This week was a doozy. I may have yelled at my monitor once or twice. Let’s dive in.
Hours 0:00 – 1:18: In which the SMART Terminal gets its day, and Mayor Hughson is weirdly rude to Max Baker.
Hours 1:18-2:21: Fire code updates, and Mayor Hughson is weird and unpleasant for a second time, advocating for some decorum rules, which again appear to target Max.
Hours 2:21-3:58: Riverbend Ranch, paid parking at the Lion’s Club, and Mayor Hughson is pretty rigid and counterproductive for a third time! What the hell.
Jane Hughson was really kind of a disaster this evening. The rest of the councilmembers were mostly complacent yes-men. (Besides Alyssa, who was continuously trying to be her diplomatic self, fighting losing battles. And besides Shane Scott, who was absent.)
Citizen comment: The big topic for citizen comment is the SMART terminal. Residents of the area are worried about:
Flooding
River pollution
Litter
Traffic
Noise and smells
Representatives from the San Marcos River Foundations also spoke, but they got super specific about policy proposals, so I’m going to save that for actual item.
Max Baker was the last speaker, and he railed against the community survey results and lack of trust in city staff. He also spoke out against the Riverbend Ranch, saying that HK real estate people operate and negotiate in bad faith. Finally, he says, “I’ll have more to say about the SMART Terminal, but I’ll save that for the public hearing.”
That last sentence is supposed to be me foreshadowing for you. Hey everybody, <waves hands>, for no particular reason, note that Max has said that he is planning to speak during the public hearing for the SMART Terminal.
…
First up is the SMART Terminal!
Items 20-21: A few meetings ago, we got introduced to the Cotton Center and the SMART Terminal:
Yellow is the Cotton Center, the gigantic master planned community that was approved in 2016. Aqua blue is the SMART Terminal. The SMART Terminal is supposed to bring together the magic of a tiny airport, all our trains, and Highway 80.
How big are these things? The SMART Terminal blue bit up there is 900 acres. The Cotton center yellow bit is 2500 acres. The issue is that the SMART Terminal wants to take 600 acres from the Cotton center, and then also three more packets of extra land.
So here is the proposed future of the SMART Terminal:
The aqua blue is the old SMART Terminal. Yellow is getting taken from the Cotton center. Green is brand new.
San Marcos River Foundation is concerned because there are two creeks running through the property to the river. You can sort of see the creeks above, and in the map with my janky drawing, you can see the San Marcos river at the bottom.
First is a staff presentation. We learn that “SMART” stands for: San Marcos Air Rail, & Transportation
So that’s a good start!
One detail is this little green box with the yellow highlighting:
That little yellow box lives in Martindale’s ETJ, instead of San Marcos’s ETJ. So we’re not allowed to make a development agreement for that little bit. (I’m guessing maybe that’s part of the mysterious Martindale fuss alluded to here.)
The total acreage of this new, SMARTER Terminal is 2,017 acres. That is huge. Google tells me that 2,017 acres is 3.15 square miles. Google also tells me that Martindale is 2.09 square miles. So the SMART terminal is going to be 150% larger than Martindale. (More like SMARTindale, right?? …I’ll show myself out now.)
Environmental standards
The developers want Heavy Industrial and Heavy Commercial. Here are the creeks that run to the river:
The blue striped parts are floodplain. The green is the creeks themselves. That’s a pretty direct channel to the river.
Here’s what the developer worked out with the planning department:
70% impervious cover, overall. This is stricter than the regular city code, which would allow up to 80% impervious cover.
Impervious cover can be patchy – up to 90% in some places, less in others, as long as it averages out to 70%
Total Suspended Solids (TSS): Here’s my shaky understanding of TSS: when it rains, rainwater is nasty because it carries all the surface pollution with it. So you retain rainwater in retention ponds to prevent flooding, but then you want to clean it before you release it. So you either want to let it settle, or filter it, or whatever. TSS is how much you have to clean it.
They’ve agreed to 70% TSS. I don’t know what our code requires. (The developer claims their sand filtration basin system actually captures up to 89% TSS, but they’re only obligated to maintain 70% that by the contract.)
