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.
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.
Citizen comment: Mostly community members talking about the SMART Terminal. None of us can stop talking about it! But I think I should go on to other topics.
Items 1-4: Quarterly financial reports and audits and investment reports, etc.
Everything looks fine.
Item 14: East McCarty and Leah.
Developers want to make something of this land:
That yellow L-shape.
This item first came up last summer. The developer applied for Heavy Commercial zoning. P&Z said yes, and then Council said no. Council was concerned about Embassy Suites and the conference center, our beautiful prized jewel of the city. (Which the city is still paying off for another 10+ years or something, by the way.)
In November, the developer applied for Light Industrial. This time, P&Z denied it. That means that it will take 6 votes at council to override P&Z.
So it went to Council in December. Rather than deny it, they formed a committee to try to work something out with the developer. And now the committee is done, and it’s back for the vote.
The committee and the developer made a lot of compromises, but they got stuck on one thing: nighttime truck traffic. Council wants Quiet Hours after 10 pm, because of the people sleeping at Embassy Suites. The developer was saying it’s too restrictive for their business model, because warehouses need to load and unload their wares overnight. Council pointed out that it’s annoying to try to sleep and hear BEEP BEEP BEEP all night long.
Finally the vote:
The vote: Should this be zoned Light Industrial? Yes: Jude Prather, Shane Scott No: Mayor Hughson, Mark Gleason, Alyssa Garza, Saul Gonzalez, Matthew Mendoza
So it failed. The developer can try something else, or sell it off.
Let’s just marvel at the close compassion offered to the weary travelers at Embassy Suites, shall we? What tender thoughtfulness. You can understand that a business traveler might not want to sleep next door to a 43 acre industrial site. What were you saying about the SMART Terminal again?
One final note:
At 1:25:10, the developer is trying to say that we should approve this project because no one else will want to develop it. And he says this exact quote:
“No large grocery store chain will consider this property because of the new HEB which is across the street.”
UH WHAT NEW HEB ACROSS WHICH STREET?
Across I-35? Across McCarty? Across Leah Ave (towards Amazon)? What does he know that I don’t know?
The location of a 3rd HEB has been controversial. First, constantly we’re talking about how few resources there are on the east side. The east side needs amenities.
But also, there’s history here. Back in 2016, City Council approved an HEB going in on the corner of Wonderworld and Hunter. People were furious. The main reasons:
The 2015 floods were just a year earlier, and now we were talking about paving a massive bit of land along Purgatory Creek
this would require a bunch of curb cuts on Wonderworld, which violated the agreement when the greenway was developed.
Quick digression on the Wonderworld extension. Wonderworld used to stop at Hunter Road. You took Old RR12 to go west towards Wimberly. It took decades to design and extend Wonderworld west, because it’s cutting through Purgatory Creek, which is really sensitive area. There was a complicated deal involving donation of greenbelt land and promises to take care of this area.
“We couldn’t find a more environmentally sensitive area to go through,” said Sabas Avila , the city’s assistant director of public services. The area includes a flood control dam, caves, endangered species such as the golden-cheeked warbler and black-capped vireo, aquifer recharge zones and a Native American burial site, Avila said.
“Believe me, we tried! But this was the best we could do.”
(I’m being a jerk, taking the quote out of context. The speaker is probably an environmentalist.)
Anyway: it appears the proposal for the Wonderworld HEB is still on hold.
Bottom line: this developer appears to know about some new HEB, relatively close to Embassy Suites. Eeeeenteresting.
Several people spoke about the HSAB money. We’ve seen this item several times this year; it finally gets concluded tonight.
Two people talk about the Pick-a-pet ordinance, also coming back around tonight.
Two people talk about the SMART Terminal re-zoning. Not up tonight, though.
One person talks about Joshua Wright and the Hartman reforms
I had a stray thought about the SMART Terminal. I was on Charles Austin, next to the baseball stadium, stopped at a train. The train was going slower and slower, headed east towards 35. I was doing the thing where you try to figure out if the train is going to come to a complete stop before it gets across your path and trap you, or if the last car will make it across and set you free.
It occurred to me that the train was probably headed in the general direction of the future SMART Terminal. And I remember that it takes a train 1-2 miles to come to a stop. So imagine if we have a new SMART train intersection just east of town? The number of stopped trains is going to go through the roof. Traffic is going to be hella gummed up by stopped trains, if the SMART Terminal delivers on what they’re claiming.
I mean, we should still focus on the river pollution and massive amount of concrete, and all the rest of the questionable parts. But let’s save a little angst for worrying about the future train stoppings of San Marcos.
…
On to the meeting!
Item 6: Way up by Whisper Tract, some developers want to rezone this little blue piece:
It used to be partly zoned Manufactured Homes, and partly zoned Future Development. They want to make it all Heavy Commercial.
Here’s what’s at the eastern tip of that little blue rectangle:
That is, the Saddlebrook mobile home community.
So is it fair to build heavy commercial next to them? Let’s put it this way: it would never be proposed next to wealthier neighborhoods. At the same time, the western edge of that little blue rectangle is along I-35, and it’s reasonable to put Heavy Commercial along the highway. Finally, the folks at Saddlebrook might like some commercial services like restaurants or laundromats or whatever nearby. (But there’s no guarantee this will be restaurants or laundromats.)
