For Planning and Development Departments
Keep the code staff administers connected to the ordinances that changed it.
LocalCode gives municipal staff one place to research UDC provisions, follow cross-references, review amendment history, and open the official ordinances behind the text. Answer counter questions, prepare staff reports, and maintain the development code with a clearer record of what changed, when it changed, and where the controlling language came from.
The ordinance is adopted. The published code may still be catching up.
Between council adoption and formal codification, staff may be working across the online code, ordinance PDFs, internal folders, source notes, and institutional memory. LocalCode helps connect those records without replacing the city's official documents or the professional judgment of its staff.
Administrative control over code assets
Setback diagrams, dimensional figures, and zoning illustrations are part of the code, not decoration. Review figure-to-section relationships and confirm what is attached where before anything is served to staff or the public.
Figure and illustration review, with each image tied to the section it belongs to.
Tables verified as structure, not as pictures of tables
Dimensional schedules, procedure tables, and district conversions carry legal meaning in their rows, columns, and blank cells. LocalCode stores them as typed structure so a blank cell reads as the determination it is, not as missing data.
Table registry: shape, source section, and row-level review state.
Read the section and the ordinance behind it, side by side
Cross-references, definitions, and adopting ordinances resolve in place. Following a reference does not cost you the section you were reading.
Current controlling text alongside the ordinances that adopted or amended it.
Faster verification for everyday planning work
Codification lag
Council adopts a UDC text amendment. The third-party portal takes three to nine months to reflect it. Staff and applicants keep working from text that is no longer controlling.
LocalCode links an adopting ordinance to the controlling section on your schedule, not a publisher's codification cycle.
Lost legislative intent
A developer claims vested rights or non-conforming status. Establishing what the rule said in 2018 means searching vault binders and server PDFs by hand.
Every section carries its source notes, and every citation resolves to the adopting ordinance PDF.
Staff report drafting
Assembling a P&Z or Council staff report means copying cross-referenced sections by hand and re-checking each one against the portal.
Copy exact code text with its source notes attached, formatted for a staff report.
Connecting AI to official city data
General-purpose models answer municipal code questions from training data and miss uncodified amendments entirely. We are building a structured access layer so a model can resolve a question against your stored, verbatim code text and return the citation, or return nothing when the answer is not in the record.
Entitlement Agent
Question:
Does Austin § 25-2-779 impose an interior side-yard requirement for this project?
Project facts:
• Jurisdiction: Austin • Base zoning: SF-4A • Adjacent: SF-4A
{
"result": "conditional_exception",
"standard": {
"dimension": "interior_side_yard",
"requirement_ft": 5
},
"exception": {
"applies_when": "adjacent property is zoned SF-4A",
"effect": "side-yard requirement waived"
},
"source": {
"citation": "Austin Code § 25-2-779(D)",
"verification_status": "verified"
}
}A modern research layer for the code your city already owns.
LocalCode does not replace the official code, the city attorney, or staff interpretation. It makes the underlying legislative record easier to navigate, verify, and use.
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