Water retention: what kind of flood do we want it to be able to handle? They’ve agreed to 1.25” rainfall. My memory is that this should be given as a rate: 1.25″ per hour, or 1.25″ per eight hours, or 1.25″ per day, or whatever. Not just a 1.25″ without any time frame. But in this agreement, there’s no time window given.
My uneducated read is that 1.25″ without a specified time window will get overwhelmed any time we have a mildly disasterous rain, let alone one of the massively disastrous rains that we’re known for.
Run-off: they have to reduce run-off by 10%. This is stricter than the code – code says you can’t make run-off worse than it was before the development, but you don’t have to improve it. So that is good.
San Marcos River Foundation weighs in
Earlier, during Citizen Comment, SMRF made their case. They’ve had good conversations with SMART. They want:
Half of the floodplain acreage should be removed when calculating total gross impervious cover.
In other words, say you’ve got 100 acres, and 20 acres is super sensitive land where you can’t build on it. Suppose you’ve agreed not to pave over more than 70% of it. Should it be 70% of the 100 acres, or 70% of the 80 buildable acres?
SMRF is proposing to split the difference – allow them to compute the 70% based on 90 acres, in this analogy.
The setback to the floodplain should be wider than 30 feet. SMRF observes that 30 feet is really pretty slim.
Any acreage using 90% localized impervious cover be placed farthest away from the river. In other words, the most-paved parts should be furthest from the river.
Council Discussion
Council begins asking questions, and then this very weird thing happens: Jude Prather speaks up and says: “I think we have one more public speaker…”
There is some fumbling around. Over zoom, you hear Max Baker say, “Is it my turn to speak now?” (Remember the foreshadowing, when he said he would be speaking during the SMART Terminal? This is that.)
Jane Hughson says no, Max can’t speak, because he didn’t sign up to speak the day before. She adds, “If you’re in person, you can just get in line to speak. But over zoom, you have to sign up the day before.”
What she means is that back in March of 2020, council had to set up zoom rules. How will citizens get the zoom number? How will they get moved from the waiting room to the main room? Etc. So they said that you have to sign up to talk the day before, to help with logistics.
Now: Max clearly did sign up the day before, because he spoke during Citizen Comment, and so someone gave him the zoom link. Jane is arguing that Max should have signed up for each item that he wanted to speak on, even though it’s the same zoom link. And even though that was really not the intent of the original rule.
Alyssa points out that we’ve revisited Covid-era rules many times, and this one just hasn’t come up, but Jane is firm. “He’s allowed to speak, he just had to sign up yesterday.”
Here’s the thing: generally Jane extends a lot of courtesy and grace to ordinary private citizens who take the time to show up and speak. It seemed like this was a maliciously strict standard that only applied to Max Baker. It felt kinda vicious.
…
Back to the SMART Terminal: So what did our council do?
The whole thing was very, very cordial. Everyone emphasized continuing dialogue with SMRF and other stake-holders. That makes me nervous, because the only thing that is legally binding is the Development Agreement being voted on. Dialogue is very nice, but it doesn’t compel any action. Acting like you believe the developers are our friends is not reassuring when you’re negotiating a contract on behalf of San Marcos residents.
First, Jane Hughson asks about the added truck traffic. The answer seems very thorough: you make some assumptions and do a traffic study before anything else. If they exceed the assumptions, then they have to do more mitigation. Widening roads, adding traffic lights, etc. They’ll keep updating and mitigating. (Fine.)
Matt Mendoza asks about retention ponds. They’re required to have them, so the developer just sort of explains what they are. They talk about the 10% reduction in run-off, which is admittedly an unusual standard for San Marcos. They commit to having more dialogue with stake holders.
Here’s the thing: environmental standards are very wonky and nerdy and specific. Every time Council asks an environmental-ish question, the staff answers in a very narrow, reassuring way. “Oh yes! We already did part of that!” and then the councilmember lets it go.
Example 1: Jane Hughson asks about the list from SMRF. She seems to have this SMRF list in front of her:
She just references the list and says it includes a lot of things, like lift stations.
