Free White Paper · 2026

Understand what really drives Austin's site plan review. From the data.

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WHITE PAPER · 2026

Austin Site Plan Review · 2015–2025

10 years of Austin site plan data.

3,304 site plans.
212,719 reviewer comments.

Unpacking the data behind the City of Austin's site plan review process, with its 400+ day average approval times.

Published: June 2026
Source: Public comment data
Jurisdiction: City of Austin, Texas

We analyzed 212,719 reviewer comments across 3,304 site plans — a full decade of City of Austin site plan review.

Whether you're shaping the process, designing projects, financing them, or moving them through review, this is what the data shows about where time accumulates and which patterns drive the longest cycles.

Where review cycle time actually goes — by department and comment category
The comment patterns that drive most resubmittals — and which ones can be preempted
How completeness check delays cascade into technical review
What separates the projects that close in one cycle from the ones that take six

Part 03

By the Numbers

Median update cycles

4 cycles

The modal number of update cycles among approved site plans. Most clear in four rounds; abandoned plans clear in zero.

BY THE NUMBERS

Cycle counts

Most plans go through 4–6 revision rounds.

Among approved site plans the median goes through four update cycles. Among plans that were ultimately abandoned or expired, the median is zero — sixty-one percent never made it past initial review.

Approvedn = 1,774

Median: 4 cycles. Mode: 4.

Abandoned or expiredn = 1,304

Median: 0 cycles. Most plans never produced a single update.

Of the 943 site plans in our dataset that recorded zero update cycles, 84% were ultimately abandoned or expired. Only two net-new submissions in ten years were approved without ever going through an update cycle.