It’s election season! Remember that time Shane Scott waved around a baggie of pot during a city council meeting? I am definitely milking that. (But also serious candidate talk.) Also we discuss the CM Allen District and VisionSMTX++ until we want to keel over.
Just last meeting, we wondered when the Biden Bus incident would get resolved. And then on Tuesday, it was announced that the city settled for $175K. Honestly, I think we got off cheap – it’s completely insane that Biden staffers called 911 and got mocked by San Marcos city employees.
Anyway, I took note of this sentence: “According to the settlement, the city is also required to issue a public statement within three days.”
Here you go:
The contrition isn’t exactly oozing off the page. That last sentence is particularly rich.
CM Allen district – we want Option 2! There’s too much student housing and not enough parking. Last riverfront property.
CM Allen district – we do not want Option 2! There’s not enough housing and not enough parking, and there’s better ways to spend money.
CM Allen district Option 2 was conceived in the dead of night behind closed doors, and we object to being locked out of the process.
Big $36 million grant available for river restoration. Letter of intent deadline is coming quick. Could use this to study Cape’s Dam? (SMRF)
San Marcos does a miserable job of making this city accessible for people in wheelchairs.
San Marcos does a miserable job of taking care of our heritage trees. You all recently cut down a big one on the town square, and another one across from the Veterans Memorial.
We’re going to sue you if you pass those airport rezonings.
We’ll get to the Great Option 2 Debate when we discuss the Downtown Master Plan. The rest of the topics raised don’t really show up again this evening.
(The airport rezoning passed with the Consent Agenda.)
….
Item 13: The bus.
Everyone loves the Austin Powerplant sign for using that Gotham City font, but may I humbly submit that the San Marcos Station font is a serious contender for charming font choices?
(I think it’s actually the same font, but we don’t go making such a fuss about it.)
Anyway, good news: Buses are free in San Marcos! Paratransit services are free, too! These have all been free since the beginning of Covid, actually. Maybe there’s a route that suits your needs?
This is all very good! No changes are coming.
All they did on Tuesday was set up a procedure so that someday, if service or fares do need to change, there’s a procedure in place, which includes a public hearing. Also good!
The vote: 7-0. Good job, Council!
Item 14: VisionSMTX++
We are almost to the sad end to an excruciating process.
Background: VisionSMTX++ is the Comprehensive Plan, the big vague guiding document for how we want the city to grow and change over the next ten years. Or rather: growth is coming regardless of whether or not we want it, so let’s have a plan for where to put it.
A 30-person citizen steering committee met with consultants for two years to produce VisionSMTX. Tons of extra community input was solicited.
Mayor Hughson and P&Z read it and got mad about it. So they formed a subcommittee and made 74 pages worth of changes to a 300 page document. Given that a lot of the 300 page document is fluff and filler – pretty pictures, etc – you can see that they really dug in and tore it apart. (We first discussed this here.)
A lot of the committee – including me! – got mad about it. P&Z held a workshop and approved the new version. (Discussed here.)
City staff adds an extra “+” to pour one out for their homies, each time P&Z wrecks something important. So by now, it’s become VisionSMTX++.
Public Hearing:
It is almost entirely people mad about the subcommittee changes.
P&Z subcommittee destroyed all the community input that was solicited for original plan.
Original is the right version, not the P&Z shadow version
In their effort to protect the Historic district, they’ve now hamstrung all the other neighborhoods from getting basic services
Support for a second city center on the east side, but please be sure to commemorate the El Camino Real trail running through it.
(Guys. GUYS! You know how our whole thing is “A River Runs Through Us”? We could have a companion piece, “This Historic Trail Also Runs Through Us.” Yes, yes?)
More people saying the original Vision SMTX is better
Rosie Ray reiterating her two main points from last time: 1. please remove “vehicle” from the definition that’s meant to deal with reducing car dependency. 2. Please add “multiplexes/duplexes/condos” to the things that are currently found in neighborhoods where they currently exist.
What exactly are the substantial changes?
There are roughly three camps:
1. People passionate about the Historic District. We love Belvin and San Antonio street. 2. Developers who want to maximize profit. 3. Lefties who are worried about sprawl, the environment, and unaffordable housing. Hi!
Group 1 holds all the power in this discussion. They have a majority on P&Z and Council. The P&Z subcommittee, plus Jane Hughson, was overwhelmingly Group 1.
Group 1’s perspective: – They are extremely worried about Group 2 destroying cute old houses and putting up giant apartment complexes in the middle of neighborhoods. To be fair, this is a thing that Group 2 would cheerfully do, if allowed. – They think Group 3 is kind-hearted idiots who will do inadvertently the bidding of Group 2.
In order to prevent this, they locked down the Historic District into carbonite and said, “We hereby declare that nothing shall ever change!”
However, they actually locked down all single family neighborhoods. This was not an accident. They see a black and white world, where the only two options are this:
For The Haves:
The Haves get massive sprawl, high prices, and car-dependency
and 2. For the Have-Nots:
The Have-Nots get massive utilitarian apartment complexes.
Group one believes there is absolutely no other possibility. (Weirdly though, you need a lot of rules to pretend this.)
The problem is that there is a 3rd possibility: gently densify your neighborhoods. – Allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs) – Allow housing that the have-nots can afford, like duplexes, triplexes, or other smallscale affordable housing. You want the neighborhood to still feel like a quiet neighborhood, but just not be such a jerk about keeping poor people out. – Focus on ways to reduce car-dependency, by providing necessities nearby. In other words, people like having a corner store where you can pick up some groceries or a sandwich.
So: Is Group 3 actually a bunch of well-intentioned idiots? Is that fantasy impossible?
No! It’s very, very possible! It’s the Historic District. There are actually a ton of mini-complexes hidden throughout. Pretty much every single house along Belvin has an ADU. Isn’t that great? And they can quickly reach little HEB and all of downtown without driving.
It is great for them! Just not for anyone else.
Here are the specific major changes from the subcommittee: – Remove ADUs from being allowed in single family neighborhoods. – Remove smallscale multiplex from being in low intensity areas. – Measure “walkability” by what you can drive to. Like, in your car. – Declare that all existing low-intensity neighborhoods only contain houses. They don’t, but we’re declaring it! – Infill must match existing housing types. In other words, if there are only houses as far as the eye can see, then that’s what you’re stuck with. Forever and ever. – Remove language that helps people bike around town for transportation. (Seriously, what are you, a grinch? You can’t enjoy yourself if someone else is able to bike to work?)