The engineer, Richard Reynosa, only answers about the lift stations, and nothing else. He says the lift stations haven’t been placed yet, but if they were in the flood plains, you’d have to meet stricter standards.
No discussion of the other nine bullet points.
Example 2: Jude Prather also vaguely tries to get at the environmental standards. He says, “Dialogue is really great and all, but should these environmental things from SMRF be put into the contract? Like the Dark Skies thing?”
In other words, he’s waiving his hand at the long list of technical standards, and the only one that’s coming to mind is the Dark Skies one. (Which was mentioned briefly during the SMRF comments, but is clearly not their primary concern.)
The planning department person, Amanda Hernandez tells him that he can definitely add any provisions that he wants! And says that the Dark Skies one is basically already in the code.
Jude asks, “What about the other environmental features?”
Amanda Hernandez answers that they worked with the developer, and in fact, many of these standards are from the 2019 agreement with the original SMART terminal. (This is at 1:11, if you’d like to go watch this bafflingly useless non-answer.)
And Jude drops the issue. He doesn’t raise any specific line item from SMRF.
Example 3: Mark Gleason’s turn to act environmental-ish is next: on the 1.25” capture, he exclaims, “That’s above and beyond code, isn’t it!” (In other words, he’s just praising the developers.)
Mark does specifically ask about one of SMRF’s concerns: “On the setbacks being 30′: is it longer in the recharge zone?”
Richard Reynosa, the engineer, answers, “There’s not a specific setback in the recharge zone. You have a water quality zone requirement there, based on the size of the tributary.”
Mark says, “Thanks, that’s what I wanted to clarify!”
That’s what I mean: Everyone talked near the SMRF amendments and sounded like they liked them, but no one was willing to actually make a motion and require them.
What the fuck? Every person up there claims to be in favor of the river. SMRF hands you a list of recommended asks from the developer. SMRF highlights the three most important ones, during citizen comment. No one proposes a single one as an amendment, or even discusses them in a meaningful way.
The vote: Yes: Jane Hughson, Mark Gleason, Jude Prather, Saul Gonzalez, Matt Mendoza No: Alyssa Garza
(Shane Scott was absent)
So the SMART Terminal is coming. City Council asked some softball questions and approved it. It was kind of gross.
Now, Alyssa Garza also didn’t offer up the SMRF recommendations, but she voted against the entire project. You could argue that maybe she should have tried to get the amendments passed anyway, but in the end, she is one councilmember and the other five councilmembers wanted the SMART Terminal, and any of them could have pressed for the SMRF recommendations.
Does your friendly local Marxist blogger like the SMART Terminal?
I’m wary of it. I can see why business people might see an opportunity what with the railroad and the airport being right next to each other. (Full disclosure: I guess don’t see it. Why would you ever need your cargo to go from train to plane, or plane to train? I’m sure I’m just lacking enough business sense to understand.)
Anyway, surely it makes logistical sense to business folks. But here came SMRF with three specific amendments, and they were all roundly ignored. That’s enough to undermine my trust in anyone advocating for it.
Item 20: By the way, what happens to the Cotton Center planned community? Here’s the old 2,500 acre version from 2016:
Here’s the new 1900 acre version:
Wow, kind of a fragmented mess!
Okay, it’s making me laugh, the longer I look at it. What a soothing place to raise your kids. Ignore that gaping industrial black hole, please and thank you.
Every six years, the fire department updates the fire codes. At the January 3rd workshop, the fire department recommended some changes. The big one: retroactive automatic sprinkler systems.
Basically, sprinklers entirely prevent mass fatality events from fires. This is great! But they’re super expensive to install.
Who will be required to install sprinklers? Big venues that serve alcohol and hold 300 people or more. Think clubs, restaurants, and banquet halls, but also things like the VFW and Cuauhtemoc Hall.
Here’s how much they cost:
$4-5 per square foot for the sprinkler system
$25K for 150 ft of underground fireline pipe
$5-10K for the sprinkler monitoring system, to make sure you’re maintaining water pressure and things like that.