Jane Hughson and Mark Gleason aren’t sure about the size of the project on the east side being so close to the community. A 40 foot building with 30 foot setbacks is still pretty looming, even with a privacy wall.
The developer talks in person. He and his partner are from central Texas, and they make little spec buildings that can later be configured for small businesses. So it’s unclear what would end up there.
In the end, council approves it unanimously. Hopefully it turns out the businesses that move in make good neighbors.
…
Item 7: Two acres in Cottonwood Creek, off 123. This one kind of pissed me off.
Here’s Cottonwood Creek:
It’s down by the high school. Bowie Elementary is in Cottonwood Creek. (I realized I could get some useful maps off the planning department website.)
Here’s a close up. Today’s proposed rezoning is for that little red trapezoid, in the yellow circle:
This area has seen tons of development in the past 2-3 years. In fact, this little red piece in that blue circle:
is right where this new Chevron just went in:
So back to the subject property: right now it’s zoned General Commercial. The developer wants to re-zone it CD-4. In theory, you can still put commercial in CD-4, but that’s not what will happen. It will be townhomes or apartments.
Here’s the thing: the east side desperately needs commercial. They shoudn’t have to drive so far for grocery stores and basic retail. And that’s not just my opinion – the city planners are constantly saying that people on the east side tell them this.
And furthermore, many residents wrote in on this very item so say so! Apparently Council got letters from people in Cottonwood Creek saying to please keep it commercial. This is not hypothetical! They were told exactly what the neighbors want!
The developer is arguing that the property has sat there for 20 years and nobody has wanted to put commercial there, so therefore he should be able to re-zone it. But he’s being a twerp. He knows that commercial lags behind residential, and residential is finally just now getting built. If you don’t set aside land and earmark it for commercial uses, an entire area will get zoned residential and by the time someone might like to put a restaurant in, there won’t be viable places left.
Mark Gleason seems to be toting water for the developer. He knows the neighborhood wants commercial there. First, Mark asks what commercial is allowed in CD-4. He’s told that all kinds of commercial is allowed – offices, restaurants, etc. Could be a lot of possibilities! (But it won’t.)
Next, Mark asks the developer directly: “Are you looking to build housing? Or are you looking for more flexibility?”
Here’s what that means, “I have constituents that don’t want housing there. I want to be able to tell them I voted for flexibility. Could you supply me with my excuse?”
The developer cheerfully agrees that he is all for flexibility! We love flexibility!
Jane says dryly, “Clearly they are going to reduce the amount of commercial and add housing. Otherwise they’d just stick with the existing commercial zoning.”
Mark says, “I’m a yes on this one. I hate to lose commercial, but I trust the developer!”
Gentle Reader, listen to me: do not trust developers.
Alyssa Garza weighs in: she’s opposed, because of all the letters they’ve gotten from residents who are opposed to this. They all want commercial services to be built there.
Mark and Jane tut over how it’s a weird place for commercial, because it’s not on 123 directly. It’s a little off 123.
The vote: Should the little red trapezoid become apartments/townhomes? Yes: Mayor Hughson, Mark Gleason, Saul Gonzales, Shane Scott, Matthew Mendoza, Jude Prather No, keep it commercial: Alyssa Garza
This is really hypocritical. Right now, the VisionSMTX comprehensive plan is working it’s way through P&Z and City Council. The historic district has turned out in large numbers to complain. Several members of P&Z and Jane Hughson are going through the proposed plan closely, with an eye to preserving neighborhoods and preventing anything from happening to them.
The most sacred thing in the world, based on all language being used to criticize VisionSMTX stuff, is the voice of a neighborhood for self-determination. Neighborhood plans! Neighborhood character studies! Ask the neighborhood if Zelick’s should get a CUP! Neighborhoods are sacred.
But this vote tells the lie: we didn’t mean all neighborhoods! Sorry for the confusion. We just meant that we should pander to the noisy, wealthier neighborhoods west of I35. Cottonwood Creek wants to preserve that red trapezoid of commercial on the corner? Sorry, suckers!
Finally: we do need housing. There are multiple, competing needs here. But you shouldn’t pit one need against another. The whole city needs housing, but it doesn’t need to come out of Cottonwood Creek’s limited options for commercial development.
Next we have a whole bunch of zoning and land use items.
Items 12-13: Trace Development (Scroll down here for quick explainer on Trace.)
There’s a little rectangular patch of 5 acres which is surrounded on three sides by Trace. You can see it down at the bottom:
The Trace developers didn’t own it when they started Trace, but now they do. They can’t formally absorb it into Trace, but they basically want it to feel like it’s part of Trace.
The developers want to build townhomes. This sounds great – I like townhomes. Still, let’s hit the five questions:
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?
Development is already planned for three sides. Infill is very useful.
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?
Townhomes hit an underserved price point
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 anywhere close to the river, not environmentally sensitive, not single-family homes. Great.
Trace itself is sprawl, but that ship has sailed.
Social: Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing SMCISD schools and amenities?
Trace is decently mixed income, yes. There’s an elementary school in the middle of it.
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?
Closer than normal. No shops or restaurants nearby. Rather than have four-plexes and eight-plexes, they segregate the apartments into a giant apartment complex section, which I don’t love. But that’s where we’re at.
One detail irritated me: P&Z recommended that council nix 3 story apartments in this small patch, because it is adjacent to future single family houses.
