The SMART Terminal took almost 5 hours of a 5 1/2 hour meeting. So what else was there?
Items 8 and 9: Zoning a chunk next to the high school:
Literally adjacent to the high school. It’s going to be apartments.
Just because it’s been awhile, let’s walk through our criterion for evaluating residential zoning:
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?
Great location. Fully covered in terms of infrastructure and services.
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?
Probably? Sure would be nice if we had an ongoing housing needs assessment!
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. Environmentally reasonable.
Social: Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing SMCISD schools and amenities?
Not mixed income. That’s the only drawback: I want to intersperse people from all different economic levels. But couldn’t be closer to SMCISD!
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?
Nope. It never is. Bummer.
Overall, this is a reasonably good thing to build here.
Items 12-13: we need some equipment.
Specifically, we are leasing (1) 41′ Digger Derrick-Tracked Backyard, five (5) Ford F350 Supervisor Trucks, two (2) 47′ Digger Derricks (DC47), one (1) AM55 Overcenter Aerial Device, four (4) Articulating Telescopic Aerial Devices (AT41M), for the Electric-Utilities department.
Those look like fun.
Item 15: Carports.
Saul Gonzales brought this item up for discussion:
Apparently, carports are mostly not allowed in San Marcos.
The problem is setbacks:
As one of these Odes to Enshrined Sprawl, you can’t build too close to the edge of your property. The size of your setback varies, depending on your zoning.
You are allowed to park your car in your setback, but you can’t put a structure in it. So where does that leave carports? Carports count as a structure that’s not allowed in your setback zone, even though they house your car. So unless your yard is huge, you probably don’t have room for a carport.
So why? What’s so bad about a carport?
First off, setbacks are different from easements and right-of-ways. Easements and right-of-ways are needed for water lines and future sidewalks and things like that. You definitely can’t put structures up over those.
So what’s the reason for banning carports in the setbacks?
The polite version is “neighborhood character”. The blunt version is that people who care about status think they look trashy.
(Do I think they look trashy? No! They’re fine! Protect your cars from the hail. Who cares.)
Mark Gleason phrases it as, “Some neighborhoods are going to hate carports, while they’re fine in other neighborhoods.” Can’t argue with that. HOAs are the worst!
Bottom line: this will get discussed in the future. If you want a carport, try to live in the right kind of neighborhood.
The San Marxist 