Commission deals with routine agenda (almost) routinely

Casual observations from last night’s Planning & Zoning Commission meeting:

• The three zoning items on last night’s agenda were slam dunks. No real discussion or debate was really necessary and ultimately the commissioners made the correct decisions: they recommended the City Council approve zoning changes to make an outdoor wedding venue a conforming use and another to inject some life into after-dark downtown Kyle by allowing for entertainment zoning on the site formerly occupied by the Down South Railhouse. On the third item they recommended the council not approve zoning to install a mulch pit on I-35. What befuddled me, however, was how ponderously the commissioners labored over their decisions on these three items. You would have thought they were deciding on whether to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Buda, for crying out loud.
• For some unexplained reason, commission chair Dex Ellison voted against making the Winfield Inn a conforming use. I have no qualms with the way he voted; commissioners have the freedom to make wrong-headed decisions. My problem is why he didn’t share his reasoning with the rest of the commission and the public. What was he hiding here? It’s true that these commissioners have no clue on the difference between "discussion" and "debate," but democratic decisions should be based on an open conversation of competing ideas and ideals. Ellison missed a golden opportunity to bring the commission out from the shadows and into the sunlight. He was the only commissioner to vote against it.
• I have already published two articles on the Winfield Inn rezoning issue. The land, until late last year, was outside the city limits and, when it was incorporated into the city, it was done against the wishes of the property owners. But it seems to me that, since their involuntary annexation, the owners of the property, the husband-and-wife team of Magdalena Rood and Leslie Moore, have abided by the city’s rules and ordinances and worked in partnership with city planners to make the Winfield Inn a conforming use and, do to that, they needed to have that property rezoned from agriculture (which is the zoning designation originally applied to all annexed lands) to retail services. However, I understand if the council ultimately follows the commission’s recommendation and rezones the land, Rood and Moore could conceivably turn around and sell the 31.85 acres between Scott Street and Old Stagecoach Road to a developer who could tear down the inn and replace it with a shopping village of some sort. (I say "village," because the current infrastructure could not support a shopping complex such as those located on Kyle Parkway and I-35). But you know what? That would not necessarily be a bad thing either. I know the current residents of that area might not like it, but, in matters such as this, the needs and desires of future residents must also be considered. All kinds of new residential development is sprouting in this area and the folks who will be moving into these developments will need places to shop and they would desire that these places to shop would be easily accessible. In fact, a shopping village would be within easy walking distance of that KB Home development to be located on property almost adjacent to the Winfield Inn lot that recently received the new R-1-3 zoning designation. But here’s what I hope is in the immediate future for that property. Moore has been involved in the food preparation and catering business for more than 30 years and Kyle sure could use a comfortable, slightly upscale, white-linen-tablecloth dining option serving, at a minimum, most, if not all, the entrees Moore offers on his seated catering menu: "braised beef short ribs & cippolini onions with wild mushroom ragout; brown sugar-herb smoked salmon; thyme-crusted beef tenderloin with mustard demiglace; wildflower honey-orange lacquered chicken; crispy chicken with honey-thyme glaze; lobster mac + cheese." My mouth waters, my palate tingles, just writing those words. A restaurant like that, especially in that setting, would be a unique dining experience, not only for Kyle but for most of Hays County. It would quickly become the place for couples’ anniversary dinner celebrations and would complement the services at the nearby Winfield Inn. Just a thought.
• Every item on last night’s agenda had a public hearing attached to it and, for the most part, those citizens speaking at these public hearings are either (1) completely uninformed about the subject under discussion; (2) have their own private agenda that may be tangentially relevant, but most often has nothing to do with the agenda item; or (3) simply clueless. Once in a blue moon (it didn’t happen last night), a speaker might add something worthwhile to the discussion but, most of the time, they are embarrassing and a waste valuable time that can never be recouped.
• Speaking of being "simply clueless," I realized during last night’s meeting that I committed a grievous error a couple of days when I wrote the commission was considering a ban on any additional auto dealerships on I-35. I have mentioned this before, but I was born and spent my formative early years in the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Queens. Now, anyone who has spent any time in those two areas will tell you they are devoid of sprawling new and/or used car lots, but they contain plenty of auto dealerships. They are simply totally contained inside buildings about the size of a Kohl’s or an Office Depot; i.e., they don’t store their entire inventory on-premise. Car dealerships exactly like those would be permitted in the I-35 Overlay District, according to a recommendation passed along to the City Council on a 5-1 vote last night from the planning commission (Irene Melendez cast the one lone vote). I’m not quite sure the commissioners grasped this concept or the fact that car lots would be acceptable on properly zoned areas on any other street, boulevard or highway in Kyle; I think they only considered the aesthetics in their decision-making process, but that’s OK. I also got to thinking last night about Dallas, where I made my home for a little more than 40 years and try as I could, I couldn’t recall a single car dealership lot located along an interstate highway within the Dallas City Limits. So last night’s decision is definitely not without precedent.
• I wondered about Planning Director Howard Koontz’s announcement that the March 28 commission meeting would be a "workshop" to review the proposed changes to the Comprehensive Plan because I’m wondering what is there to review. The Planning Commission was given more than a year to tinker with a mid-term update to the plan, but abrogated that responsibility, forcing the City Council to schedule and conduct a joint council-commission workshop in January to get the job done. And they got the job done. Commissioner Timothy Kay, for one, is threatening changes to what was agreed upon during that workshop which is ridiculous simply because (1) agreement was reached at that January meeting; and (2) if the commissioners refused to do the job they were asked to do originally, they have absolutely no right to start exerting territorial prerogatives at this late a date. The commissioners had their opportunity and they blew it. But now a deal has been struck and I’m betting council members will not look favorably on any commissioners who think now is the time for them to make their dissenting opinions, let alone their changes, known.
• The commissioners were asked to approve the minutes of seven previous commission meetings last night and commissioner Brad Growt moved to have those approvals postponed to give commissioners more time to review them. His motion was approved 5-1 (Kay dissenting). Near the end of the meeting, Ellison used Growt’s motion as an example of why it might be preferable if commissioners received their packet of information on each meeting earlier than the Friday afternoon immediately preceding that respective meeting. And I started thinking that they way the staff prepares the agenda should follow the example used by many other municipalities. The bulk of the agenda, including all minutes and all items involving public hearings, can be provided to commissioners a week earlier than they are currently, thus providing commissioners an additional seven days to study the material. (I know this to be a fact because of publishing requirements in the newspaper of record. Not only that, it was clearly evident from the questions commissioners posed last night as well as the absence of necessary questions they neglected to ask that they didn’t have sufficient time to study the material before the meeting.) If the staff needs to add any items to the agenda at the last minute, they could do so on an official "agenda addendum" made public on that following Friday that immediately precedes the meeting. Problem solved.