The houses aren’t built yet! No one’s beautiful view is getting thwarted. There is nothing intrinsically offensive about apartments! But city council agrees and passes a restriction.
It doesn’t really matter – the developer is going to build townhomes, and I think townhomes are generally a good, dense-ish product. I just get irritated at displays of contempt towards apartment-dwellers.
The whole thing passes unanimously.
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Items 14-15: Ringtail Ridge
Ringtail Ridge is a tiny little park off Old 12, outlined in yellow below:
It’s hidden and hard to get to, but very pretty!
Country Estates is the neighborhood next to it, outlined in green. It’s just outside the city limits. A bunch of libertarians live there.
This red part is owned by the city:
It was acquired in 2017/2018. Since it’s owned by the city, the city decided to annex it. This doesn’t really affect anything, but it’s tidier this way.
The plan is to zone it CD-1, which means keeping it as undeveloped as possible. The whole point is that it was acquired for conservation purposes, so they want to keep it natural.
There were a number of speakers from Country Estates on this item at P&Z, on January 10th, and one more at City Council this past Tuesday (who was very annoyed that we were three hours deep in the meeting by the time we got to this item.)
The speakers wanted their natural countryside preserved, but they’re also libertarians, so they were very skeptical about whether or not government can be trusted to help. Sorry, dude-ertarians, the free market is not going to preserve your beautiful nature! But local government to the rescue – the land will now be kept undeveloped, and the longterm goal is to make it available for trails and such.
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Item 17-18: Tiny houses! What fun.
This is out on Post Road:
There’s going to be a small portion of town homes (6 acres) and then a larger portion of tiny homes (24 acres).
Tiny homes seem delightful, because who doesn’t love a dollhouse? But they only work for a very small portion of people:
you can’t really live with a kid in one.
You have to figure out a plan for all those household items that you need monthly or a few times a year. Either you need disposable income to replace things all the time, or you really need to commit to a spartan existence. Which is tricky, because you’re stuck in the US, which is not set up that way.
However: if you are too prickly to share a wall with someone else and you are a serious minimalist, then it’s perfect. Go live your dreams, Freebird.
One last thing: This property is on the SMCISD side of the boundary between Hays CISD and SMCISD. This is something that Council never talks about, but it ends up affecting San Marcos schools a lot.
SMCISD needs more kids, basically. Tiny houses are going to be for kid-free adults. So it’s a bit of a bummer that this is in SMCISD, whereas all of the families right over in Blanco Vista go to Hays CISD.
(It’s because of the state funding formula. Because of the university, we look like a wealthier district than we are, and so we’re always on the brink of having to send money back to the state. But we’re actually a Title 1 district, because our students are largely poor. We need more families to keep the state of Texas from sabotaging us.)
….
Item 19: Blanco Riverwalk
These guys have come up before, most recently in June 2021, when they were swatted down for proposing an apartment complex in a flood zone.
This time they are proposing… an apartment complex in a flood zone. It went about as well as it did last time. (Mumble mumble definition of insanity.)
It’s actually very close to the tiny houses, but you can see that it’s like two inches from the Blanco River.
P&Z denied the request on January 10th, so it would require 6 votes from Council to overturn the outcome. Council denied it unanimously.
Citizen comment: The intersection of Hunter and Wonderworld is deadly and needs to be fixed. The speaker kept mentioning “new paint” as a solution, which made me think that she specifically meant that weird little island blocking what used to be the right turn lane from Wonderworld, north onto Hunter (on the corner with the CVS store.) I’m glad we’ve added bike lanes, but I also see cars bumble over that island every time I’m at that intersection. And there do seem to be a lot of accidents.
Item 11-12: Annexation and zoning 65 acres on the corner of Rattler Road and McCarty. It’s this little red square with the star in it:
We’ve seen this area several times recently. It’s been a zoning bonanza:
Back in September, these other folks wanted (and got) a cut-and-fill exemption for that blue region. And back in August, the neighboring property (in that yellow-puke color) was zoned CD-5. It’s going to be apartments. (Also, a gigantic development was approved behind the outlet malls at that same meeting.)
The red rectangle is proposed to be CD-4. In that zoning, you’re allowed to build duplexes, townhomes, apartments, cottage courts, and other things that are denser than traditional neighborhoods but still feel small scale. (But you can also just build apartments, I think.)
The red rectangle and the yellow-puke rectangle are owned by the same people. So they’re selling the city on a larger vision where the yellow-puke one is dense, traditional apartments, and then this red one is more varied with all the duplexes and townhomes. Sort of transitional in scale towards single family houses.
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?
This is a good spot for infill. There is already infrastructure and coverage for this area.
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?
Some day, the planning department will read my blog and hastily fall all over themselves in an effort to answer this question.
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. Not in a flood zone. No run off to the river or any other environmental hazards, as far as I can tell.
Given the duplexes, townhomes, apartments, cottage courts, and other things, it has the potential to be very good. It won’t be uniformly single-family detached houses.
Social: Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing SMCISD schools and amenities?
It is very close to SMHS, and not that far from Goodnight and elementary schools.
As for whether it’s mixed income, that depends on the developer. If the developer takes advantage of what they’re allowed to build, it could be mixed income. But just because they sell a compelling vision during the approval phase does not make it binding.
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?
The larger region has the potential to become this. We shall see.
Final judgement: It sounds mostly good. Go for it.
…
So what did council do?
