This has come up before. They’re building a fancy new campus here:
Those two red highlighter marks are future roads, according to the Transportation Master Plan.
But if McCoy’s wants their campus, the roads are in the way.
So the hypothetical roads must go. DONE!
(The vote was unanimous and this really isn’t a very big deal.)
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Item 11: 67 acres here:
They want to turn it into apartments that feel like houses. It will be a complex, with the clubhouse and pool and all of that kind of stuff, but each apartment is a standalone house. I went hunting on the company’s website but I couldn’t find a sample photo.
The part I found mildly delusional was that they expect wealthy renters. Their typical renter has an $85K annual salary and wants a multi-year lease. That sounds like a pleasant fantasy version of San Marcos.
Shall we play The Six Criteria For Housing Developments game? YES!
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?
Good location. This is infill.
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?
We need an ongoing housing needs assessment. We need to know this.
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.
While I haven’t seen photos, I get the picture that the units have smaller yards than a house. So denser than single family housing, but less dense than apartments. Not the worst.
Social: Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing SMCISD schools and amenities?
I can’t imagine their target clientele is going to materialize. They’re imagining something wealthy-ish, though, which is not mixed income. It’s sort of near Hernandez and Rodriguez elementary school, and sort of near Miller middle school. (The developer is imagining adults without kids, though.)
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?
Not really. I suppose you have the outlet mall right there, but they’re not exactly a charming little public gathering space.
(Remember when you used to be able to ride a gondola back and forth for about 100 yards? Good times.
My overall opinion: This is a reasonably good use of space. It’s hard to put housing in between I-35 and some railroad tracks.
The vote: Yes: everyone except Matthew Mendoza No: Matthew Mendoza
I am not sure what he was opposed to!
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Item 12: 169 acres at the end of the airport:
It’s got a weird cut out due to an airport runway easement, and there are some FAA height restrictions also because of the runway. The developer wants it zoned Light Industrial.
Max Baker spoke during the public hearing, and raised issues of pollution. He kept mentioning the future airport expansion. I don’t think this particular item is the airport expansion? But maybe it’s in the pipeline?
Anyway, apparently it’s easy to measure pollution, but hard to determine the source, and usually it’s vehicle traffic. (Maybe we should reconsider all this sprawl!)
The vote: Yes: Matthew Mendoza, Jude Prather, Shane Scott, Mark Gleason, Jane Hughson No: Alyssa Garza, Saul Gonzales
One last thing:
You can speak during the public hearing, but not during council discussion, unless a council member specifically calls you up to the podium to answer a question.
Which brings me to my favorite moment of the night: Alyssa Garza saying – very deadpan but not mean – “Is it possible for Mr. Baker to tell us what he has ants in his pants about?” I’ve been laughing about that ever since.
(Max was glad to comply, and went to the podium to talk further about CAPCOG and purple machines and air quality.)
Item 19: Sam Aguirre used to be the lawyer for P&Z, and Michael Constantino was the lawyer for City Council. (I’m sure they both did more than that, but that’s what they were on camera for.)
Sam got hired by Seguin, so he left in the last year or two. Then Michael Constantino retired, a few months ago, so we had a vacant attorney position.
And now we’ve poached Sam Aguirre back! Welcome back, Sam.
Item 21: You know McCoy’s, the local building supplies place on Wonderworld:
They’re actually a chain with 84 stores across Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. But their headquarters is here in San Marcos:
That’s on northbound I35, past HW 80, right by the DMV.
I went down a bit of a rabbit hole reading their little history blurb from their website, which I found weirdly fascinating. The McCoy great grandfather started off selling roofing supplies in Galveston in the 1920s, which is obviously lucrative every time a hurricane hits, although they make a point to say they didn’t price gouge. They switch to building supplies in the 1940s. They move the headquarters to San Marcos in the 1970s. They kept growing and did very well in the 80s.
But then in the 90s, Home Depot and Lowe’s show up on the scene. This is the part I was very interested to read. How do you handle it when the Walmart of your industry comes to town? McCoy’s took a hit and described it pretty unflichingly. They closed about 1/5th of their stores and scaled up their existing stores. They experimented with ideas that failed and they shut them down a few years later. But it’s now been 30 years, so I think they made it through. It’s still entirely private and family owned, and they also own a bunch of land and a big ranch operation in west Texas.
So back to that headquarters, on I-35. They actually own a really big tract of land right there:
They want to turn that land into a campus headquarters, here in San Marcos, for all their corporate leadership trainings and such. They’re picturing a campus with a lake and outdoorsy things where all the store managers can come be trained and hold retreats. Right now, they hold a bunch of these in Cedar Park. Wouldn’t it be nice to bring all that business home to San Marcos?
City Council is 100% sold. I’m not saying I’m opposed exactly, but this is catnip to good ol’ boys. Jude Prather and Mark Gleason were fanning themselves with delight at the idea of a giant McCoy’s World of Leadership here in town.
