If you’re planning to add a duplex, second unit, or third unit on a lot with an older structure already standing, Austin’s Development Services Department isn’t asking you to tear it down—but the deal comes with a permanent string attached in the deed records.
Under the proposed rule, property owners who preserve an existing structure in exchange for extra floor area must record a formal Preservation Bonus Agreement in the deed records of the county where the structure is located—before building plans are approved.
What’s actually new here
The floor-area bonus itself already exists in City Code Section 25-2-773(F), which rewards keeping an existing structure rather than demolishing it on duplex and small multifamily projects.
What the new rule adds—proposed by Development Services Director Keith Mars—are the procedural requirements: what you must submit, how the Building Official signs off, and how the agreement gets recorded in the county…