There was a little discussion about including a buffer at the back of the property, as a courtesy for the homes right there, which are outside city limits. Staff will bring back a proposal at the next meeting.
And then they voted, and it passed 7-0. (Where’d the clickers go?)
I personally think this project passed all the criteria with flying colors. But you know Max would have had a dozen questions about it. Perhaps all the questions got settled in Secret Executive sessions – it’s just really hard to know.
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Item 13: Trace PDD
A few months ago, we did a deep dive into La Cima. Time for a Trace Deep Dive? Let’s do it.
That’s not my usual chicken-scratch map – this is the map from the developers. I love our city staff, but their maps are truly for shit.
It’s supposed to be a whole community – houses, apartments, parks, an elementary school, some stores. Mixed income. My only real gripe is that it contributes to sprawl – you’re kinda far from everything out there.
In 2017, there was a bond election to fund an elementary school there, and Rodriguez elementary school opened in August 2019.
It was next amended in 2019 and 2022. All the amendments were kind of finicky and detail-oriented – what should the heights of the apartment buildings be? Can we relocate sidewalks to this other side of the street? That sort of thing.
On the whole, it seems fine. It seems to need far fewer tweaks than La Cima or Whisper. (At some point, we’ll have to unpack Whisper Tract.)
…
So what’s up now? It’s coming up because they want to rezone part of it. Here’s the original zoning of Trace:
The dark orange part facing I-35 is General Commercial, about 44 acres.
Now they want to convert about 37 of those acres to apartments:
Both the light orange and brown parts of that red circle could now be apartments.
Is this good or bad? It’s complicated. At the P&Z meeting in December, Griffin Spell an excellent point: yes, we need housing. But Trace has not fully built the apartment complexes that they’re already allowed to build.
Furthermore, we also need amenities on the east side. It is a huge problem in this town that the east side lacks an HEB and the normal sort of shopping options. People are constantly talking to council and P&Z members about needing more commercial on the east side.
Griffin’s point is basically, “Let the developers finish building the apartment complexes that they’ve already agreed to build. If they still can’t find commercial occupants at that point, they can bring the rezoning back.”
The developer basically says, “Unfortunately, commercial is just not viable in that spot! It’s not visible from I-35!”
To which Griffen dryly responds, “You’re the one that put it there back in 2015, and nothing has changed since it was approved.”
The developer gave a weasely answer about communities maturing. It left me with the impression that they always planned on converting it to apartments, and the original commercial zoning was just there to make it look good.
So what did council do?
At City Council, there was no discussion of this point at all. They just approved it, 7-0. It gives the impression that they are not scrutinizing developers at all. The issue Griffin raised is complex, and at least deserves some air time. On this item, I’m giving the stink-eye to this new Max-less council.
So you want to raise money for your city council campaign! Right now there are a few caps:
Individuals cannot contribute more than $500.
If you contribute more than $300, then your councilmember has to recuse themself when anything that you’re connected to comes up.
There’s an overall limit, based on the number of registered voters. Councilmember’s cap is 50¢ per registered voter, and mayor’s cap is 75¢ per registered voter.
Jude Prather and Shane Scott brought this issue up.
Jude Prather goes first. “It’s not the cap that’s the issue. It’s just confusing and too complicated. Things keep getting more expensive, and we’re going to have to revisit this year after year. Make it simpler. What if you get a lot of contributions? There should just be a max of $300 per person.”
Jane: We currently have a limit of $500 per person.
Jude: This is just so complicated. I mean, cost per voter?
Jane explains, “It’s just supposed to grow as San Marcos grows. If they just had a hard cap, the amount wouldn’t grow as San Marcos grows. We could change the scaling factor, though.”
(They keep saying “Teepo signs” when they talk about campaign costs. I have no idea what a Teepo sign is.)
Jude keeps going. He’s on quite a tear. What about ballot initiatives? And PACs? This doesn’t apply to them! What if a ballot initiative affects a race? (He was worried about this with marijuana decriminalization, if you’ll recall. What if we turn out young, liberal voters??)
Jane: I’m having trouble following what your solution is.
Jude Prather: I want it simpler. Just $300 cap per person. Get rid of the complicated charts with different numbers and amounts.
(OH!! T-Post signs! Got it.)
Jane Hughson was my favorite councilmember of the evening. She cannot get over the accusation that the funding cap is “too complicated”. She keeps saying things like, “I’m really trying to understand what you mean. You take the number of voters, and multiply by 50¢. What is the complicated part?” and “I can understand if you want to change 50¢ to $1 or $1.25. But what is the complicated part?”
Eventually Shane and Jude have enough dignity to stop asserting that it’s too complicated, when it’s plainly not. (And they’re not shameless enough to just bluntly say they want unlimited campaign spending.)
Everyone weighs in on what they’d like the scaling factor to be:
Shane Scott and Alyssa Garza: $1.25 per voter, for both mayor and councilmembers Matthew Mendoza and Mark Gleason: $1 per voter, for both mayor and councilmembers Saul Gonzales and Jane Hughson don’t seem to care.
Everyone seems to settle on the simplicity of $1 per registered voter. There! We did actually make it simpler!
One final note: last time, there was also griping that the number of registered voters fluctuates with different election cycle. No one really pursued that this time, which is good, because it is a pretty lame complaint.
