DEPARTMENT: Department of Planning & Community Development
DEPARTMENT HEAD: John Dugan, AICP
COUNCIL DISTRICTS IMPACTED: Citywide
SUBJECT:
Briefing on the current status of the City of San Antonio’s three growth-related plans including the Comprehensive Plan, the Strategic Multi-Modal Transportation Plan and the Sustainability Plan, collectively named “SA Tomorrow.”
SUMMARY:
Briefing on the current status of the City of San Antonio’s three growth-related plans including the Comprehensive Plan, the Strategic Multi-Modal Transportation Plan and the Sustainability Plan, collectively named “SA Tomorrow.”
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
This City Council “B” Session is a quarterly recurring “B” Session briefing to the entire City Council on the progress and future work associated with developing and completing the three growth plans. Significant milestones are scheduled for all three-growth related plans during the fourth quarter of 2015. It is projected that the three-growth related plans will be completed by the Spring of 2016.
ISSUE:
Comprehensive Plan
Plan Element Working Groups
The Plan Element Working Groups (Working Groups) are comprised of industry and community leaders drawn from the various organizations of the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Group and supplemented by subject matter experts identified by the City’s planning team and their partners. In collaboration with these working groups and City staff, the MIG Team (Comprehensive Plan Consultants) facilitate the development of a series of topical policy papers that include assets, opportunities, and challenges, and that will be utilized in the formation of the City’s three growth-related plans. These papers will be a key step in the planning process and will provide the basis for more specific policy recommendations. The Plan Element Working Groups are:
• Housing
• Growth & Urban Form
• Historic Preservation
• Transportation & Connectivity
• Healthy Neighborhoods
• Public Facilities and Community Safety
• Military
• Jobs & Economic Competitiveness
• Natural Resources & the Environment
The fourth round of Plan Element Working Group meetings were held between September 22 and September 24, 2015 at the South Pre-K 4 SA Education Center. The purpose of this round of meetings was to review and confirm the refined goals and policies based on feedback received during the third round of Working Group meetings and to discuss preliminary neighborhood and district types and overall city form.
Citizens Planning Institute
The Citizen Planning Institute (CPI) is comprised of residents appointed by the City Council (two per Council District) and the Mayor. The roles of the CPI members are to be both citizen-representatives in the development of the three-growth plans and to be growth plan ambassadors to their communities. The Institute is administered and staffed by the City’s Department of Planning & Community Development, with support from staff of other City departments.
The fourth CPI meeting was held September 25, 2015 and included an introduction to the Multimodal Transportation Plan. The CPI members also provided input on funding prioritization and corridor planning.
Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee
The Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee is comprised of the Chairs from each of the nine Technical Working Groups, one board member from VIA Metropolitan Transit, three City of San Antonio Planning Commissioners, and the SA Tomorrow Tri-Chairs: Councilman Ron Nirenberg, Darryl Byrd, and Dr. Afamia Elnakat. The purpose of the Steering Committee is to serve as the tenth working group for the Comprehensive Plan with focus on the Implementation Plan Element of the Comprehensive Plan. In this capacity, the Steering Committee will assist the planning team in reconciling the proposed policies and recommending the Comprehensive Plan for City Council consideration.
The Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee (CPSC) met for the first time on September 11, 2015. Prior to the first CPSC meeting, the SA Tomorrow Tri-Chairs met several times for briefings on the progress of the Comprehensive Planning process.
The September 11, 2015 meeting allowed for an introduction of the Steering Committee members, a briefing on the role of the Steering Committee, a discussion of the draft goals and policies, and a briefing on upcoming public engagement opportunities. The Technical Working Group chairs also provided an overview and update on their respective committee’s progress.
The members of the Steering Committee requested to meet again to discuss the refinement of the draft Goals and Policies before beginning the community outreach process. It is anticipated that the Steering Committee will next meet on October 16.
Neighborhood Leadership Workshops
The Department of Planning & Community Development and its consultant team will conduct a series of Neighborhood Leadership Workshops in late October and early November 2015, following the next Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee meeting. This workshop series will provide an opportunity to solicit input from representatives of the numerous neighborhood associations, homeowners associations, and other community organizations in the San Antonio area.
The objectives of this series of workshops is to provide information to neighborhood leaders and gather feedback on key findings of the Existing Conditions assessment; present and discuss the proposed policy framework, including draft policy and goal statements; and review and discuss preliminary neighborhood types as well as overall city form. Participants will be polled on the potential neighborhood and district types. The workshops will include open house style information sessions and be approximately three hours in length each.
SA Tomorrow Community Workshop
The SA Tomorrow planning teams will hold a city-wide community workshop early in 2016. This event will provide an opportunity for the general public to provide input on the draft goals and policies of the SA Tomorrow Plans, as well as feedback on preliminary implementation recommendations.
Strategic Multi-Modal Transportation Plan
There has been continuous public engagement and outreach occurring throughout the project. Our outreach included the announcement of “Vision Zero” based on information being used to improved pedestrian and bicycle safety. Public engagement and outreach also has included “Go-to-them Meetings”, participation in community events, Mobile Meetings with identified groups and or organizations, Online Webinars, social media outreach and traditional public meetings. Our Mobile Meetings have included the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, North Chamber of Commerce, AIA, ITE, San Antonio Transportation Association, Texas Municipal League Mayor’s Meeting, Board of Realtors, Greater San Antonio’s Builder’s Association, and East Point Implementation Committee. We are asking organizations to allow us to present our initial findings to their organizations, so we can gather additional information from our previous outreach. Preliminary work is currently underway to develop our Project Prioritization Process looking at national best practices and refining the methodology and explaining the tool and discussing the weighted goals values. Finally, the outreach has started to receive feedback on the approval 2011 Bicycle Master Plan, identifying projects completed and re-examining future projects that was approved in the plan. We continue to ask our community to provide suggestions, recommendations or to ask questions via our website or twitter at www.SATomorrow.com.
Sustainability Plan
To date, the baseline assessment and initial goal setting and preliminary strategy identification to achieve those goals have been completed. Staff and the consultant is currently working on evaluating strategies proposed, identifying gaps in strategies and goals, and prioritizing them for implementation. The strategies will be reviewed by the Sustainability Plan Steering Committee, Resilience Advisory Committee, COSA agencies, key institutional partners, and the San Antonio community. These strategies will also be coordinated with the Comprehensive and Strategic Multi-Modal Transportation Plans.
The plan process has included public engagement throughout the Sustainability Plan process, a summary of the public input thus far from various engagement formats including the Sustainability Forum held on June 23, 2015, Mindmixer (online engagement tool), SA Tomorrow online survey, Bus Campaign, and Go-to-them/stakeholder meetings will be presented. The key findings from the public input have provided the framework for the Sustainability Plan development and are incorporated throughout process.
ALTERNATIVES:
N/A
FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no fiscal impact associated with this briefing.
RECOMMENDATION:
This is a briefing for informational purposes only.