Welcome to Brazos Matters.

I'm Jay Socol.

Well, listeners and viewers to this show know that my pre KAMU life included a combined 20 years of doing communications for the cities of Bryan and College Station.

Very different cities, very different organizations, priorities and needs.

But there are also a lot of similarities to.

And one of those similarities is a comprehensive plan for each city, which is essentially a roadmap that helps guide the next 10 or 20 years in a variety of ways.

And I was involved in comp plan processes in both cities.

It is a very big deal in my job was convincing the public that it was indeed a very big deal.

So we're going to talk a lot about that today and why a comp plan matters specifically for the city of Bryan.

So I guess, or the city of Bryan's Director of Development Services, Martin Zimmerman and senior Planner Katie Williams.

Thank you both for being here.

Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Absolutely.

Okay, Katie, starting with you easy task, I want you to describe what a comprehensive plan is designed to do and why it should matter to Brian's citizens.

Yeah, so it's really a roadmap for how we want the city to grow.

We kind of need to have that end goal in mind, so it can help us make all the little decisions that kind of lead up to that.

But it's a big deal because we need the public input, because we need the residents to kind of help us know where to go or what we want and goal, or just who we want to be in 30 or 40 years.

But in what ways?

Really all the ways.

This is kind of an all encompassing plan.

So it's land uses.

We're looking at, the economic profile of the city and how that's going to grow.

We're looking at schools, parks, streets.

It's kind of everything that a city can kind of touch.

We're going to be going over with this plan.

And you are operating the city of Bryan is operating under a comprehensive plan right now, though, right?

Correct.

So our last comprehensive plan was adopted in 2016.

So with this new plan, we're going to be right at about ten years, which is kind of that sweet spot for the updates.

Gotcha.

So, Martin, I know this is not your first comp plan.

Rodeo.

No.

It's not.

What have you learned along the way about Bryan's citizens in terms of things that they find important, or maybe things I don't find important because I know every city is a little bit different in that regard.

The priorities of conservation citizens are a little different from Bryan's citizens and vice versa.

So what have you learned along the way?

I think so, yes.

This is my third comprehensive plan that I'm doing with the, with the City of Bryan And just to tack on to what Katie just said, the, a comprehensive plan is actually required by state law when cities that have adopted zoning, we are a home rule city that has adopted zoning.

And so we we have to have a comprehensive plan.

And so, what I've, what I've noticed is that really the topics over the last 20 years or so, they, they stay the same.

You know, I remember the 2006 plan that had just started when I started working for the city.

There was a lot of concern about appearance of how what what the corridors look like.

There was a lot of conversations about burying utility lines, which I was there for this, by the way, we have done, you know, BTU has gone and buried a lot of utility lines along major corridors, at great expense.

But, you know, this is something that came directly out of the comprehensive plan.

And so really, as we you know, then the 2015, 2016 plan, similar issues, you know, I think everybody is looking for once a safe environment, once the residential areas be protected from land uses that are not so desirable nearby, parks are very important component for quality of life.

Trails more.

So I think part of this particular plan will also be looking at trail connections and making some recommendations that we can then use.

For our capital project planning going forward.

Or the council will have an opportunity to make some decisions, regarding that.

So, you know, those are those are kind of the themes, that I, that I see that are kind of somewhat repetitive.

Now, things are a little different now than there were obviously 2006 and 2016.

We've grown a lot.

There have been a lot of changes, which, as Katie mentioned, is sort of the sweet spot after ten years.

Our last plan that was adopted in 2016 was called, was right there with blueprint 2040.

So, so, so the horizon was about 25 years, but after about ten years, that's typically when cities start looking at like, oh, is it still current?

And you know, if for those of you who've been here longer than ten, 15 years, this place has changed so much over the last, decade or so.

So we there were things that we couldn't even anticipate in 2016 or we didn't, didn't know about, such as Midtown Park, for example.

That was not on the radar at all that that could happen.

And so, you know, the council felt the time was right.

And, and, asked us to start updating the comprehensive plan to get a vision for the next decade or a little longer than that.

Yeah.

You you mentioned blueprint 2040, adopted in 2016.

Does that name sort of, continue through this current process, or do you end up calling it something different?

We'll probably call it something.

Yeah.

So we're just going to call it the Bryan Comprehensive plan.

We kind of discussed that.

And it can get confusing because some people will refer to the current one as the comp plan or the blueprint 2040.

And so I think for the general public, they think it's two different things.

Right?

So just for simplicity, we're like we're just going to call it the comprehensive plan this time.

That way there's no confusion.

Good for you.

Yeah exactly.