…
I was surprised that Alyssa Garza is opposed to spending caps. Her argument goes that more money means hiring more local neighbors who might otherwise be disengaged, and increase local involvement.
I can see her point, but I don’t think that outweighs the built-in advantage for candidates with wealthy friends. I put a higher weight on making sure anyone can run a competitive campaign, regardless of economic background. (On the other hand, Alyssa has run for city council and I haven’t. So she has relevant knowledge.)
As a side note, apparently in Texas it is illegal to cap self-donations to one’s own campaign. So wealthy candidates will always have an advantage.
Item 13:
The Ethics Review Committee seems to always be a thorn in the side of Shane Scott, and to a lesser degree Jude Prather and Mark Gleason. I don’t know if they’ve been busted for something, or if they just don’t like the idea that they’re being watched.
Right now, councilmembers have to turn in two sets of documentation:
Yearly financial disclosure
Campaign contributions disclosure
The ERC looks over these, and flags anything that looks fishy. They’ve been doing this for years, but it’s not formally city policy. Jane Hughson wanted to formally codify the practice.
Shane Scott moves to deny. “The ERC does not need to meddle,” he says, “There are state rules, and the state will get involved.”
Jane explains where it came from, “After we passed the $500 cap, there was a candidate who took $1000, not knowing about the cap, and people were asking, “What do we do? Where do we report this?” It didn’t violate state rules, so you can’t report it to the Texas Ethics Commission.”
Shane Scott: “We shouldn’t be more restrictive than the state.”
Jane: “Okay, but we are. We just discussed the campaign caps. So…?”
Shane Scott removes his motion to deny, and Mark Gleason makes a motion to approve.
Next, Shane Scott makes an amendment to remove all the parts where the ERC looks at financial disclosure statements. “The state will take care of it!” he says again.
Jane again asks, “How would the state take care of it?”
Shane says, “FOIA requests, etc.”
The lawyer, Michael Consantino, says nope. The state would not get involved.
No one seconds Shane Scott’s amendment, and so it dies.
The overall vote to let the ERC review financial disclosures and campaign contributions:
There you have it.
…
Item 21: Jane Hughson wants a new zoning. There are a lot of applications for Heavy Commercial or Light Industrial where council has to write up a bunch of good-neighbor exceptions because there are residents living nearby. Usually they want to rule out uses based on loudness/smell/vibrations/etc. The method is to make a “restricted covenant agreement,” which sounds religious, but isn’t.
Jane is proposing something that she calls “Business Park”. Maybe not storefronts, but businesses that you wouldn’t mind living next door to. Smaller in scale and height, regulations on where loading docks could be, cranking down on noise/smell/vibrations/etc.
Everyone likes this idea. It’ll come back in some form.
Citizen Comment: the San Marcos activist community is a force. It warms a blogger’s heart to have a dozen activists show up and speak passionately against the proposed curfew. (You can read about why I loathe the curfew ordinance here.) They make the right arguments – keep kids out of the criminal justice system, it’s not equitably enforced, it can be traumatizing to kids, etc. In addition, a ton of homeschool parents signed on some quick petition, worrying that their kids might get tangled up in the daytime curfew.
One speaker – Bucky Couch – did show up to talk in favor of the curfew ordinance. I believe he’s the owner/developer of lots of things in town, maybe including the Kissing Tree? His kids own Cody’s restaurant, maybe? The Couches are in on many, many profitable projects around town.
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Item 9: First up is a zoning request. You may remember this, from August:
Today we’re looking at the green square, #3, again, between Amazon and Embassy Suites.
Last time, the developer wanted to rezone it from General Commercial to Heavy Commercial. P&Z approved the zoning change, but then City council swatted them down, citing the beauty of Embassy Suites. We do not want clanky old Heavy Commercial zoning next to our prized and glorious tourist conference space.
Now they’re back, changing their request to Light Industrial. This time, P&Z denied it (due to the beauty of Embassy Suites), and Council felt stuck. It would now require 6 votes to overturn P&Z.
Council would like things like restaurants and service-related businesses to go in. They don’t want a bunch of warehouses. The developers want to include restaurants, but also a bunch of warehouses.
In the end, Council decided to form a committee and punt the matter to them. Stay tuned.
Item 22 Next up: a little light industrial area by the airport:
169 acres, to be exact. They want to zone it to be Light Industrial.
Reminds me of the new park land we bought a few weeks ago:
Eh, I guess it’s not that close. There’s a lot of space out there.
(Also, did you notice that google maps has renamed I-35 “Monarch Highway”? That’s so cute! much better than “Smushed Monarch Highway”.)
Shane Scott asks about flight paths, and the developer concedes that the property is right in the line of Runway 3. But also says that the FAA and the airport both gave this development a thumbs up. I have no idea about such things.
The vote: Yes: Mayor Hughson, Saul Gonzalez, Jude Prather, Alyssa Garza, Mark Gleason No: Shane Scott, Max Baker
So it will come to pass.
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Item 23: Alternative Compliance for Cut-and-Fill
Cut-and-fill means that you are trying to build on a rocky, uneven slope. But your building needs a flat foundation. So you decide, “What is the average elevation of this portion?”
Once you know your average elevation, you have some bumpy parts that stick up, and some sunken parts that are too low. So you shave down your bumpy parts and fill in your sunken parts. Ta-da, cut and fill!
