The Austin City Council put off a pivotal vote Thursday that would have restarted efforts to overhaul the city's decades-old land development code after being defeated by myriad amendments that extended its meeting late into the night.

The council did make strides in crafting the policies that will act as a blueprint for city staffers during the coming code rewrite. Over a period of hours, council members sorted through dozens of amendments to hone guidelines for the rewrite.

"I think this was incredibly good work tonight," Mayor Steve Adler said. "A lot of work went into this."

The council will hold a special meeting next week to approve the document. No exact date had been set before Thursday's meeting adjourned at 11:30 p.m.

The council did vote, though, on an extensive amendment offered by Adler and Council Member Paige Ellis that is serving as the base of the rewrite's policy guidelines. The pair appeared to have allied as swing votes during the council's debates about what level of housing density should be central to the new rezoning effort.

By the end of the lengthy meeting, council members had decided that:

Draft three of CodeNext will serve as the starting point for city staffers' new efforts to rewrite Austin's development code. A six-year project that cost $8.5 million, CodeNext, the last attempt to redo the city's land-use rules, ended in failure after the City Council voted in August to halt the increasingly contentious effort.Neighborhood Conservation Combining Districts will remain in the new code, but will be subject to changes in the code related to parking, preservation incentives and regulations regarding the building of additional housing units on the lots of existing homes.Smaller apartment developments, typically with 10 units or fewer, will be encouraged in the new code but also will be tied to low-income housing incentives where economically viable.The code should plan for 75% of new housing capacity to be within a half-mile of transit priority networks identified in the recently adopted Austin Strategic Mobility Plan.Parking requirements in the code should be reduced but not eliminated.

Council Member Ann Kitchen, who represents District 5 in South Austin, led the charge on the amendments, recommending additions, subtractions or replacement language to almost every aspect of the policy document. With much of Kitchen's input in place, the document was approved by a 9-2 vote. Council Members Kathie Tovo and Alison Alter against.

Leaving the policy document pending creates an opportunity for council members to submit new amendments and possibly revisit more contentious issues. Fifteen amendments were left pending after it became apparent late Thursday that any additional debate could be lengthy.

The council aims to take its first vote on the code overhaul in October. Adler has said he wants the land development code debate to be concluded by year's end so the council can focus on transportation issues in anticipation of a transit bond election in 2020.

On Thursday, one of the thornier debates was about language related to transition zones, areas in neighborhoods near busy roadways, where increased housing density is recommended.

Tovo said the areas are similar to so-called transect zones, which were last seen in the initial draft of CodeNext. Specifically, the pending policy document stated that transition zones should extend generally two to five lots into neighborhoods from a major arterial.

Alter attempted to cap how far into a neighborhood a transition zone would extend at four lots. Her amendment failed, but not without a warning from her about how the ambiguous language might be interpreted.

"I think still we need to remember that when we interject uncertainty and ambiguity into this process between now and the mapping, we are going to face folks who are going to respond to that very similarly to what they've responded to before under CodeNext," Alter said.

She added that without a cap on the transition zones, she would not be able to allay fears in her district about redevelopment.

Adler responded, "I hope when you talk to your constituents that you don't just paint the worst possible case."