P&Z recommends whopping 46.9 percent impact fee increase

In a comedy of errors that would have made the Kyle Planning & Zoning Commission the laughing stock of parliamentarians the world over (had parliamentarians the world over had even a scintilla of interest in how badly the commission mangled accepted procedures during its regular bi-monthly meeting last night), the commissioners tossed some red meat at no-growth advocates in the form of a recommended 46.9 percent impact fee increase that would make Kyle’s fees among the highest in Central Texas.

If approved by the City Council, only Austin and New Braunfels would have higher combined water/wastewater impact fees than Kyle, although Austin’s wastewater impact fees alone would actually be significantly lower than Kyle’s.

In the other significant action during last night’s meeting, the commissioners disregarded their own landscape ordinance changes they recently completed after two whole years of discussions, agreeing to something that wasn't even on the agenda that allows BioLife Plasma Services to plant 20.7 percent fewer trees than the ordinance calls for.

Impact fees are payments required by local governments of new development for the purpose of providing new or expanded public capital facilities required to serve that development. The impact fees discussed by the Planning & Zoning Commission are supposed to be strictly for capital water and wastewater improvements and would nominally be paid by developers prior to the platting of a new subdivision. However, in calculating the new rates, the costs of the wastewater treatment plant expansion and the HCPUA water supply — items that affect all city residents, not just those in planned new developments — were factored into the equation.

Realistically, however, these costs are not borne by the developers; they are simply passed along to home buyers, meaning the cost of a new home in Kyle would be, in all likelihood, greater than the cost of that same home in Buda, San Marcos, Round Rock, Plugerville, Cedar Park or just about anywhere else in Central Texas.

Those increased housing costs, however, would also naturally lead to increased property values which means the city of Kyle could conceivably accompany these massive impact fee increases with a lower property tax rates. We’ll just have to wait and see if that ever happens.