The problem is that if you’re on a hillside, you may have to cut out a lot of dirt and move a lot of dirt, and this is going to affect how water runs down the hill. What’s worse is if you’re on a hill in a flood zone. You may have heard, but San Marcos has a flooding problem.
So these folks are trying to develop here, in that blue region:
on the corner of Rattler Road and East McCarty.
They’re allowed to cut-and-fill up to 8 feet, but they want to cut and fill up to 13 feet. And it’s in a flood zone.
But the real reason that I’m interested in this case is because I’m invested in this case, where the water will run downhill to Redwood – also a cut-and-fill ordinance that is coming up soon. I was intently watching this case, to read the tea leaves on the next one.
Max Baker suggests that the developer could offer up some environmentally friendly perks to take the sting out of this flood risk? The developer responds that he’s under the gun to get this approved tonight, and he’d love to try.
So the motion gets tabled for a few hours. The developer goes off with the engineer. They come back with a compromise:
They’ll put a 20,000 gallon rain barrel on each 150,000 square foot building, and use it towards irrigation.
They’ll reduce impervious cover from 80% to 60%
They’ll do some water quality treatment thing that I didn’t follow.
It gets approved unanimously now.
These are good, environmentally, but as a harbinger for the Redwood case, I didn’t like it. For the Redwood case, I want them to deny it altogether.
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Item 15: Art purchases
The Arts commission is purchasing four sculptures for our San Marcos sculpture garden. I didn’t realize we had a sculpture garden!
Then I looked it up, and realized I did realize it after all!
It’s in between the library and the Activity Center, on Hopkins. (Photo yoinked from the city page.)
Items 15-18: This little development, the blue rectangle in the lower left, is up for debate:
The developers want to zone it in three parts: – the dark gray part along the railroad tracks would be heavy industrial, – the tan middle part would be light industrial, – the front pink part along I-35, heavy commercial:
I don’t know how to evaluate the merit of a project like this. To be honest, I’m not even sure what kind of information I’d want to know, in order to evaluate it.
Mark Gleason had a dumb rant about how everyone keeps shitting on the working man, and he knows dozens of people at Amazon and the HEB warehouses, and they like their jobs and deserve your respect.
Alyssa Garza responded correctly that no one is disrespecting the worker. You can support the worker and also fight for better working conditions. (In fact, some – like me – might say that’s how you support the workers! And I might also say that until he fights for specific labor reforms, Mark’s support is empty lip service.)
We have no way of ascertaining the labor conditions in these hypothetical future industrial complexes, so this is all made-up anyway.
The vote: Yes: Jane Hughson, Shane Scott, Saul Gonzalez, Jude Prather, Mark Gleason No: Max & Alyssa
Item 4: City Council pay raises
This was discussed last time. City councilmembers need to be paid a living wage. Otherwise the job is not available to all community members. Currently councilmembers earn $17,400, and this would bump them up to $22,200.
Mayor Hughson suggested compensating the mayor position based on additional duties. She was trying to be diplomatic about how much extra she works, but the general consensus was not to itemize the duties. Currently, Mayor Hughson earns $20,400/year.
Shane Scott suggests just bringing her up to $25,800/year. She probably puts in 40-50 hours a week.
The vote: Yes: Alyssa Garza, Max Baker, Shane Scott. No: Jane Hughson, Mark Gleason, Saul Gonzalez, Jude Prather
So it fails.
Mark Gleason is really worked up about the word privilege, because Max and Alyssa use it to talk about who has disposable time and money to run for city council. Mark runs on and on about how it’s a privilege to serve, and it doesn’t mean you’re privileged.
He’s both right and wrong. It is a privilege to serve. Not everyone gets to do it. But it’s also an opportunity for power, and as an opportunity, it’s not equally available to everybody.
Here’s the problem: Gleason does not come from generational wealth, and he highly aware that he has not benefited from economic privilege. But simultaneously, he is a white male and has an extremely simplistic understanding of race and gender. So he is very outspoken about his working class status, while being ignorant about how he has benefited from race and gender privilege. (Also, he understands economic privilege but still believes that we live in a meritocracy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
Gleason makes a motion that no one should get any raises, and they should only adjust for travel-expenses.
The vote: Yes: Jane Hughson, Jude Prather, Saul Gonzalez, Mark Gleason No: Alyssa Garza, Max Baker, Shane Scott
So that’s that. No raises for any of them.
Jude Prather makes one point: if you earn money from the state or the county, you have to forgo your salary. He is employed by the county, so I guess he wants brownie points? For denying other people a raise that he’s ineligible for?
Here’s the central hypocrisy: Jude Prather, Jane Hughson, Saul Gonzalez, and Mark Gleason all adopt this noble stance that they’re too principled to vote themselves a raise.
You know what would be more noble? If you voted for a raise, and then say you’ll forgo it and save it for future councilmembers. That would be more principled than their entrenchment of the status quo.
I think they all deserve a raise! But if they want, they can be self-denying and still vote to facilitate more citizens running for office.
Four hours of zoning cases! There are five big cases. Oddly enough, the first four are all located very close together. It’s either a weird coincidence, or they’re connected in some way that was not made explicit.
Yellow is at the intersection of East McCarty and Rattler Road. On your right, if you’re going from Amazon to the high school. They want to build apartment complexes. I think it’s okay.
Orange is huge. It stretches all the way to Old Bastrop Highway. Terrible sprawl.