So if your building is 5000 square feet, you’re looking at upwards of $50K. That’s really expensive. Everyone is very worried about the nonprofits like VFW and Cuauhtemoc Hall. They’re good community partners.
The plan is for the city to help with the one-time costs. The nonprofits will go get bids, and the fire department will use the revenue from inspection fees to offset the costs. The inspection fee will be $100/year, and San Marcos is expecting to bring in maybe $100K/year. So each year they can help out several non-profits, and plus maybe get some grant money in. Council proposes a 3 year grace period for nonprofits to comply.
(I’m anticipating that local private businesses will also balk at spending $50,000 on sprinklers, so maybe this ends up coming around again.)
Item 23: Campaign spending limits
We finalize the campaign contribution details from this meeting. The spending cap will be set at $1 per candidate. Numbers will be based on the previous November’s registered voters.
Item 25: Decorum.
You guys. This item was such extremely weird bullshit. Especially in light of how Jane Hughson shut down Max Baker – a private citizen now – just one hour earlier.
This is Jane Hughson’s item. Here is the key new bit:
To clarify: you’re allowed to identify individuals by name if you want to compliment them. You just can’t identify someone by name during a personal attack.
Jane is really hung up on “personal attacks”, and she believes deep in her soul that “personal attacks” are a well-understood, universally-agreed-upon phenomenon. She believes that “personal attacks” are worse than “personal insults” and that all of us would see eye-to-eye with her on what counts as a personal attack.
Now, this phrase is loaded. Back when Max Baker was on council, she used to accuse him of personal attacks every time they started squabbling. Max would counter that he was angry, yes, and stating his opinion, and that his opinion was grounded in fact. See? No room for ambiguity!
Jane openly says that she is talking about delivery style and not just content. You can say insulting things if you say them calmly. But if you display anger, then it becomes an attack. (Jane has never used this phrase to describe, say, LMC, who generally keeps her composure when lobbing wildly personal insults at people like, say, Bert Lumbreras.)
Alyssa speaks up. She’s uncomfortable controlling anyone’s speech. If someone’s angry, she wants to know. She doesn’t take comments personally. Sometimes she can then unpack how the person got there, other times it sometimes wakes her up to something she’s missing. It makes her uncomfortable when speakers come for staff, but city council can intervene and support the staff in those occasions.
Jane says, “I know what you’re saying. But this is attacks. Not just saying things, but attacks. Tamp down the nastiness.” She explicitly says that insults can be okay, but it’s the angry attacks that are not okay.
Tone-policing Max Baker specifically has come up before. And here’s part of what I said then:
These proposals are all attacking Max on the surface level, and trying to police his tone, word choice, and mannerisms. They are not taking issue with his ideas. This is a very old tactic – you focus on someone’s tone, and then you don’t have to engage with the content. Historically, requirements for the surface level (“professionalism”) were used to prevent anyone besides old white dudes from participating, unless they pandered to the old white dudes. Accusing someone of being unprofessional allows you plausible deniability – you weren’t against their ideas, but they were being so unprofessional!
For the past three years, Jane has lodged this complaint at Max, that when he’s angry, he’s attacking different people. In the past two months, Max has become a private citizen who speaks at public hearings, and Jane is now wanting to add this specific phrase – “personal attacks” – to the rules for decorum. It feels targeted at him with extreme precision.
Alyssa: Anger is a valid feeling, and I’m not uncomfortable with people expressing their emotions.
Jude Prather says that he prefers the phrase “personal insults” over “personal attacks”. He thinks it’s clearer. “Personal attacks” is very vague.
YES.
Alyssa asks what the difference is, anyway?
YES.
Jane’s answer (at 2:16:32, if you’d like to go watch): “My motion is the word attack because to me, it’s clear. Insult is not – to me – removable [from the chambers].”
In other words, her definition is “I know it when I see it. If you get thrown out, it was a personal attack.” Clear as mud.
There’s a little discussion of alternate ways that people can communicate angry, personal attacks. They can email or leave a message on Jane’s office phone. The problem is that then the public – namely me! – does not know what people are mad about. I would like to know when people are mad!
