Item 7: PDDs
This might feel a bit like insider baseball, but it’s insider baseball that makes me happy.
Here’s the issue: say a developer applies to get their land zoned. The developer says, “You’re gonna love it! I’m going to put in some cute condos, a great restaurant, and some retail.” They show us some charming sketches of what they have planned. We think it looks great and give them the zoning they want.
Then they change their mind and sell it. The new owner gets the zoning, but decides that they really want to build something that pisses everyone off. As long as the new plan is legal under the zoning, there’s no mechanism to stop them.
(To be fair, Council and P&Z know not to trust charming sketches. But in general, there are a lot of hard calls on zoning when you’re okay with some uses and not others.)
Enter PDDs. PDD stands for Planned Development District. This means you get to micromanage the developer. You get to see the actual plans and say, “A few more trees over there, how about an awning on this little store, etc.” You can be extremely heavy-handed and rigid. Everybody signs the PDD contract and the city gets exactly what it signs up for.
There are bad parts, too: it’s an enormous amount of work for city staff. Sometimes it has meant sweetheart deals for developers who don’t feel like following the code. Sometimes PDDs haven’t been enforced. PDDs are only as good as the council that approves them.
Here’s the frustrating thing: we used to have PDDs, but in 2018, we threw them out! I never understood this. Why not just use them less? You’re allowed to have tools that you don’t use very often. But no: we went Marie Kondo on our tool set and completely cut them out. (There are plenty of PDDs that are still around – Trace, La Cima, etc, but we eliminated our ability to write new ones.)
Since then, there’ve been a number of occasions when it would have been nice to have them! The most obvious example is the SMART Terminal. We were on the verge of handing over 2000 acres and saying, “Have fun with all that! Let us know what you decide to do with all that heavy industrial zoning!!” Only for massive public activism did we back away at the 11th hour.
So now we’re bringing PDDs back!
Jane Hughson’s main motivation is to hold developers’ feet to the fire. If they promise beautiful things, then they can put it in writing and be held accountable. I agree – that’s a great reason to have PDDs.
Everyone else is on board. What’s not to love about micromanaging developers?
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Item 8: Emergency Sirens
There are emergency sirens throughout town. We occasionally have emergencies – floods, tornados, snow-vid, etc. (Now, I can’t recall ever actually hearing them during different emergencies we’ve had? but surely they did their job.)
If we’re going to have massive sprawl, maybe the developers should include sirens in their new developments. Everyone agrees this sounds reasonable.
Shane Scott asks about GMRS systems? Apparently these are fancy walkie-talkies, somewhere in between CBs and ham radios, in terms of watts of power.
Answer: they require really tall towers, so they wouldn’t piggyback on the siren towers. But maybe someday!
10-4, good buddy.
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Item 9: Boards and Commissions appointments.
There are 19 different city boards and commissions with open slots. It’s appointment time.
Last year, Alyssa Garza was super frustrated by the perpetual Oldness and Whiteness of the applicant pool. It was never shared with the public if anything came of that? Maybe the DEI coordinator worked with the communications outreach team to get the word out more effectively?
Jane Hughson applauded this applicant pool for being the most diverse yet. Maybe it is! I have no idea. Alyssa did not say anything good or bad either way about it.
On P&Z, there were three open slots. All three current members – Lupe Costilla, Jim Garber, and William Agnew – were re-appointed for a second term. Jane Hughson, Saul Gonzalez, Mark Gleason, and Matthew Mendoza voted for those three reappointments. Jude Prather, Shane Scott, and Alyssa Garza all voted for some new and some returning people.
All three of those P&Z members work hard and in good faith. I’m totally annoyed with how P&Z handled VisionSMTX, but that’s just one part of many things they do, and they do other things well. (New appointments keep it fresh and interesting, though.)
One last thought: I recognized so many of the names from people who are friends with me on social media! You’re good people. Everyone who submits an application to be on these commissions deserves a hearty thank you.
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Item 11-12: Top Secret Executive Session.
I just want to note that one of the items is a legal discussion about San Marcos being sued by Ken Paxton for decriminalizing weed. What an goddamn asshat he is.
(Obviously I don’t know how it went, it being executive session and all.)
The San Marxist 