The list of changes is 74 pages long. Just the changes!! Many of them are minor, but it’s a nightmare to wade through. ( I got to page 26 and gave up.)
But now I’m going to step back and try to see things from a bird’s eye view:
How much does a comprehensive plan matter? I don’t know. I can see it both ways:
1. Not that much: Developers will continue to build single-family sprawl and massive complexes, because fundamentally they’re not in it for social change and progressive rallying cries. They play it safe, because they want profits to be safe.
2. Matters a whole lot: Incremental change adds up over time. These little nudges towards affordable housing and against car-dependency wouldn’t solve problems, but they’d help keep us from making things worse as quickly as possible.
Ultimately I think it matter quite a lot, or else I wouldn’t spend my Saturdays writing all this out, over and over again.
The Council Debate:
Jane starts off with her apology tour, which I found wholly unconvincing. Basically:
The shadow P&Z committee was supposed to be a good thing! The point was transparency! If she’d saved her concerns for Council, fewer people would have had a chance to see all the changes.
She just wanted to protect existing neighborhoods. (She seems to think this is an unassailable good thing, instead of the utter heart of the issue.)
She talked to a wise person who explained the accusation of “watering it down”: the issue was this word swap from “objectives” to “considerations” and so Jane has changed it back.
Jane is truly missing the point. She’s unable to consider that the content of her changes is why people are mad.
…
Side note: I don’t know if city council reads this blog. They are all aware of it, because I’ve emailed them as The San Marxist, and included a link (and also because San Marcos is small and gossipy).
If a councilmember claims they want as much community input as possible, then they should be reading this blog.
If a councilmember chooses not to read this blog, I am going to infer that they don’t actually want to maximize the amount of community input that they hear.
Jane seems wholly unaware of the arguments I’ve made over and over and over. In fairness, she also seems unaware of the public comments that were made 10 feet away from where she’s sitting, 15 minutes earlier. So who knows.
…
Let’s dive in!
Jude: So how big are these changes exactly? Why are we taking out ADUs? Why not incentivize diverse housing types? Why so many 4th quarter changes?
Answer from staff: We were focused on transparency!
Jude: I feel uncomfortable with making all these changes by the seat of our pants. We should respect the process.
Jane: I made these changes back in March. Hardly the seat of our pants.
Alyssa: You’re saying the subcommittee rewrite was justified because it was open to the public and transparent. But look, the subcommittee really does not reflect our community. When considering these issues, I try to use two questions as guideposts:
Who is this leaving behind?
Are we doing something that we’ll have to undo later?
People feel like they’ve been dismissed. We can see who we’re leaving behind based on the composition of P&Z. When we are taking suggestions from a tiny body, we can expect to have to rewrite things. I support the original plan.
[Note: I like these two questions. We are leaving behind most of San Marcos. We will definitely end up having to undo this comp plan eventually. ]
Shane: I’m not ready to vote on this tonight. More research is needed.
Mark Gleason: I don’t have a problem with the changes, philosophically. I’m ready to move forward.
Saul: I’m okay moving forward.
Matthew Mendoza didn’t weigh in at this point, but he’s so obviously pro-neighborhoods-in-carbonite that it’s unnecessary.
…
So at this point, the game is over. The new plan has the four votes it needs. Its fate is sealed. Here is the status of all the existing neighborhoods now:
The thing that’s absolutely wild is how little time Council spends discussing any of this.
The original community group spent 2 years on this.
P&Z took eight months and a workshop, and a re-write to wade through all of this.
The above conversation takes about 20 minutes.
After this, Jane has a bunch of worthwhile amendments on other issues – after all, the entire thing is 300 pages long. But they’re on new and different details.
All those changes described above? ADUs, walkability, definitions, etc? Just absolute radio silence.
Why not take these large issues one at a time, and discuss them? Why not offer up an amendment, or hunt for a compromise, or at least make the majority defend their reasons? Why not do something?
Obviously Jane, Mark, Saul, and Matthew all like the new plan. (I disagree with all of them.)
But Shane, Jude, and Alyssa all don’t like the new plan! My dudes. You could dig in and try to repair it. You’ve been spoonfed two mild, palatable amendments by Dr. Rosie Ray, on two separate occasions! The very least you could do is offer those up.
Jude even explicitly asked about ADUs and diverse housing types, but then lets it go! (Which is his signature dance move, of course.) And Shane – “I need to do more research” – Scott is also being absurd. He was on the actual steering committee for two years! Be a councilmember, make an amendment, hammer out a compromise.
The actual final vote is next meeting. Maybe one of them will surprise me.
Should LBJ and Guadalupe Stay 1-Way Streets?
Next Jane makes a series of amendments. Most of them are minor and fine. The one that’s more notable is about LBJ and Guadalupe downtown. In the Comp Plan Appendix, they bring up converting them to be two-way.
Jane’s take: Over the years, we’ve debated this thing until we were blue in the face. We voted and laid this issue to rest. Plus, the price tag to reverse course now is super steep, and it would mess up the bike lanes.
Saul: It used to be 2 way.
Jane: I remember! It switched in 1971, right before I got my license.
Jude: Longterm, we all know they will have to be 2 way.
Note: We do? Why is it a foregone conclusion that eventually we’ll have to have two way streets?
I do remember the debates on this, but I wasn’t paying close attention. My memory is:
Businesses prefer two-way because it’s easier for people to locate their store
People seem to like one-way out of preference for the status quo
Possibly traffic moves better with one-way?
I personally am used to one-way and it seems to work pretty smoothly, and so I stand with those who prefer the status quo. Plus, I don’t want to undo the bike lanes. But I’m open to hearing the arguments for two-way, especially if it’s supposedly “inevitable” and all.
The vote on one-way streets:
Keep ‘en one-way: Jane, Saul, Matthew, Mark
Two way is the future! Shane, Jude, Alyssa
Alyssa stated earlier that she’s a “no” on all of this, protesting the process. So she is not necessarily weighing in on 1-way vs 2-way streets here.
…
Jude ends by saying he’s still super concerned about the process. Not concerned enough to make any actual amendment. Just concerned, y’know, in general.