The vote: Yes: Jane, Jude, Saul, Matt, and Mark No: Alyssa
Alyssa says, “I’m voting no because I’m not sure future mayors will be able to differentiate between personal insults and personal attacks in a responsible way.”
HA. HA. That is so diplomatic that it’s making my teeth itch. You, Jane, are clearly an excellent arbiter of personal attacks! We’re just worried that the next mayor may not be dripping with quite as much wisdom.
Anyway, this council (minus Alyssa) just fell in line and approved it. They are the mushiest bunch of marshmallows. Yawn, censor Max Baker? Scratch, readjust, hmm. If we vote yes, can we go home?
We’ve seen this proposed development before, and after P&Z denied their cut-and-fill. Residents of Redwood mobilized like 30 people to come talk to P&Z that night. It was really amazing.
The major issue is that Riverbend Ranch will be on the hill immediately above Redwood. Redwood is home to a lot of extremely vulnerable community members and is dealing with flooding, raw sewage, and significant health challenges due to sewage contamination.
The council could force Riverbend Ranch to be developed in such a way that it helps Redwood tie in to San Marcos water and sewage. Or the council could allow them to develop in a way that increases flooding and sewage contamination. This could be done really well, or it could be a nightmare.
Matt Mendoza, Alyssa Garza, and Saul Gonzalez all volunteered to be on the Riverbend Ranch committee. I am relieved. You can trust Alyssa to remember to protect Redwood, and Matt Mendoza was personally the one who went down and talked to the Redwood community prior to the P&Z council meeting, so he’s also invested. And Saul is generally sympathetic to people without financial means to protect themselves from developers (although he usually takes the safe route when it comes time to actually vote).
….
Item 30: Paid parking in the Lion’s Club parking lot.
We have a lot of out-of-towners who come to tube the river and go to football games. We want to recoup some costs by charging them to park in the Lion’s Club parking lot. So we’re launching a 3 year pilot program.
It’s supposed to be free to San Marcos residents, which means that there has to be some system to tell who is a resident and who is not a resident. It sounds like you go online and ask for a sticker to put on your car? You would either have a license or some sort of photo ID, or something with your address on it. (I might be wrong about the sticker.)
Alyssa gets them to include library cards on the acceptable forms of ID, which is good.
It’s pretty pricey for non-residents:
The biggest discussion came about whether or not the machines should be cash-less. Mark Gleason doesn’t like cash-less machines out of general get-offa-my-lawn old man vibes. (He’s not wrong!) Alyssa doesn’t like them because poor people are less likely to have credit cards. (Also correct.) So the compromise is that there will be one machine that accepts cash, and the others throughout the parking lot will be cashless.
I share Alyssa’s uneasiness about the invisible barriers that arise when you implement cashless payment systems. At the same time, in this case, those bonkers prices are their own impediment for poor people. You can get like three eggs for that kinda money!
…
Item 31: One last time with the Human Services Advisory Board.
San Marcos donates money from the General Fund to nonprofits. The funding process this year was a shitshow (apparently – I don’t really know details) and so council stepped in to give new instructions. So now, on this third meeting on this topic, council is nailing down the final details of how they want grant applications to be evaluated. There are two main sticking points:
Grant money is only available if you’re serving San Marcos residents. The issue is what kind of track record is required. Should nonprofits from Austin and San Antonio who want to expand their service to include San Marcos be allowed to apply for city funds? Or should money be restricted to nonprofits who already serve San Marcos?
Jane wants the nonprofits to already be serving San Marcos. Saul agrees.
Alyssa makes the case that in certain categories, like mental health, we have a dire need for providers. Nonprofits from San Antonio and Austin will be more successful finding other grant money to use on San Marcos if they can use this grant to demonstrate a need here.
Mark Gleason and Matthew Mendoza want to give preference to San Marcos-established nonprofits, but not exclude the others from applying. I didn’t catch what Jude preferred, but this is where Council lands as a whole.
Jane Hughson feels strongly that nonprofits should not depend on this money. She doesn’t want anyone to lose their job if the city has less money one year and can’t fund as many nonprofits. In light of this, there is a rule that no full-time employee should be funded. You can ask for money to fund a part-time employee, but not a full-time employee.
