's footnotes for them are not applied.
- home caps. the figures and logic of tool-home-lot-yield: ldc 25-2-773(e) as amended by ord. 20250424-073; ldc 25-2-779 (ord. 20240516-006) for small lots; base coverage and impervious cover from ldc 25-2-492. each figure's own source is on that page's code-check cards.
- water service. austin's meter table 610.1 for a house, duplex or townhome (city code § 25-12-153); upc table 610.4 for three or more units and commercial buildings - as cited on tool-utility-threshold.
- cost vs rent. the arithmetic of tool-cost-vs-rent-check on the numbers you enter: net operating income divided by total cost, against your cap rate plus your spread.