Green is right between Embassy Suites and Amazon. Heavy industrial – bad idea, gets voted down.
Blue is low-income apartments with wraparound services, by the same people who run Encino Pointe and Sienna Pointe. This is complex, but on the whole I think it’s good.
Furthermore, we passed an additional little piece last summer, here:
It’s supposed to be these little rental houses, by these guys. (This is why I want to keep a running list of “what got approved but hasn’t yet gotten built”.)
Anyway. Yellow’s up first!
Items 25-26: 40 acres, at the intersection of Rattler Road and east McCarty:
So if you’re driving from Amazon towards the highschool, this is on your right, just as you get to the intersection with Rattler Road.
There’s a big housing/apartment thing going in right next to it. Amazon is near the top of that photo.
The developer wants CD-5. When City Staff promotes the category “CD-5”, they make it sound like Sesame Street:
A walkable, dense-but-not-overwhelming, charming little scene! Shops and apartments. Sounds great!
In reality, here’s what gets built:
That’s literally the apartment complex that is next door, on McCarty, to this one being proposed. (I just grabbed that photo off Google Streets.)
And listen: I am in favor of apartment complexes! They are more environmentally responsible than single family homes. They are economical. We have a lot of renters in San Marcos.
My point is just the double-speak: we’re pretending that this zoning will bring a charming row of brownstones, with bodegas on the corner, but developers do not buy in. We used to have a way to force developers to build what we wanted: PDDs. But we retired PDDs in 2018, when we redid the Land Development Code. We should not have done this! Totally unforced error.
Back to the yellow plot. Is a giant apartment complex here a good idea? I have a (different) good idea: my five criteria. Let’s do it:
1. 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?
I’m guessing yes. It’s on roads that are already built for heavy traffic, and there’s already utilities run out in this way. Cops and fire department already cover this area. I think it’s ok.
2. 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 never have this information on hand. Nag the city planners! They need to update the housing deficit! They need to forecast these things!
3. 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 the worst sprawl – it’s adjacent to an existing development, and fairly close to Amazon and Embassy Suites, and not as far out as the high school. With the high school already beyond it, it feels like a gap that should get filled in.
It’s not on the aquifer. It’s not single-family homes. I think it’s fine, environmentally.
4. Social: Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing SMCISD schools and amenities?
Not meaningfully mixed income. Not near existing amenities. Gleason asks about this – any chance of including some commercial? The developer says nope. Just apartments. So it whiffs hard on this category.
5. 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?
No, but a blogger can dream.
All in all, I think this project has merit. Affordable housing, between Amazon and the high school. Adjacent to existing housing. I would vote in favor of it.
The vote: Yes: Jane Hughson, Mark Gleason, Jude Prather, Shane Scott No: Alyssa Garza, Saul Gonzalez, Max Baker
I’m honestly not sure why those three voted against it – it makes me wonder if I’m missing something? Max had asked about emergency response times and flooding, and the answers hadn’t been particularly unusual.
Items 26-28: 400 acres, on Centerpoint road. Ie, #2, the orange one:
So first off, this thing is massive, much bigger than the last project. The last item was 40 acres, and this is 400 acres. Also, the last item is on a major road (McCarty) and this one is on dinky country roads.
Okay, the big orange square got split into three sub-projects:
Here they are together:
So the developers want it to be half Light Industrial, half houses, and then a teeny bit of really dense housing.
First up is the Light Industrial:
It sounds like it will be a bunch of warehouses. I’m thinking of the kind of thing you see way out on Hunter Road, past Posey. Max Baker is worried about us becoming a warehouse district that other towns dump their warehouse industries on.
I am not concerned about becoming a warehouse town. Warehouses are cheap to build, and cheap for local businesses to rent, and cheap to re-purpose. The ones on Hunter seem to mostly be small, locally owned businesses. Whereas building a bunch of vacant office parks is much worse: expensive to build, expensive to rent, expensive to repurpose.
However, I would vote no. Not due to warehouses, but due to 400 acres, which might be majorly inconsistent with the upcoming VisionSMTX plan, and is definitely huge sprawl. The totality of this project is not good.
The vote on this light industrial piece: No: Max Baker and Alyssa Garza Yes: Mayor Hughson, Jude Prather, Shane Scott, Mark Gleason, and Saul Gonzalez.
Part 2:
CD-3: massive single family sprawl.
We’ve got our recipe to follow here! Here we go:
1. 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?
Huge and undeveloped. Very expensive. Thumbs down.
2. 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 NEVER KNOW. Nag the city planners! They need to update the housing deficit! They need to forecast these things!
3. 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?
SPRAAAAAAAWWWWWL. All single family. Not good. (At least it’s not on the aquifer.)
4. Social: Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing SMCISD schools and amenities?
I doubt this will be meaningfully mixed income. This is so far from any existing amenities, unless you plan on buying groceries at Sak’s Off 5th Avenue.
5. 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?
Sigh.
This portion is 0/5. Terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad project.
The vote on this piece: No: Max Baker and Alyssa Garza Yes: Mayor Hughson, Jude Prather, Shane Scott, Mark Gleason, and Saul Gonzalez.
Part 3: Little pockets of CD-5:
Remember, CD-5 is supposed to look like this:
But is really this:
In the top little bit, Mark Gleason makes a motion for “no residential”. It passes 7-0. I don’t really get why. An apartment complex facing the outlet mall? Spoiler alert: there’s about to be apartments right there anyway, when we get to the little blue square proposal.