So the issue is: can you split the workload of a full time employee, and ask for partial funding? Can a grant ask for 30% of the salary of the full time employee who is assigned to work on the program for 15 hours per week? Or do they have to hire a standalone part-timer for 15 hours per week?
Jane is a strong no. You must hire a literal part-timer for 15 hours per week. No carving up the time of a full-time employee.
Good news! We have an actual nonprofits expert on council! Alyssa has tons of non-profit experience, and is currently employed writing grants for her job. She explains that this is standard operating procedure in the world of nonprofits. Nonprofits are used to piece-mealing their employee’s salaries together across several grants. As long as the non-profit is basically competent and experienced, they will have a Plan B in place so that no one loses their job if San Marcos doesn’t offer these funds one year.
Out of everyone, Mark Gleason is the only person who seems to hear what Alyssa is saying. Weirdly, Jane keeps marking down that Mark is on Jane’s side, but Mark is persistent in correcting her.
But on the whole, it is the most infuriating goddamn conversation. Everyone is sure that they know what’s best for nonprofits and no one is listening to Alyssa. It comes off as paternalistic and arrogant.
Jane keeps requesting that any councilmember who wants to allow partial funding of full-time employees must give a specific numeric cap. Alyssa keeps explaining that that is arbitrary and counterproductive – the nonprofit will have to justify their request, and the HSAB can make an informed judgement.
They settle on a 20% cap: you can ask the grant to cover up to 20% of a fulltime employee’s salary. Because they know best.
Happy New Year! And happy one-year-of-blogging to me! Today we have the Jan 3rd city council meeting, and then I’ve got some good old self-reflections on the past year for you.
City Council business first
It was a short meeting, only two hours long. Partly because the agenda was short, but partly also because there’s much less discussion without Max Baker there. I think this is mixed. Max probably gummed up the works overmuch at times. But the danger is that too much discussion happens behind closed doors, and the public only sees the final vote. It gives the appearance that Council is rubber-stamping whatever comes along.
I do not exactly think that Council is rubber-stamping every item. Some items do get some discussion. And not every item needs to be discussed. However, without discussion, the context of a vote is opaque. On complicated topics where no one says much, it’s very hard to tell the difference between a good vote and a bad vote.
Hours 0:00-1:01: In which we see very little discussion in two rezoning cases.
Hours 1:01-2:10: Several small items, plus the Mano Amiga petition against the SMPD meet-and-confer agreement.
Onto the self-reflection
It’s been one year since I went public with this site! I am not frequently asked anything, but I thought it might be fun to make up some FAQs.
1. Who am I?
I promise you that when my identity (inevitably, eventually) gets discovered, it will be a giant letdown. I am incredibly boring, and the suspense is way more interesting than my actual dumb self.
2. Why am I doing this?
A long time ago, I heard Diane Wassenich talking about how she made an effort to attend every city council meeting and every P&Z meeting. She said something like, “Well, someone needs to be watching them.” I really admired that sentiment, that at least one person should consistently be watching. The thought stuck with me. I noticed that there was a vacuum when she retired.
However, I’m not a social person who wants to be a part of a lot of organizations. So if I just watched all the P&Z and council meetings, the knowledge would then just die with me. This blog is a substitute for all the conversations I’d have, if I liked having conversations.
3. How many readers do I have?
It’s pretty tiny. There seem to be about 30-40 of you that turn out regularly. One thing that I’m particularly pleased with is that most of you all seem to actually read the entire thing. My stats show me both the number of readers and the number of views. So, for example, on days when I post 4 links, the number of views tends to be close to 4x the number of readers. I’m humbled that this small-but-loyal group truly reads the whole, excruciating thing.
(I did get a small bump from people finding election posts via google. Most of you come over from Facebook, though.)
I’m playing a long game. I figure that having the ear of 30-40 progressive, engaged community members in San Marcos is actually a really big deal, because you all are likely to turn up to events and have the conversations and actually make change happen.
I really loathe self-promotion, so I haven’t mustered anything beyond posting links on Facebook and Twitter. If anyone has an idea that requires very little time, energy, and money from me, I’m open to it.