The current CEO, Meagan McCoy Jones, spoke in person about this. She made a compelling case for the campus. My favorite part was when she had to explain that there are homeless people currently camped out on this land, and this was going to end. She approached it fairly well: she started with her own efforts to combat homelessness and acknowledged the complexity of the problem, and then bluntly said, “but it will be a closed campus.” You understand.
Currently, this project is a long ways off. They were here today because they’re going to need to deal with these two light-red highlighter marks:
Those are roads on the transportation master plan, but McCoy’s is not on board with them, so they need to be removed. Sorry, roads.
I particularly like the one across from Big HEB, which isn’t on that slide show:
It always cheers me up. Also, I had to go take that photo in person. That’s how dedicated I am. I tried to grab a photo off Google Maps, but it’s out of date:
Anyway, the next one coming is going to be here:
That is the back of the Old Hays County Justice Center, which currently houses Industry and Aquabrew. That’s the view heading towards downtown on LBJ from I35.
A funny thing is that these photos are in the slide show on the Mural Arts website:
Isn’t that the same wall? I definitely have seen that mural. I like it, too! Here’s another shot of it:
I couldn’t remember if this mural was currently up or not, so my Staff Photographer swung by and took a current photo here, too:
So there you have it. As far as I can tell, there used to be a mural, and then the mural got painted over, and now there will be a new mural.
The Arts committee is estimating $100K to paint the mural. But they’ve been planning this for years, and it’s a giant project. It does not bother me to spend significant money supporting local artists and making San Marcos interesting and beautiful.
Item 24: Meta-committees.
True to her word, Alyssa Garza wants to tackle the issue of skewed representation on San Marcos boards and commissions. Namely: it’s really old, white, and male. Maybe not as entirely white and male as it used to be – which Jane Hughson often points out – but still way out of sync with the demographics of the city.
To that end, they’re going to form a committee-on-committees. Alyssa, Matthew Mendoza, and Mark Gleason all volunteered to be on it and study the problem.
Items 25/26 were Double Secret Executive Sessions on the Meet-and-confer renegotiations.
Two days later, on Thursday, the first Meet-and-confer renegotiation session was held. I can’t find a video recording of it, though, so I haven’t watched it. Mano Amiga was there in person, I think.
Q&A from the press and public:
Max Baker came back and raised a few issues in quick rapid-fire:
What happened to equity-based budgeting?
Answer: there was never a consensus from Council to do so, but hopefully when we hire a new DEI coordinator, they’ll be on top of things.
SMART, isn’t it an inland port?
Nobody really answered, so I’ll take a stab at it: wikipedia tells me that inland ports are on rivers and dry ports are just land. I suppose the SMART Terminal is on the river, although it would be pretty gross to use the San Marcos River for port purposes. I think Max was just pointing out that since Air and Rail are not part of it anymore, the SMART Terminal is just a SMT Terminal.
The real problem is that 6 out of 7 councilmembers are fine with SMT being an inland port or a dry port, and just want the neighbors to shut up about the whole thing.
Are we worried about how the McCoy’s are really big players on GSMP? Right now GSMP brings lots of conferences to Embassy Suites, which we are still paying for. What if GSMP switches to using this new McCoy’s campus for its events?
No one responds to this, either, as most of them are very smitten with the McCoys, and also the McCoys conversation has just barely begun, anyway.
Vacancy tax: this is the one I find most interesting. Can we look into a vacancy tax for landlords who just let their property sit derelict, while hoping that some fancypants will come pay higher rent?
This is largely about the empty storefronts downtown, which really depress the whole vibe of the place. Landlords want Austin businesses to come down and pay Austin rental prices for the space, and they seem content to just wait as long as it will take to find a tenant.
At first, Jane is hesistant, and seems to be saying that when they looked into this before, vacancy taxes weren’t legal in Texas. But Max says that he’s emailed in a bunch of different models for how to do it, like one where you charge them for extra trips by EMS/Fire Department/SMPD, which happen a lot more when a building sits vacant.
So: are vacancy taxes legal in Texas? Seems to be. There are two kinds of vacancy taxes: residential and commercial. I can’t find anything that says they’re illegal, but I can’t find many examples of cities implementing them either.
Here’s a useful pamphlet from UT Law, but it’s from 2010. It has a bunch of helpful info, plus examples. Eg:
Dallas Downtown Vacant Building Registration Ordinance The Dallas ordinance requires owners of downtown vacant buildings to register their properties and pay a registration fee of $75, an inspection charge of $185, and a small additional fee per square foot of the building. Owners must submit a plan detailing a time schedule for correcting violations, a maintenance plan, or plans for renovations or sale of the building. The owner is required to submit an updated plan at least once every six months. Violations of the ordinance can result in criminal penalties, civil fines ranging from $500 to $2,000, and administrative penalties. The owner must carry commercial general liability coverage with a minimum combined bodily injury and property damage limit of not less than $2,000,000 annually.
I’m in! Let’s do it.
In the end, Jane asks if there’s a consensus on Council for staff to research vacancy tax options and bring something forward. And there is! So this will come back.
The San Marxist 