The first vote on the whole VisionSMTX++:
Lock down the sprawl! Jane, Mark, Saul, Matthew, and Jude
I’m protesting the process! Shane and Alyssa
Like I said, this will come back one more time, in November. (Feel free to read the whole thing yourself – all the versions, and the summary table of changes. Go nuts.)
The Downtown Area Plan is more than just the CM Allen District, but that’s definitely the part that sucks up all the oxygen in the room. (Discussed here last time.)
Still, let’s take a moment to pay attention to the rest:
And here are the major points:
The thing is: downtown is already owned and zoned. You can’t demand or legislate hardly anything. All you can do is entice and form partnerships and collaborate with the people who run the things located there.
So let’s move onto the CM Allen District, which we discussed last time:
There was a Downtown Area Plan committee, who came up with Option 1:
Option 1:
Five Story Loaves of Bread:
Similarly to VisionSMTX, the shadow subcommittee of P&Z plus Jane Hughson was horrified, and rewrote it.
Hence Option 2:
Given that the city doesn’t actually own all that land, the Planning Department tried to thread the needle and come up with a compromise option:
Option 3:
Colorful, vibrant, smaller loaves of bread:
At P&Z, we heard about the unaffordability of Option 2. P&Z voted for Option 2 anyway.
This time the staff presentation spends even longer on the complete unaffordability of it:
Basically, downtown land is worth much more than anywhere else in town.
Right now, the 6.25 acres are mostly undeveloped, but they bring in this much taxable revenue:
The whole thing is 6.25 acres, so I’m going to ballpark the yearly revenue at $456K for the three lots marked. A community member says that if they were developed, they’d pull in $3 million/year for the city. Maybe?
No one can really say how much it would cost to acquire the parks, but if we had to say, staff puts the market value at $27 million dollars.
The city staff are always so professional, and so they presented all options neutrally, but I definitely got whiffs of Springfield Monorail from Option B:
Besides the magical thinking of the price tag, there’s also serious equity issues here.
Here is how the current parks are distributed throughout the city:
You may notice that there’s barely anything east of 35. People who live east of 35 have noticed this too, and are not amused. (They’ve also noticed a bunch of other patterns of systematic disregard. Isn’t that something!)
So what does the public think?
MO-NO-RAIL! MO-NO-RAIL! Ahem.
Giant student housing will make parking way worse downtown.
There’s a shallow water table under CM Allen, and drilling into the rock wil fracture it.
If Texas State buys this land, we’re hosed.
The procedure was not democratic. Option 2 preys on emotions.
There are serious accessibility issues downtown for people in wheelchairs. This plan doesn’t address any of that.
The college students run downtown and grown ups don’t feel welcome.
We can find much better ways to spend $27 million dollars than this.
Car dependency is bad, it’s better to put more housing in walkable areas like downtown.
In actuality: there are three in favor of Option 2, five opposed, and one speaking on accessibility issues.
Council discussion:
Mark Gleason goes first:
He loves the vision of #2. He wishes we could afford it.
There’s absolutely no way he can go face constituents on the East Side and tell them he voted to spend $27 million on more West side parks.
It’s already zoned, it’s not undeveloped like the Woods
This won’t stop flooding.
Not ideal, but #3 is best. We must to something to help the rest of town.
(I can see the marketing now! “A River Runs Through Us, That Historic Trail Also Runs Through Us, and a Loop Runs Around Us.” Practically a spaghetti bowl of significance!)
Jane goes next: She literally says “I need to do some ‘splaining,” which is endearing.
Her ‘splaining: The graphics freaked her out, and she wanted some green space. Never pictured golf course style mock up. Never said “Eminent Domain” or millions of city money.
The idea was that if you don’t explicitly ask for green space, you’ll get zero. If you do ask, maybe you’ll get a little.
Jude: There are better places to turn into parks than this. Could City Hall move here? Hotel, civic space?
Alyssa: I don’t like any of them, but I agree with Jude and Mark.
Shane: What about a splash pad downtown? I’m here for families! Families first! These are the last tracts along the river. Option 2!
Saul: I’m born and raised in San Marcos. There were no skyscrapers back then. Whenever I talk to anyone, they say “Why are there so many skyscrapers downtown? Why is there so much student housing?” That’s not San Marcos. Plus, it’s a slippery slope. What’s next, high rises all the way to 35? What if Texas State buys it? They don’t pay taxes or fees! It’s for the kids. Bring back how it was!
[Side Note: “Why is there so much student housing?” Because the town loses their goddamn minds if students live anywhere else. Students are actually people, and they’re entitled to live in this town.
Sometimes students act like jerks! But so do rich people, and also middle-class people, and also poor people. People are jerks.]
Matthew: I had been a big fan of #2. Rio Vista Relief! But paid parking is coming. Where would this park’s parking be?
We had a community meeting with Blanco Gardens on crime. Wasn’t well attended, and just me and Mark. They kept saying, “Why does the west get EVERYTHING?” Park distribution is not fair. East side is always neglected.
Matthew gave this huge impassioned speech about the plight of the east side, and then finished by saying, “And that’s why I’m on the fence!” which made me laugh. Way to undercut your own passion.
Saul: Cape’s Dam is coming to the east side!
Matthew: But not, like, anytime soon.
The Vote on the CM Allen District:
Love me some Option 3!: Mark Gleason, Jane Hughson, Alyssa Garza, Matthew Mendoza, Jude Prather
Option 3 Gives Me a Sad: Shane Scott, Saul Gonzales
So there you have it.
The entire downtown plan will get revised to incorporate Option 3, and then will come back on November 6th for a final vote.
…
Item 12: Sights & Sounds
Apparently people ask Alyssa every year to keep an eye on S&S. The former city manager gave her the runaround when she asked for documentation. She asks if she could please get some straight answers. She’s told “no problem!”
…
Item 16: Land Development Code:
Last meeting, we were going to kick this back for two months, to give committees a chance to meet. Now the planning department is asking if we could please just pass it, since it’s holding up a bunch of stuff, and they promise the committees will all meet promptly.
Someone go make an animated GIF of that for me! It’s still so funny. And look at everyone else’s expression:
Eight different ways to say, “What the fuck, Shane?!” with just your eyes. I love it.
More seriously: should you vote for Shane?
He was on council around 2010 for a while, and then was voted off, and then was voted back on three years ago. I’m going to focus on the past couple years, since that’s what I’ve paid closest attention to.