I’ve vaguely mused about covering Hays County Commission or the SMCISD school board, but I don’t really have any additional time to spare. This is kinda time-consuming as is.
Seriously, thank you to all of you who read this thing. You make it worth writing. Cheers to 2023.
Citizen comment: The intersection of Hunter and Wonderworld is deadly and needs to be fixed. The speaker kept mentioning “new paint” as a solution, which made me think that she specifically meant that weird little island blocking what used to be the right turn lane from Wonderworld, north onto Hunter (on the corner with the CVS store.) I’m glad we’ve added bike lanes, but I also see cars bumble over that island every time I’m at that intersection. And there do seem to be a lot of accidents.
Item 11-12: Annexation and zoning 65 acres on the corner of Rattler Road and McCarty. It’s this little red square with the star in it:
We’ve seen this area several times recently. It’s been a zoning bonanza:
Back in September, these other folks wanted (and got) a cut-and-fill exemption for that blue region. And back in August, the neighboring property (in that yellow-puke color) was zoned CD-5. It’s going to be apartments. (Also, a gigantic development was approved behind the outlet malls at that same meeting.)
The red rectangle is proposed to be CD-4. In that zoning, you’re allowed to build duplexes, townhomes, apartments, cottage courts, and other things that are denser than traditional neighborhoods but still feel small scale. (But you can also just build apartments, I think.)
The red rectangle and the yellow-puke rectangle are owned by the same people. So they’re selling the city on a larger vision where the yellow-puke one is dense, traditional apartments, and then this red one is more varied with all the duplexes and townhomes. Sort of transitional in scale towards single family houses.
Price Tag to the City: Will it bring in taxes that pay for itself, over the lifespan of the infrastructure and future repair? How much will it cost to extend roads, utilities, on fire and police coverage, on water and wastewater?
This is a good spot for infill. There is already infrastructure and coverage for this area.
Housing stock: How long will it take to build? How much housing will it provide? What is the forecasted housing deficit at that point? Is it targeting a price-point that serves what San Marcos needs?
Some day, the planning department will read my blog and hastily fall all over themselves in an effort to answer this question.
Environment: Is it on the aquifer? Is it in a flood zone? Will it create run off into the river? Are we looking at sprawl? Is it uniformly single-family homes?
Not on the aquifer. Not in a flood zone. No run off to the river or any other environmental hazards, as far as I can tell.
Given the duplexes, townhomes, apartments, cottage courts, and other things, it has the potential to be very good. It won’t be uniformly single-family detached houses.
Social: Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing SMCISD schools and amenities?
It is very close to SMHS, and not that far from Goodnight and elementary schools.
As for whether it’s mixed income, that depends on the developer. If the developer takes advantage of what they’re allowed to build, it could be mixed income. But just because they sell a compelling vision during the approval phase does not make it binding.
The San Marxist Special: Is it a mixed-income blend of single family houses, four-plexes, and eight-plexes, all mixed together? With schools, shops, restaurants, and public community space sprinkled throughout?
The larger region has the potential to become this. We shall see.
Final judgement: It sounds mostly good. Go for it.
…
So what did council do?
There was a little discussion about including a buffer at the back of the property, as a courtesy for the homes right there, which are outside city limits. Staff will bring back a proposal at the next meeting.
And then they voted, and it passed 7-0. (Where’d the clickers go?)
I personally think this project passed all the criteria with flying colors. But you know Max would have had a dozen questions about it. Perhaps all the questions got settled in Secret Executive sessions – it’s just really hard to know.
…
Item 13: Trace PDD
A few months ago, we did a deep dive into La Cima. Time for a Trace Deep Dive? Let’s do it.
That’s not my usual chicken-scratch map – this is the map from the developers. I love our city staff, but their maps are truly for shit.
It’s supposed to be a whole community – houses, apartments, parks, an elementary school, some stores. Mixed income. My only real gripe is that it contributes to sprawl – you’re kinda far from everything out there.
In 2017, there was a bond election to fund an elementary school there, and Rodriguez elementary school opened in August 2019.