He also moves that one of the other two triangles be downgraded to more CD-3: single family housing. Also passes 7-0.
The vote on the three little triangles: No: Max Baker Yes: Everyone else.
My opinion on the whole 400 acres:
It’s a bad idea to pass a sweeping decision on this giant parcel at this moment. We have a new master plan coming up. Do we even want 200 acres of warehouses and 200 acres of single family homes over here?
At one point, it was mentioned that Chief Dandridge is opposed to all this annexation, because we don’t have police staffing to cover all this extended area. When asked why he didn’t speak up, the answer was that he is waiting to discuss their needs at the upcoming budget meetings. So maybe wait for the upcoming budget meetings?
Finally, this fails the five criteria. It’s poorly planned sprawl, with no amenities. Why are we recreating mistakes that the rest of the country made 30 years ago?
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Item 29: Heavy Commercial, the green square between Embassy Suites and Amazon:
Mayor Hughson and Max Baker think this is a terrible idea, because Embassy Suites is supposed to host all our guests. Heavy Commercial is the most hardcore industrial zoning. This sinks like a stone:
The vote: Yes: Jude Prather, Shane Scott No: Mayor Hughson, Max Baker, Mark Gleason, Alyssa Garza, Saul Gonzalez
There’s a second vote on a “hard no” or a “soft no” – essentially some fiddly technicalities with whether to make the developers wait a year or substantially re-tool their application, before coming back.
Hard no: Saul Gonzalez, Max Baker Soft no: Mayor Hughson, Alyssa Garza, Shane Scott, Jude Prather, Mark Gleason
So the developers can bring it back with less effort.
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Items 30-31: Low income tax credit apartments, the blue square behind the outlet mall:
So this is complicated, but I think the good outweighs the bad. It’s going to be apartments that are priced below market rates:
(“AMI” means Area Median Income.)
You have to apply and have a sufficient income to qualify. It would be better if there were more apartments in the lowest income range – these are the most vulnerable people in our community. But: more good than bad.
The Workforce Housing Committee had a number of concerns – not near public transportation, located in a low intensity zone, a higher percentage of apartments reserved for that lowest tier of income, not close to things like grocery stores. But the people running the place were very good at sounding like they’d be happy to change and accommodate all these concerns. For example, they’re providing shuttle service two days a week, for a minimum of ten hours, and they’ll work with residents individually.
So here we go:
1. 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?
Not relevant. This is a publicly-subsidized program intentionally built to address inequality. (We forgo all local taxes on it, and they qualify for special loans and grants.)
2. 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?
329 units. And committing to a price-point which is underserved.
3. 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. Not in a flood zone. Not particularly close to town either, but apartments are far more dense than houses, and it’s fairly close to existing development.
4. Social: Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing SMCISD schools and amenities?
Not meaningfully mixed income, but serving a public good. Not near schools and amenities, but offering transportation and a facilitator to help residents get to the grocery store, doctor’s appointments, etc.
5. 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?
Well, no. Nevertheless, I’m cobbling these together to give it a “Pretty Good”.
There’s actually two votes, one on the tax credits and one on the agreements.
Tax Credits vote: Yes: Mayor Hughson, Alyssa Garza, Shane Scott, Saul Gonzalez, Mark Gleason No: Max Baker Abstaining: Jude Prather
Development agreement vote: Everyone voted yes, besides Jude, who abstained.
(I’m not actually sure what Jude’s conflict of interest is, but I’m not concerned about it.)
So there you have it. We have talked about all the colors in the map.
This episode has been brought to you by the colors Yellow, Orange, Green, and Blue, and all the letters inside the City of San Marcos Land Development Code.
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Items 1-2: But wait! There’s a fifth development! (After all, this part of the meeting really does take four hours.)
Remember last time, we discussed the far flung development with the power plant in the middle?
As best I can tell, it’s that little red triangle waaaaaaaaaay down at the bottom. (I even took the time to draw in the little yellow/orange/green/blue colors for you!)
This is so far away. This is insane. Do not annex this crazy little triangle and build houses on it.
The guy who owns the power plant shows up and discusses the noise and light pollution. He is exempt from city restrictions on noise and light pollution, because it’s loosely connected to maintenance needed to stay prepared for emergencies. However, he doesn’t want to deal with the legal and regulatory headaches of having a bunch of cranky home owners in his backyard.
Do we need to walk through the five criteria?
Terrible on costs to the city.
Housing stock? No idea. It’s 127 acres, so it just depends how big the lots are and how much gets eaten up with power line buffers and power plant buffers, and roads, etc.
Environment? Far from the river but terrible on sprawl.
Mixed income? Near amenities? Who knows on the income, but it’s not near anything but a lot of buzzing power lines and a noisy, brightly lit power plant.
Not my little utopia in any way.
This is a terrible idea. But here’s are how the councilmembers stake their positions:
What a terrible idea: Max Baker, Alyssa Garza, Saul Gonzalez
It’s okay, as long as home buyers are informed that the power plant is noisy AF: Mayor Hughson, Mark Gleason
This is aces! : Jude Prather, Shane Scott
In the end, it’s postponed. Staff will put together a protective covenant that satisfies Hughson and Gleason. Then, together with Jude and Shane Scott, this dumb, far-flung project will get approved.
The San Marxist 