There is a related argument that says if the higher property values that result from the increase in impact fees are not accompanied by a corresponding increase in government services provided, that will depress the market, resulting in lower housing costs. These assumptions are all based, however, on the proposition homebuilders are willing to throw the dice and build in Kyle with those higher impact fees in place.

Local governments throughout the country are increasingly using impact fees to shift more of the costs of financing public facilities from the general taxpayer to the beneficiaries of those new facilities. These fees have been criticized, however, as being an inequitable means to finance public facilities. By requiring new development to pay for new facilities without benefitting from existing facility capacity, local governments may be bypassing the traditional practice of intergenerational contribution toward public facilities. Some commentators have argued that, when set at high levels such as those proposed last night by the Planning and Zoning Commission, impact fees may also tend to be regressive. Certain public facilities may be considered "public goods" that should be financed by the entire community. It’s equivalent to the school board passing a tax rate increase to cover the cost of a new school that only applies to properties belonging to those who will send their children to that particular school.

None of this was discussed at Tuesday’s P&Z Commission meeting, because it appears the commission has been rendered rudderless with former Chair Mike Rubsam’s departure from the commission and absolutely clueless from the members’ apparent reluctance to conduct any valid independent research. The discussion was limited, for all practical purposes, to acting chair Timothy Kay making the outlandish statement that the proposed 46.9 percent increase of the rates set in 2008 mirrored the rate of inflation during that same period. (The actual total rate of inflation between 2008 and 2016 is 13.5 percent,)

The only hint at an on-point discussion of the increases came when commissioner Allison Wilson noted Kyle’s proposed fee was, according to her tabulations, $1,200 higher than the average impact fee imposed by other Central Texas municipalities and wondered whether that was because "all the other cities already have infrastructure that wouldn’t require such a huge cost."

Grady Reed of HDR, Inc., the hired gun sent to convince the commissioners to recommend these increases replied "That’s a hard question to answer," which, for him, was the truth because if he answered it honestly it would destroy his entire argument. He finally said "It’s like comparing your various utility rates and wondering why they are different." Huh?

Reed went on to say, however, "If I’m another city and, even if I’m growing rapidly, if I’ve secured my water supply for the next 50 years then I’m likely to have lower impact fees," which is an amazing statement considering how loudly Kyle officials have bragged about how they, unlike officials in surrounding communities, have secured not only an adequate water supply for the city but have enough water available so that they can sell some to their neighbors to the north. Wilson, however, allowed Reed’s gibberish to pass without additional comment or questioning and the commission wound up unanimously recommending the rate increase.

But that was nowhere close to the heights of ridiculousness reached during last night’s meeting. That came when the commissioners voted to amend something that didn’t even exist. I’m not making this up. It was like building an addition to your house before you build the house.

It came during the discussion over the amount of trees BioLife was going to be excused from planting when Kay made a motion to amend something that wasn’t going to be voted on until after they held the vote to amend it.

To put it bluntly, the Planning & Zoning Commission is a mess right now which would be funny were it not for the fact that, after the City Council, P&Z is the most powerful and influential legislative body in the city. Last night the commissioners:

• Could not even figure out how to correctly handle the consent agenda.
• Left a public hearing in some form of netherworld limbo even though Planning Director Howard Koontz clearly, understandably and forcefully instructed the commissioners ahead of time they must officially leave the hearing open until the commission’s next meeting.
• Appeared to be absolutely clueless about how to act on a number of items, asking the staff, in effect, to instruct the commissioners on what decisions they should make.

It’s getting to the point where it seems necessary for the city to impose some more stringent pre-screening of candidates to the commission, perhaps going to far as to require those who wish to serve on P&Z to pass some form of a Planning & Zoning Scholastic Aptitude Test.

The 58-to-45 reduction of the number of trees BioLife was required by the recently amended landscape ordinance to plant on its soon-to-be under-construction campus on Seton Parkway, across from the new Goodwill, wasn’t even on last night’s agenda. This was an "Oh, by the way," addition the project’s engineer threw in at the last moment right before the commission was prepared to vote on Biolife’s landscape ordinance waiver request that was on the agenda. And that was the reason commissioner Irene Melendez told me she was the only member of the commission to vote against the idea.

"I just didn’t think he was prepared and he wanted to make these changes so quickly," Melendez said. "I didn’t feel comfortable making those changes just on the fly. He’s a business owner and all the other business owners are abiding by the ordinance, I think he should as well."