The good: We sometimes share a common enemy:
He has an anti-authoritarian streak, so he votes against the curfew and often looks askance at the police
He loves businesses and hates regulations, which often pits him against NIMBY types. I am interested in affordable housing and helping vulnerable populations, which often pits me against NIMBY types, as well. So, the enemy of my enemy is my friend?
For example, he voted against curfews, and voted to repeal Meet-and-Confer. (On the other hand, he voted to approve the new contract when it came back.) He voted against VisionSMTX++ this evening.
The bad: Often I disagree with him:
He’ll choose businesses over the environment
He’ll choose businesses over vulnerable people
Whereas I like the environment and vulnerable people.
Looking over my yearly summaries, these are things that jump out at me: Voting against the transportation master plan because of the bike lanes. Being rude to SMRF on multiple occasions. Voting against the lobbying ordinance. Voting against the eviction delay a full year earlier than its repeal, while the rest of council was still in favor of it. Voting for every single development that has come around, even the ones that end up being denied. He’s generally the most guaranteed vote for business interests, at the expense of anything else.
The ugly: Shane never seems to do anything. I can recall just a few things he’s ever initiated:
The first three are all from 2021. That’s over two years old! And scolding Max Baker was in March of 22. He hasn’t initiated anything else I can remember, for most of his term.
He doesn’t make amendments or improve policies or try to incorporate multiple points of view into a compromise. He just shows up, votes, gets annoyed when things drag out, and goes home. That’s a real waste of a position of power.
Atom Von Arndt, the unknown quantity
What is Atom like? He seems more prepared than last year. Last year, he had shallow answers like “How dare we spend so much on street lights down Hopkins!” This year, he seems to be thinking more strategically about the connection between vulnerable populations and policy. He sounded basically progressive!
He also said that he’s just going to keep on running until he’s elected. I actually admire that a lot.
My opinion: I’m leaning towards Atom for Place 4.
Also: Alyssa is unopposed for Place 3. Fortunately, she’s great. Vote for her!
The Debate
The League of Women Voters held their debate over zoom, on October 12th. The whole thing is very short – only 26 minutes. Opening statements, eight questions, closing statements, done!
The questions:
What motivates you to seek this position?
What would you strive to accomplish during your term?
How can council create opportunities for citizen input at the earliest stages of the review process for new commercial and industrial developments?
What steps should San Marcos take to prepare for extreme weather events?
How should San Marcos work with agencies to ensure the environmental health of the river?
What will you do to support a vibrant economy in San Marcos while also controlling rampant growth?
Explain the status of the San Marcos water supply, and what should be done to ensure future supply is adequate.
Fire danger in Texas is increasing due to hotter summers, drought, and development. Please discuss your position on the city’s present fire fighting resources, and any changes you’d suggest.
I don’t love this set of questions? Questions 4,7, and 8 are all technical issues. The only respectable answer is, “Well, I’d listen to the experts since they know way more than me.”
So we wasted three questions on important-but-wonky issues. But there was nothing asked about:
Sprawl
Affordable housing
SMART Terminal
SMPD
Cape’s Dam
In short, I want questions that could potentially distinguish how candidates will vote on issues.
However! The LWV are a bunch of hard-working volunteers, who are running debates and volunteering because they believe in democracy. I’m not really going to crab at anyone who is donating so much time and energy towards democracy.
The rules: Each candidate gets one minute for anything, no rebuttals.
Debate Summary: I think they tied, debate-wise. Neither one sounded much stronger than the other. I basically transcribed their answers below, but it’s kind of jumbled, since they only had a minute to make their case.
Opening statements:
Shane Scott: – Council for 3 years, – 5 year term about 5 years earlier. – Glad to be here!
Atom Von Arndt: – Regular guy: renter, dad, – Got the same problems that everyone is having.
What motivates you to seek this position?
Shane: The community, the issues that are coming. The growth we’re going to see. The jobs we need to create. Transportation issues. Wanting to serve in general.
Atom: Housing issues, affordability issues, lack of transparency with the roads. I face all these same problems and I want to help. I’m concerned with the people on the bottom of the food chain. Getting resources for the homeless and people in need. Service.
What would you strive to accomplish during your term?
AVA: Get better resources for mental health issues. If you’re on disability, there aren’t resources and you get forced out of town. How do you move to a bigger place if this isn’t affordable? Increase resources. Second, housing. Rent-by-the-room is hurting our economy.
SS: Same things! Affordability, housing, homeless. List goes on. Transportation is coming in the future. I see the traffic. We work for homeless and people with mental health issues. We do a lot. We lower rates. I did the debt forgiveness for utilities. We do a lot.
How can council create opportunities for citizen input at the earliest stages of the review process for new commercial and industrial developments?
SS: All plans for any kind of development should be out and open for the community to observe and have input! Too many times it’s done before it even gets to council. Committees can help decipher! But the community needs a birds-eye view of any development that’s going to come to San Marcos.
AVA: Community outreach. I hear that this is difficult. People need to know. How do we get their attention? More town halls. More block parties. Use businesses to bring people in to announce decisions and upcoming things, especially P&Z. Make town halls exciting! Give them some pizzazz to get people to show up and make people feel like council is operating on their behalf.
What steps should San Marcos take to prepare for extreme weather events?
[Kinda unfair as a question!]
AVA: It’s been a drought, and then we’re worried about floods. Need emergency plans in place. Need to worry about all this new development and how it will affect the flood plains. Preparedness and emergency plans – focus on that. “I’m no weatherologist, but eventually we’re going to to have the rain again, we’re going to have the water, and it’s going to need to be an issue we get out in front of.”
SS: Is this the winter storm you’re asking about? We’ve done a lot! Hardening our water and utility lines to protect during freeze. Federal funding for flood mitigation, we went to Washington. Bypasses are getting built, underground drainage is getting built, GPMRS system just got up, will let people get on the channel if you have no cell ability.
How should SM work with agencies to ensure the environmental health of the river?
SS: That’s one of our key issues! We’re talking about a can ban. Removed styrofoam from parks, moved BBQ pits away, we do river clean up 2-3x a year. Educate people about the river and let them know about the endangered species and why we love it.
AVA: Love the can ban. Boils down to enforcement. Gotta make sure people do that. But development is happening by the river. Gotta enforce rules on development as well, though. Enforce the rules and regulations around the river and pass more things like can ban to keep people from flooding the river with garbage.