It was next amended in 2019 and 2022. All the amendments were kind of finicky and detail-oriented – what should the heights of the apartment buildings be? Can we relocate sidewalks to this other side of the street? That sort of thing.
On the whole, it seems fine. It seems to need far fewer tweaks than La Cima or Whisper. (At some point, we’ll have to unpack Whisper Tract.)
…
So what’s up now? It’s coming up because they want to rezone part of it. Here’s the original zoning of Trace:
The dark orange part facing I-35 is General Commercial, about 44 acres.
Now they want to convert about 37 of those acres to apartments:
Both the light orange and brown parts of that red circle could now be apartments.
Is this good or bad? It’s complicated. At the P&Z meeting in December, Griffin Spell an excellent point: yes, we need housing. But Trace has not fully built the apartment complexes that they’re already allowed to build.
Furthermore, we also need amenities on the east side. It is a huge problem in this town that the east side lacks an HEB and the normal sort of shopping options. People are constantly talking to council and P&Z members about needing more commercial on the east side.
Griffin’s point is basically, “Let the developers finish building the apartment complexes that they’ve already agreed to build. If they still can’t find commercial occupants at that point, they can bring the rezoning back.”
The developer basically says, “Unfortunately, commercial is just not viable in that spot! It’s not visible from I-35!”
To which Griffen dryly responds, “You’re the one that put it there back in 2015, and nothing has changed since it was approved.”
The developer gave a weasely answer about communities maturing. It left me with the impression that they always planned on converting it to apartments, and the original commercial zoning was just there to make it look good.
So what did council do?
At City Council, there was no discussion of this point at all. They just approved it, 7-0. It gives the impression that they are not scrutinizing developers at all. The issue Griffin raised is complex, and at least deserves some air time. On this item, I’m giving the stink-eye to this new Max-less council.
Items 16-18: Various CDBG funding. Moving money around to fund rental and utility assistance, a project where they buy flood-prone land to keep it from being developed, and working on some ongoing flood projects for the Blanco Riverine and around Blanco Gardens.
Item 17: The Planning Department has a lot of fees for various services and permits. How do they set these prices?
It’s been a while since they updated what fees they charge. So they had a consultant come in and analyze how much it costs the city to carry out all these services. Then they compared fees to seven comparison cities. Then they shared all this at the December 14th workshop, and proposed new fees.
The city wants to balance covering at least 50% of their costs, without charging homeowners and small businesses too much or being too out of line with the other cities. I did not dive deep into the fees, but the methodology sounds fine. Council said it was all fine.
Item 20: The result of the HSAB drama from December. At the 3 pm workshop, city council worked on this with city staff. Here’s the outcome:
(Note: It says “The Board should not fund all programs” but they intended “The board should not feel compelled to fund all programs.”)
All seems fine. I think they’re going to go back and re-allocate the December money according to these principles.
Item 21: Mano Amiga circulated a petition to repeal the SMPD contract. Now, I obviously live here in San Marcos. If Mano Amiga were to approach me, I would sign their petition, because I generally support their mission.
But as your local friendly blogger, I’m going to call shenanigans – the actual petition is confusing. As far as I can tell, this is the entire thing:
What’s the actual, specific gripe with the meet-and-confer contract? And what’s the specific, desired outcome? Maybe there’s another page somewhere spelling it out? (Update: It’s the Hartman Reforms. But I still don’t see anything about it on the Mano Amiga website.)
Now this incident is extremely clear-cut abuse by the correctional officer. You’ve got an unarmed inmate in a hospital, wearing ankle shackles for god’s sake. He tries to escape. The officer shoots him six times. That officer had some fantasy that the only way to handle a person running away was to be judge, jury, and executioner. Joshua Wright has to die because this correctional officer can’t properly evaluate and handle the danger of an unarmed guy wearing ankle shackles. What the utter fuck.
Mano Amiga is clearly livid, and sprang into action, demanding bodycam footage and holding events and raising awareness. Of course, I wholly support their efforts for justice for Joshua Wright. This is the most just and deserving of causes to fight for.
The San Marxist 