“Please, Pleeeeease, don’t make my city into a city”

It’s been a long, a long time coming

But I know a change gon’ come, oh yes it will

 

–Sam Cooke

Fifty-five years ago, I was a regular commuter between Houston and Austin. At that time, a street called Post Oak Boulevard essentially provided the western border of Houston. East of Post Oak was development, west of it only country, farm and ranch land. To give you some idea, the western side of Interstate Loop 610 runs north and south along the path once occupied by Post Oak Boulevard. If you’re familiar at all with today’s Houston geography you will understand how astonishing that concept is.

Forty-five years ago, I purchased my first house. It was located in a subdivision on the northern edge of Dallas. I could look out my back window and not see another structure. No other homes. No other buildings whatsoever. I felt as though I lived at the edge of the known universe. Today that area looks more like Manhattan than the countryside.

I mention this because people who live in municipalities are going to see those municipalities evolve. It happens. There’s not much you can do to stop it. And the closer you live to the central core of the municipality, the more urbanized it’s going to become. A number of Kyle homeowners learned that truth last night at the Planning & Zoning Commission when the commissioners recommended the City Council approve a zoning change that would make the edges of downtown Kyle look more like … well, the edges of a downtown. And those homeowners didn’t like it one bit. Right now they can look out their back windows and see undeveloped fields and they don’t like the idea that view may transform into one comprised of town homes.

Kyle is going through a major transformation and some residents are going to have to be led through it kicking and screaming. There was a fellow — I’m not making this up — who appeared before Planning & Zoning a couple of weeks ago, when commissioners were considering how to incorporate downtown redevelopment into the city’s Comprehensive Plan, and he told the commissioners downtown shouldn’t be touched, it shouldn’t be redeveloped at all — it should be left just the way it is now. I wanted to get out a copy of Butch Hancock’s song, "Welcome to the Real World Kid."

One of the city’s current major road projects involves extending Marketplace Boulevard through some currently undeveloped lands until it intersects with Burleson Road. This is going to have a major transformative effect on Kyle. In 20 years, possibly as soon as 10, Kyle residents will witness a completely transformed Burleson. The transformation will begin toward the Marketplace end, as commercial development follows along that new pathway. Sooner than many people might want to see, that commercialization will envelope that entire stretch of road, from Kyle Parkway to Center Street. Where today you see homes along Burleson, within 20 years you will see office buildings, mixed-used residential/retail developments, professional office parks. And when the owners of those homes see how much these commercial developers are willing to pay for their property, they are going to be selling their homes faster than you can say "retiring to the French Riviera."

The first step in that long (although probably not long enough for a lot of folks) process began last night when the Planning & Zoning Commission voted 5-1 (Commissioner Irene Melendez was absent) to recommend the City Council approve changing the zoning on a vacant field adjacent to the Silverado subdivision, a piece of property located at the corner of Live Oak Street and St. Anthony’s Drive, a scant seven-tenths of a mile from City Hall, to allow for the construction of single family town homes. The one dissenting vote was cast by Commissioner Timothy Kay who objected to the project’s density. I hate to break this news on an unsuspecting world, but density and downtown areas are intrinsically linked. It’s kinda like mashed potatoes and gravy. Go to Dallas some time and check out the location of North Dallas High School and ponder the fact that when it was built it was considered way, way out in North Dallas. Also consider Oak Lawn was once though of as a separate town, a place where Dallas residents went for the weekend. Here's a picture of what the foot of Wall Street in Manhattan used to look like in the 1700s. Here it is in the 1800s. Here it is today.

Here’s the plain, unvarnished reality of the situation. If you have chosen to live within a mile radius of a city’s core, if it’s not dense now, expect to find density creeping in very, very soon.

Perhaps City Planning and Community Development Director Howard J. Koontz put it best when he told the commissioners last night "I have been recorded in the past and will continue in the future to advocate for balance, to advocate for a mix of uses throughout the city because the best chance for successful communities comes not from homogeny but from a balance of different uses that can work together." Koontz pointed out the land proposed for the town homes is not only adjacent to the Silverado subdivision, but, in other directions, it borders on property zoned commercial as well as some zoned warehouse/commercial. Thus, putting town homes on the property under discussion, is, according to the city’s Comprehensive Plan "and the terms of sound town planning, appropriate," Koontz said.

People don’t like change. I get that. But "change gon’ come," that change is going to involve density the closer you are to the city’s core and trying to fight it is a losing battle.

In other action last night, the Planning & Zoning Commission:

• Voted unanimously to approve a conditional use permit that clears the way for the construction of a 3,699-square-foot Taco Cabana at I-35 and Kyle Parkway. That means by this time next year, we could be sitting on the restaurant’s patio sipping margaritas and watching all the motorists battle that intersection. And who says you can’t have fun times in Kyle?
• Voted 5-1 to approve a conditional use permit for the kettle korn wagon on Front Street to alter its front exterior. The lone dissenting vote was cast by chair Mike Rubsam who didn’t care for the proposed design on the structure. "It looks like the circus came to town and never left," he said.
• Unanimously approved a conditional use permit for Milts BBQ on Center Street, allowing the restaurant to alter its front and western exteriors although there was some question over whether an oversized picture of a cowboy planned for the western exterior was a sign or a mural.
• Unanimously approved a pair of requests from the developers of a proposed Hampton Inn on Bunton Creek Road, adjacent to the Hays Surgery Center. The first was to permit it to be included among the Authorized Conditional Uses in Kyle’s Ordinances that permit buildings with a height of up to 150 feet (the Hampton Inn will probably be only a third that tall). The second was for a conditional use permit to build the 54,078-square-foot building.

Expect all of the above to be included on the City Council’s Jan. 5 agenda.

The commissioners also agreed to hold its next work session on the Comprehensive Plan on Tuesday, Jan. 26.