What will you do to support a vibrant economy in San Marcos while also controlling rampant growth?
[What does “controlling rampant growth” exactly mean? It sounds like “try to prevent” which is nonsense.]
AVA: This is tricky! Businesses open and close downtown a lot. Seasonality of economy, poor college students. Grants to support small local businesses. Work with small local businesses. Make downtown beautiful, open up boarded up shops. Encourage growth with larger businesses, grocery store chains.
[May I humbly suggest that we strongly look at a vacancy tax?]
SS: With covid, small businesses were hit. We did a lot as a city, but many did close. I’m focused on bringing the jobs – Amazons #1 and 2. A place to live, work, and play, with a job that pays enough to live here. Looking for ways to help people.
[HRM. Have we been concerned with minimum wage jobs, SHANE?]
Explain the status of the SM water supply, and what should be done to ensure future supply is adequate.
SS: I know this one pretty well! I voted for the water rights from Gonzales. GMRA and us bought 50% of it and literally purchased our water security for the next 50 years. So we’re not going to run out like Kyle does. In fact, Kyle didn’t want to join originally, and so I was like ‘we’ll purchase your portion and sell it back to you later on, to make money and lower utilities for our citizens.’ So I’m always trying to get someone else to pay for our lifestyle, because we were here first. [off-putting chuckle.]
AVA: The majority of our water we don’t pull from the Edwards aquifer. Most of us are coming from another source. The college is using a lot more aquifer water than the city does. Selling off water to Kyle is great! It’s income. Obviously let’s educate them to keep them from blowing through their limits though. I want to look into more of this college vs city stuff another time.
Fire danger in Texas is increasing due to hotter summers, drought, and development. Please discuss your position on the city’s present fire fighting resources, and any changes you’d suggest.
AVA: Having a well-funded, well-equipped fire department is essential for any city in Texas. We can and should spend more money on it, especially with the record heat. More firefighters over police officers, not to start any fights. Houses catch on fire all the time, we don’t have any crime waves going on in SM right now. [Note: I can’t tell if this is straight or kidding.] We need to be prepared and equipped.
SS: We keep increasing the Fire Department needs as the chief presents them. Also education what the fired department can and can’t do. We have to call air supply to the hill country. We’re always paying attention to that. Community engagement and people paying attention so that fires don’t happen.
[A good answer here would be to connect it to sprawl. The more sprawl, the more expensive your fire department becomes.]
Closing Statements
SS: Thanks you! It’s been a pleasure. I hope I’ve answered questions that help you understand. I’m a small business owner, been here 30 years. My kids go through the school system. We’re part of everything. I love serving, problem-solving, forethought for planning, 50 year water supplies, 3% that we bought into the electric utility that earned us 25 million during the Uri Snowstorm*. Those are things I enjoy putting together as a councilmember, and I enjoy the business side of that. Lower the rates, lower the taxes!
[Wait. The city earned $25 million from electricity during Snowvid?! That’s super gross!]
AVA: Thank you! It would be an honor. I’m in sales. I’ve always worked for other people, rented from other people, so I feel the effects of when this all happens for the working class. My superpower is communicating and talking to people, it’s what I’ve always been good at. Finding common ground. So many different people with different people, and I think I can be the voice for them. It’s a great city, there’s a lot we can do. I’m not going anywhere! I’ll run again next year! I think I have a good head on my shoulders, and I’ll talk to anyone who wants to talk to me.
And…SCENE! My guess is that Shane is so well-connected that he breezes to re-election. But it wouldn’t hurt to at least make him sweat a little.
Another big meeting: Airport zonings, occupancy restrictions, and two downtown student complexes are brewing.
Hours 0:00 – 1:55: Mostly we talk about the airport, and what should and shouldn’t be built around it. Hours 1:55 -2:55: The Land Development Code, and the zombie occupancy restriction discussion that just won’t die. Hours 2:55 – 3:36: Special Events Permitting, and not one, but two potential downtown student complexes. Bonus Council workshop: Boarded up, derelict buildings are maybe getting a glow up? Lots of good pictures to marvel at.
This is a great meeting for showing how “Democrat” and “Republican” stop making sense at the local level. There are at least two issues where I think Shane, Jude, and Mark are seeing things more clearly, and Jane and Matthew are delusional, but at the national party level, all five of them probably vote pretty similarly.
Election talk:
October 12th is the League of Women Voters debate: Shane Scott vs Atom Von Arnt. Stay tuned!
Please don’t let city staff approve restaurant alcohol permits. (Item 9.)
There are some apartments being proposed on Lindsey, between Academy and Comanche. (Item 17.) This gets a lot of traction:
Against it: Three students/former students represent a recently formed group called “Tenants Advocacy group”, to fight on behalf of tenants. (Be still my heart.) They’re strongly opposed to this complex.
Love it: The developer is all in favor of the Lindsey street apartments, and Shannon Mattingly – former director of San Marcos Planning Dept – is now working for this developer.
We’ll get into the details of all this, in due time!
Finally: one of the speakers (Kama Davis) brings up an item from Executive Session (Item 20):
A developer wants the title of this alley, in purple:
The speaker wants it to stay with the city.
This taps into a much larger conversation about What To Do Along CM Allen. Should it be parks? Should it be apartment complexes? You just sit tight, we’ll get to all of this.
…
Item 1: We get CDBG funding from the federal government, specifically from HUD. We qualify on a few different points:
Tonight’s presentation is an internal audit, by Deloitte and Touche, on the $34 million we got after the 2015 floods. They’ve looked us over, and say everything was fine. Hooray!
Items 2-3: We get Q2 reports on the budget and our investments. Both seemed unremarkable. We’re a normal-amount of the way through spending and bringing in revenue. Our investments are doing middling-well.
…
Item 8: New airport zonings
So, the FAA and TxDot Aviation both want you to regulate two things:
Stay out of the airways where planes might be flying
Don’t build things right by airports that are going to cause problems later on.
However, neither the FAA nor the state actually control zoning, so they incentivize it. It’s a precondition for various grants and funding opportunities. The state of Texas also gives cities some extra leeway to regulate airports, beyond their city boundaries.
Over the summer, in Georgetown, a plane really did crash into someone’s house. So airport safety is a real thing. We’re all clear on the concept of plane crashes and why they’re bad, yes/yes?
So now it’s time to nail these things down.
