Two workshops this week:
- CIP Projects for 2027 and
- The next draft of the River Parks and Quail Creek Park plans.
Let’s go!
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Workshop 1: CIP Projects
CIP stands for “Capital Improvement Projects”.
These are the major construction projects that need planning over 5-15 years.
These are SLOW. These are the projects where everyone asks, “Why does it take so long?!”
They get planned 10-20 years out, but the funding comes one year at at time.
So in September, 2026, we are approving the projects that we’ll work on during 2027, and we’ll start paying the debt on this starting next fall.
Here’s some of our biggest projects right now:
They are constantly trying to figure out how to fund these projects:
- Sunset acres stormwater
- Wallace Addition stormwater
- Bishop/Belvin
- The new water reclamation facility by Redwood
Also construction costs have roughly tripled since 2018. In 2018, a $33 piece of PVC pipe might cost $100 now. If something has been planned for a decade, this is going to mess up your plans.
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We can – and do – apply for grant funding:
Grants help a LOT with the costs.
However, grants slow down construction. You might get awarded $5 million, and told that it will be available in 2029. So this is the tradeoff – cheaper for tax payers, but slower for people who need the project completed.
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Just for funsies, have we been doing a lot of these projects?
Yessir! These are just the big projects from the past 3 years.
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They stop to focus on those four big projects in a little more detail:
Each of these is phased in over time:
Sunset Acres has had awful flooding for years and years.
Wallace Addition:
Historic District is mostly done:
This is to deal with all the sprawl we were talking about, and why we need impact fees.
great.
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What does Council say?
Amanda: Highway 123 is super dangerous, especially to pedestrians. What can we do?
Answer: It’s hard because it’s a highway. We have to work with TxDOT. We meet quarterly and tell them our concerns. Eventually we want to put in sidewalks and put in a median. We’re having trouble with TxDOT because they’re so focused on I35.
Everyone is happy with all the grant funding, although the tradeoff is that it slows things down.
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Workshop 2: River Parks and Quail Creek Park
We’ve discussed these parks before, back in July. If we were to overhaul these parks, what would we want to do?
City staff has met with more community members and implemented Council opinions, and come back with the next draft.
First up is the parks along the river, in the center of town.
Starting at the Children’s Park:
The Children’s Park playscape would stay put. They’d change the parking lots all around, and add a bunch of spaces.
Over by the dirt bike trails in the woods, they’d add some “natural play”, which I think means this kind of thing:
Council talks about adding game tables? And connecting some of the paths to the parking lot, for accessibility?
Answer: No problem!
Amanda: What about volleyball courts?
Answer: Maybe! We’ll price them out.
Moving on to Rio Vista park:
They’d add a concession stand. They’d get rid of the pool, but keep the splash pad. The pool would go way out east, to Quail Creek park.
Everyone hates this idea!
Amanda: Keep the pool.
Jane: We should keep the fun pool centrally located. Don’t put it out at Quail Creek.
What should we do with the pool?
Jane is right: move the pool, but keep it central.
The current location is a terrible location for the pool! Nobody swims in both the river and the pool in the same visit. The current location is competing with the river, instead of complementing it. But it should stay in the center of the city!
Here’s where it should go:
- If City Hall ends up moving, move the pool to the current City Hall location.
- If City Hall stays put, move the pool next to the dog park and skate park, across from City Hall.
Both of these places have plenty of parking, are big and central, and the pool would be very heavily used.
Other stray comments:
Amanda: Can we add more water refill stations? And trees?
Answer: Yes!
Amanda: What about cool concrete, to reduce the heat island effect in the parking lots?
Answer: Maybe!
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Onto Quail Creek Park, which is way out east:
It used to be a golf course.
It wouldn’t have a pool anymore, since we’re keeping a pool in town. But it would have a splash pad. (Maybe someday we’d add in a pool there, too.)
They also discuss moving the baseball fields and parking lots further away from residential areas.
Virginia Parker, the director of SMRF, requested that we keep baseball fields out of the flood retention zone, and put grass fields there, instead.
There will be river access, though. Apparently the Blanco does have water here, as opposed to how it’s underground at Five Mile Dam.
Here you could swim in it:
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All of this is a fantastic, amazing plan, with no funding! None of this will happen soon.
Eventually, we’ll probably need a bond election. If it passes and this all gets funding, it will slowly get built, in phases.
The San Marxist 