P&Z completes part of its land use assignment

Back on Jan. 24, the City Council met in a joint workshop session with the Planning & Zoning Commission to complete what is nominally being called the mid-term update of the city’s Comprehensive Plan, but probably should more accurately be dubbed the "three-quarters-term update." The workshop adjourned with some work still to be done by the commission as well as the City Planning Department, but with explicit instructions from council members on what was expected of them. Specifically, the Planning Department was charged with drafting proposed ordinances that would create mixed-use and office zoning designations. The Planning and Zoning Commission was assigned the task of coming up with new designations for the two landuse districts which are both currently called "New Settlement Community" and to make all zoning within those districts conditional. It will also told to eliminate the so-called Employment District which is currently located in the far northeast section of Kyle where absolutely no one in their right mind would locate a place of employment.

Last night, the Planning & Zoning Commission conducted a workshop attended by only three of its members (since this meeting was only a "workshop," a quorum was not required) — Chairman Dex Ellison, along with Timothy Kay and Rick Koch — and kinda, sorta, but not really followed the instructions they received at the January joint workshop.

As far as the new zoning ordinances are concerned, Planning Commissioner Howard J. Koontz told the three commissioners they will be forthcoming upon council’s approval of the update.

"Two new zoning categories were effectively enabled through the discussions on the 24^th," Koontz said. "One would be for office-institutional. The reason for that is to create an employment category that doesn’t necessarily bring along with it the undesirable ideas of everything else that goes on in warehouse."

He said this new designation would be referred to as O&I, "a category that bridged the more commercial-industrial uses and retail services which really doesn’t encompass commerce that’s not point-of-sale."

"But that will not come until after the Comp Plan is done," he continued. "We don’t make new zoning districts as a function of the Comprehensive Plan. We don’t really enable any zoning through the Comprehensive Plan."

This new zoning designation also has the effect of eliminating the so-called "employment district" by reducing a district into a zoning category that could be assigned to various landuse districts throughout the city.

Koontz said he has "some ideas, but nothing in the can," concerning the proposed mixed-used designation which he said will be dubbed MXD.

Now as far was what happened with the two new Settlement areas … well, after I got home and referred to my copies of the current Landuse Districts map, I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I think the net effect is the New Settlement Community District located entirely on the east side of I-35, between the Plum Creek greenbelt and Beebee/High Road will, if the City Council approves P&Z’s recommendation, be referred to as the East New Settlement Community. The one that straddles both sides of I-35 on the southern edge of town will still have the same New Settlement Community designation.

And instead of making all zoning uses conditional, as instructed, the three commissioners decided to suggest for the East New Settlement Community that zoning uses Single Family Residential, Duplexes and Urban Estate be listed as recommended zoning uses; Manufacture Home, Manufactured Home Subdivision, Manufactured Home Park, Condominium, the recently created single family residential R-1-A category, Transportation Utility, Neighborhood Commercial and Community Commercial be designated conditional uses; and everything else be thrown into the not-recommended wastebasket.

For the landuse district that will still be called New Settlement Community at the city’s southern tip, the commissioners recommended all residential zoning from R-1-1 through R-2, along with Entertainment, Transportation Utility. Urban Estate, Neighborhood Commercial and Community Commercial be conditional and everything else not be recommended.

There was one other caveat to all of this. The commissioners also recommended the expansion of the regional nodes at the southern and northern tips of I-35. In these regional nodes, zoning uses condos, apartments and other multi-family projects, all commercial including retail services, mixed use developments and, presumably, office/industrial uses would be recommended under the updated plan’s provisions and Central Business District, entertainment and hospital services would be conditional. The commissioners proposed extending the southern most regional node a third of a mile on either side of I-35 from its current location until it joins another regional node just south of Center Street. The one at the northern edge of I-35 would similarly be extended along a path a third of a mile on either side of I-35 to the area that is now designated a Super Regional Node.