Height Hazards: The city staff rep described all these abstract shapes in the air. There were pancakes floating 150’ in the air, cones beyond that, etc. You get the feeling that it looks like a giant invisible stadium around the airport. No one can build into the giant invisible stadium, but you can build below the bleachers, so to speak.
Here’s the bird’s eye view of the invisible stadium:
I don’t think anyone is too fussed by this part. Everyone understands that you need to stay out of the flight path of planes.
2. Compatible Land Use: this is the controversial part.
The main problem is houses and runways: you don’t want houses near your runways. But people already own this land, and no one likes to be bossed around. (Existing houses are grandfathered in.)
Here’s what’s being proposed:
Obviously all those rainbow-spokes are designed around either end of the runways.
So basically:
Bright green means absolutely nothing can be built.
The city owns almost all the bright green, but are some teeny green bits sticking out past the purple line.
The rest of the blues: feel free to build commercial, industrial, or anything else besides homes. Homes are restricted.
Like I said, anything that’s already built gets grandfathered in. The problem is: what if you own the land in those stripes, and you want to someday sell it to a developer? Or you wanted to build apartments yourself? Once those stripes are zoned, you’re out of luck.
Generally, the city is not allowed to downzone your property. If you own some land where you can build 7 stories, and the city wants to change the zoning to 2 stories, they may have to compensate you for the loss of potential revenue.
Here, they don’t, because airport zones are specifically carved out by the state of Texas for protection. Texas wants cities to make airport zones so that there will not be people living in a runway flight path. Makes sense.
So this decreases your land value, and land owners are mad about it. (On the plus side, your property taxes will go down.)
I’m trying not to sound like a total ass, because my initial reaction is, “You’re mad because you wanted to build homes that would be dangerous to the tenants and now you can’t? Fuck off.” (I guess I am a total ass.) But I mean, you can still build things. Just not homes.
Jane Hughson is more sympathetic to them than I am. She’s worried that we’re doing something to land owners, above what’s required by the state or federal government. She asks that the staff speak directly to the speaker who showed up.
Shane Scott says that he is a pilot, which I did not know, and he is pro-airport safety.
If one of these landowners wants to build something not allowed, they can ask for an exception! There’s a procedure for this:
Apply for a variance with the Zoning Board of Adjustments
If you don’t like what they say, you can appeal the decision to district court
The question is, is this sufficient? Or should we feel so bad for them that we do something additional, to show we care about the landowners who want to build homes in front of runways?
Jude Prather’s take: “I’m okay with the ZBOA and appeals procedure. Let the boards and commissions function like they’re supposed to.”
Alyssa Garza’s take: “I feel like there are more details I should understand.”
Saul: Property rights 4-ever!!
Matthew Mendoza: Can we say no to the feds?
I mean, sure. But it’s only going to get harder to make these airport zones, the longer you wait.
Look, this is common sense. The best time to prevent homes from being built is before the homes get built. Shane and Jude are the only ones willing to say this outright, and everyone else comes off as mealy-mouthed.
The vote:
I truly don’t know why Saul and Alyssa voted against it. I mean, I vaguely understand PROPERTY RIGHTS!! But allowing people to build houses in a runway path is a pretty big abdication of the whole point of government.
We discussed this in August and in September. There are just a few remaining issues to hash out. Here we go:
Should staff be able to approve the most mild, least controversial restaurant alcohol permits, or should they all go to P&Z?
For now, all restaurants and all bars will go through P&Z to get their permit. (Discussed here before.)
A subcommittee will look at carving out some exceptions. For example, hotel bars generally aren’t close to neighborhoods, and aren’t generally rowdy. Maybe City Staff can just renew those on their own.
2. Developers have to donate land for parks, or pay a fee instead. If you’ve got just a little infill development of 4 to 8 units, should you have to pay a fee towards the park system?
No one on council really felt strongly about this. They compromised at 6 units: if you’re building a little development with 6 or more units, you need to pay a fee towards the park system.
3. If houses are only allowed to be 2 stories in your neighborhood, and you’ve got a little rooftop patio, does that count as an extra story?
It used to be 25%. If 25% of your roof has a structure on it, it counted as an extra story. Now it’s any structure at all counts as an extra story.
(Discussed here and here before. I accused them of being killjoys.)
4. Should we continue beating a dead horse on this occupancy restriction thing?
Yes, yes we should.
Quick background: San Marcos has restrictions on how many unrelated people can live together. It’s been two. Back in May 2022, Council agreed to loosen them from 2 to 3.
Matthew Mendoza balked at this in August, and then tried to roll it back to 2 in September. The vote failed 4-3. But he’s still all heated up about it, and makes another motion to amend it back to 2.
So first, some facts:
In San Marcos, it’s only certain housing that has occupancy restrictions. Basically, single family neighborhoods.
In these neighborhoods, you can have any number of people, but only up to two unrelated people.
Here’s how we define unrelated: “A family is defined in the Land Development Code as any number of individuals living as a single housekeeping unit who are related by blood, legal adoption, marriage, or conservatorship.”
Here’s what city staff say:
Whenever neighbors complain, they’re not actually mad about the number of unrelated people. It’s always noise, or parking, or the trash, or yard not being kept up. We can deal with the noise/parking/yard complaint. It’s not literally the marital status of any of the tenants that’s the issue, so this ordinance is not needed.
Here’s what Matthew and Jane Hughson say:
Landlords want to be able to rent to three tenants. So if you increase this, landlords will buy up housing stock and let it crumble into shitty, ill-maintained housing that exploits tenants. It’s bad for renters, and decreases the available housing stock for people who want to purchase a home.
Here’s what I say:
Actually, I want to say two things. I want to refute Matthew’s argument, and I also want to make a separate argument on why you should get rid of occupancy restrictions all together.
Look at Matthew’s argument:
When your chain of cause and effect becomes really long and stretched out, that is often a sign that you are writing bad policy.
If you’re worried about those Bad Consequences – low housing stock and shitty landlords – this would not make it onto the top 100 of effective things to do.
What you’d do is:
Build more housing. (All sorts.)
Hold landlords accountable. Enforce code violations and fund a city lawyer to send letters to landlords on behalf of tenants.
Furthermore, his facts aren’t right. Letting bedrooms go unfilled reduces available housing. Occupancy restrictions decrease housing, which is the opposite of Matt’s Bad Consequence #1.
So I have yet to see a compelling argument for these restrictions.
Arguments against – and here’s where I get pissed off:
Why is the city meddling with whether people are married or not? A married couple can take in a tenant, but an unmarried couple cannot? Three friends can’t rent a house? This is gross.
There is a serious housing shortage. You should be able to put people in bedrooms. You should be able to flexibly problem-solve to provide housing on the fly, when someone you care about is in a pinch.
We just talked at length for two meetings about the burden of property taxes on Grandma. Grandma should be allowed to take in her friend’s grandkids as tenants. Grandma’s primary asset is her house, and she doesn’t want to move, but it’s more house than one person needs. Let her share.
The common thread is non-traditional living situations. Why should non-traditional living situations be banned? A few people want to live together, and they can’t, because the city can’t crack down on shitty landlords? That’s dumb as fuck.
Bottom line:
Hold landlords accountable for providing safe, well-maintained housing.
Build a variety of housing in neighborhoods, not just 3- and 4-bedroom houses. Build four-plexes alongside houses so that people can rent apartments in quiet neighborhoods.
Stop micromanaging who is married and who isn’t.
One final point: Yes, landlords buy up housing stock. But listen: being a good landlord is a lot of work. Make bad landlords be good landlords, and some of them will decide it’s not worth it. Hold landlords accountable for maintaining safe and well-maintained properties, and their profit margins will go down, and they’ll be less likely to buy up your housing stock, and it’s better for tenants, and neighbors. Win-win-win.
Here’s how the conversation goes, after Matthew makes his basic argument:
Shane Scott points out that letting someone rent a room may help them afford their property taxes.
No one knows the occupancy restrictions in other cities more generally, but College Station sets it at 4 unrelated people.
(I went hunting, and couldn’t find much. Austin puts it at 6 unrelated people.)
Jude Prather: I’ve been in this situation. I know plenty of respectable, good neighbors who have had three unrelated people living together at various times. How do you tell people they can’t do this, when housing is unaffordable?
Matthew: but Minneapolis got rid of their occupancy restrictions and they went to hell in a handbasket!!
Jude: Actually, Minneapolis went the other way. Their housing costs actually resisted inflation. What about a compromise, where you can take in extra tenants if it’s owner-occupied?
Alyssa: Let’s remember that occupancy restrictions are rooted in racism and classism.
Jane Hughson: NOT IN SAN MARCOS, IT’S NOT! The history here is NOT racist!
In San Marcos, its origins are mostly anti-college students. But the folks in power did not shed a tear that it was also disproportionately impacting poor and non-white community members.
Also, confidential to Jane: I wouldn’t go betting the farm on San Marcos being a bastion of anti-racism.
Matt: I’m trying to protect renters!
(Ahem. Establish a tenant’s council, then.)
Mark Gleason: My worry is keeping people in their homes. So I’m in favor. I think people should be able to rent out a room or two. I don’t think it affects whether or not investors buy up houses. I’m okay with owner-occupied only, though.
Jane: Let’s postpone the whole thing for two weeks!
Matthew: I’m just sad about the historic district.
Jude: San Marcos is clearly an outlier. We’re not trying to get rid of the rule altogether. 3 unrelated people seems like a good compromise.
The vote:
Jane keeps talking about creating a subcommittee and postponing it for two weeks. It feels like she’s just unwilling to recognize that she’s lost this vote. Both Jude and Alyssa gently say that they would be fine just letting it go.
She forms a committee anyway – Matthew Mendoza, Alyssa Garza, and Mark Gleason – and Alyssa says if there’s a committee, she at leasts wants to be on it.
When actually forced, 6-1 vote in favor of committee. The committee will consider whether three unrelated people should only be allowed when one of them owns the house. (We really only want to micromanage the marital status of renters, I guess.)
…
5. Should the notification radius for a giant ungodly thing like the SMART Terminal be bigger than for a dinky little development?
Yes. The notification radius should be proportional to the size of the development. We’ve been over this multiple times.
Staff says no, and gives this as their reason why not: “If we made the cutoff at 500 acres, then developers will just come it at 499 acres!”
In other words: it can’t be done because developers will game the system.
Give me a fucking break. How about this: “For every 25 acres, you have to notify 400 ft out.” Not to brag, but that took me all of ten seconds to write down. I bet someone can spend 10 more seconds and come up with something even better.
Thankfully, Jane is also not satisfied with staff’s lame evasion, and says, “I don’t know the best way to do it, but there’s gotta be a way.”
So this will go to committee.
…
In the end, the whole set of revisions will be postponed until December 5th, to give all these committees time to meet
Right now, if you’re wanting to hold a special event, you have to go to a bunch of different departments to figure out what permitting you need.
Potentially any of these:
Now they’re going to put together a single front-end, tacked onto MyPermitNow and walks you through getting the permits you need.
Everyone is stoked about this.
….
Item 17: Lindsay Street apartments. Ooooh, this one is interesting.
So, Shannon Mattingly was the director of the San Marcos planning department from 2015 to 2022. Then she went to work for the Drenner Group, which are some Austin developers.
Tuesday’s item is just informational. It turns out that developers are allowed to do this – request an informational item at a council meeting. Who knew? (Shannon Mattingly would know!) So you can come in and give a presentation about your exciting new venture.
Here’s where they want to do iti:
And here’s what they want to do:
That is, make it student housing.
I think they said that they want it to be 7 stories and rent-by-the-bedroom student housing.
There are a couple problems, and a couple things that are fine with it. It’s not actuallyentirely bad.
The left hand part, in the red dotted area, has some historic houses that people think are cute, like this one:
I think it’s pretty cute! Maybe it can be saved.
Jude Prather speaks up about maybe finding a way to put commercial in a little historic house like this. Maybe it can be made into a restaurant or something. (I think we all miss Cool Mint Cafe.)
Three people from the newly-formed Tenants Advocacy Group came to speak against it. Their argument went “Rent-by-the-bedroom apartments are predatory and there is plenty of student housing. We don’t want this at all.”
I am so thrilled that they’ve formed this group. This is outstanding.
Their argument against rent-by-the-bedroom is that these leases are more exploitative than regular leases:
You can get stuck with someone awful and have no recourse.
Making students rent “as is” without having seen their actual unit, and then units have broken furniture, mold, etc.
Not having a clause allowing for a way to break the lease
The only thing that I’d quibble is that plenty of regular leases are also exploitative. But a Tenant’s Advocacy Group is exactly the right place to start! Next I’d like to see the city fund a lawyer who will send letters to landlords and argue for fairer leases.
Side note: Rent-by-the-bedroom itself is very weird, and I can’t decide how I feel about it. Without it, you get an apartment with your friends, and if one friend falls behind on their rent or moves out abruptly, the rest of the group is financially liable for the whole rent. So there really is a sense in which students are protected by signing individual leases.
The usual argument against them is they allow rents to skyrocket. But I can’t see how it’s the lease structure that does that. Landlords are always going to charge the maximum that they think people will pay, and if you have insufficient housing, then people are forced to pay it.
Rental companies definitely act in predatory ways. Tenants need protection. It’s just not obvious to me that this one detail of the lease structure is the heart of the problem.
The students in TAG were against the entire complex, full stop. They argued that we have enough student housing and we don’t need any more.
I don’t buy this part of their argument. Housing is like musical chairs: if you add more student housing, students who like fancy new complexes will move into it, and free up their old housing, and whoever moves into that frees up their old housing, and so on. There is not a bright firewall between student housing and non-student housing when complexes get old enough.
Is 7 stories too high? Jane Hughson thinks so, especially for the portion in red. She’d like to see it be a transition area, so maybe 3 stories?
Honestly, I think 3 stories is fine as well. This town does not like high-rises, and I don’t see any need to antagonize people.
So what are the good parts? Well, it’s housing, and it’s not sprawl. Those are good things!
But again, this was just informational. It will come back.
Item 18: Tightening up the rules of city council meetings.
Most of these are codifying the way we currently do things. There’s one change that’s mentioned explicitly: changing “Citizen Comment” to “Community Perspectives”.
This is a good change! I’ve definitely felt weird writing this blog, trying to avoid the word “citizen” when I don’t actually care about someone’s immigration status.
To Any City Staff Who Read This: I have two suggestions!
Sometimes letters from the public are included in the packet, other times not. I want to know what people care about! It is helpful to me to see what the community is mad about! I’d like a consistent practice of including letters to council in the packet.
Often when someone goes up for Q&A, the answer is, “Staff will get back to you.” I’d like to know these answers, too! They should get posted to the message board, please!
….
Item 20: Top Secret Executive Session
Two interesting items:
“receive advice of legal counsel regarding pending litigation concerning the title to an alleyway located near the intersection of University Drive and CM Allen Parkway”
I wouldn’t have noticed this if it hadn’t been brought up during Citizen Comment. The speaker (Kama Davis) said that the company is called SM Block 21, and that they had renderings online. So I looked it up.
Lo and behold, they are!
The lot:
The rendering:
The alley in question:
At least, that’s the only alley I see.
What makes this an EXTREMELY hot potato is the backdrop of last week’s P&Z meeting. So, remember the Comp Plan? It has splinter parts, and in particular there is a Downtown Area Plan.
This hasn’t passed yet, but it’s cooking. It involves this part of town:
Here’s the part that everyone’s worked up about:
They call this part the CM Allen District.
It’s pretty big. And notice that the one in the back is the same thing we were talking about above!
The Downtown Plan Committee said:
We want people walking back and forth between downtown and the park
Right now, it’s all parking lots. Those are the worst: smelly, hot, dangerous. Parking lots shut down walking. (This is borne out by data.)
Businesses can’t survive there (clearly)
So what’s remaining? We should put some housing there.
Staff provided a visual of what it might look like if giant buildings were made out of sliced bread:
Pretty unappealing! They called this option 1.
Jane Hughson and the P&Z subcommittee kinda lost their minds looking at that photo. It’s pretty atrocious! Here’s what they counter-proposed:
The city staff cringed and squirmed and said, “There’s no way in hell you can afford that. That land is super expensive and you’d lose especially valuable tax base.” They proposed option 3:
Those photos are apparently from El Paso. It does look appealing!
But there’s also the “smaller loaves of bread” visual for Option 3:
A ton of people heard about this, and the community came out heavily for Option 2. P&Z recommended option 2 for the Downtown area plan, on the premise that you might as well swing for the fences, even if it’s a long shot.
My two cents:
I’m mostly neutral. A park sounds super lovely, I see the appeal of it. At the same time, those lots are never going to be used very heavily. They’re kidding themselves. The river gets used very heavily, but the parts of the river parks that aren’t close to the river do not. Like, the land along CM Allen between the tennis courts and the railroad tracks – people don’t want to be that far away from the river. And here, you’re on the far side of CM Allen. Are you going to lay down a picnic blanket with a busy street blocking your kids from the river?
Maybe this is a good place for targeted park space – move the baseball fields, or tennis courts, put pick-up soccer fields there. Free up the land that is actually close to the river.
But again, it’s wildly expensive, there’s no obvious way to acquire it, and we’d lose a high-revenue tax base right now. So given the hand-wringing over property taxes last time, it seems kinda counterproductive to take this on.
At the same time, you never get a second chance to grow your parks. I love the river parks so much, I can’t bring myself to be mad about the idea of growing them. Maybe in 50 years, the grandkids will be really glad if we set that land aside.
Bottom line:
Clearly these two things are incompatible:
So when Council debates what to do with the alley that the developer wants, they’re inevitably also saying something about the green fields on the right.
The second interesting item is this:
“[T]o receive advice of legal counsel regarding pending litigation regarding Eric Cervini, et al. vs. Chase Stapp, Brandon Winkenwerder, Matthew Danzer, and City of San Marcos; Civil Action No. 1:21-CV-00568-RP; In the United States District Court, Western District of Texas; Austin Division.”
That would be your Biden Bus incident. It is still simmering along, making its way through the court system. The San Marcos lawsuit is mentioned at the end of this article, but mostly I can’t find anything current about it.
You can even get all trompe l’oeil about the whole thing:
Council liked this, so staff is going to draft some policy and bring it back.
…
But wait! There’s more!
We already partner with ACC to give workforce training courses. Think things like HVAC training, plumbing and electric, etc, where you can get out and immediately start earning a decent income.
Right now we offer courses at the library, but if we had more space, we could offer even more. So we’re going to renovate some city buildings for this:
So the city is proposing using $240K of the Covid money to renovate and create some classrooms.
Everyone’s stoked about this. It’ll come back in some form to council.
The San Marxist 