No I, I like that instead of something that's a little bit trite and vague.

Yeah.

I've actually just, kind of what it is.

Right.

Good, good.

So I know that Bryan is using a consulting firm to shepherd this entire process.

It's a big, multifaceted process that that spans, what, a year?

Yeah, about 14 months.

Yep.

Contract with half associates is for just over $400,000.

What kind of direction did the Bryan City Council and you guys, the city staff.

What kind of direction did you give half associates before they began the work?

We gave them a ton of direction.

I think just with the RFQ, the report.

Yeah, we were very thorough.

We wanted all.

So we did receive about ten proposals.

When we during the consultant selection and in crafting the request for qualifications, we were very careful of really including all the things that have happened over the last ten years.

We didn't want every individual consultant to just Google what's been going on in Bryan since 2016.

So we we just wanted to put it real out there.

And really that portion of the, RFQ, which I brought a copy here in case I forget something today, but it's, you know, very thorough.

And it talks about all the things that that our council has done over the last ten years, things that have happened, like the Midtown, Midtown plan, Midtown Park campus.

I mean, RELLIS campus just kind of started when when we did the last comp plan, but we didn't really know what all that would mean at the time.

Just a lot of different things, you know, Texas Triangle Park, Coulter Airfield, you know, things that that maybe you don't think about every day, but that have really changed over the last decade.

And so we wanted everybody to have that information, you know, conversations about, neighborhood design.

You know what?

Our neighborhoods, what we want our neighborhoods to look like.

You know, that is one thing, one major thing that we're hoping to get out of this plan, to get that public engagement and feedback about, you know, how do we see ourselves?

How do we see our city developing in that area?

You know, there's parts of town maybe where more density is appropriate.

There's other parts of town where maybe larger lots, larger homes are more appropriate.

And so the consultant team is going to help us, you know, help identify where those areas might be based on the feedback that, they get from the public and the, the, committee that helps us, with the plan production, basically.

And I know that citizens have the opportunity right now to express some of their opinions and desires.

But once a draft plan emerges, how much ability is there for whether it's city council, city staff, citizens to say, we don't like this?

We want more of this, less of this, that sort of thing.

Yeah.

So we'll have public hearings, with planning and Zoning Commission and City council before there's any approvals of anything.

There's also going to be a public meeting that we're going to hope to have in March.

And then we also will have those plans be public, because we want there to be a period for people to review it and then give us their comments, because if you know, the entire city is responding strongly to one particular thing in there, that tells us and the consultant, okay, we need to go back and maybe review this again.

Yeah.

And that is also true.

Once the plan is adopted.

You know, we haven't had really any the need to update anything in the plan.

As such it was still a good working document.

We use it every day, as we as we respond to zoning proposals for example, another feature of the plan is our master street plan or thoroughfare plan, that is also very commonly used.

That's about the only thing that we regularly update.

As things change, new developments come in or an alignment that's shown on the in the plan.

That's not really working that way.

So, you know, we we we do that.

But you know, even after a plan is adopted, all of our long range plans are available on our website.

You know, that we, you know, they can always be reviewed.

And, you know, if somebody finds something that, hey, this is not really valid or maybe all should look at that, you know, they can always approach us and then we we have those discussions with the planning and Zoning Commission and the city council, and ultimately the city Council has the ability to update whatever plan.

We have.

So I know comp plans.

Have you talked a little bit about this?

They are described in kind of mushy terms, like it's a it's a blueprint or a framework or, a guide because they do have to allow for changing conditions.

And you, you mentioned some of those things, but I'd like for you to, to visit those more specifically, some examples of things that, were significant enough to merit maybe an amendment to the comprehensive plan, whether that was something related to Midtown Park or the rally's campus or something like that.

Can you can you talk a little bit more about those sorts of things?

The most recent amendments that we've had to our current comprehensive plan were to the thoroughfare plan.

So we have right now, the plan is meant to match the Metropolitan Planning Organization, the MPO, and kind of in response to actual development proposals that we receive, we can potentially shift the alignment of those roadways, you know, one way or the other to both help.

This proposed development will also not hindering any additional development of future adjacent properties.

So we have taken, none within the last 2 or 3 years.

But we had taken some amendments to those thoroughfare alignments.

Just kind of in response to some, especially residential, kind of proposals that we had received where they didn't necessarily want to have going through the middle of this low density residential neighborhood, a, you know, four lane streets, we were able to kind of push it to the edge of the property so the neighborhood can now take access to this street, but it's not like bisecting the neighborhood.

I think other things that, maybe need some more refining.

The thing that comes to mind first is, what part of the blueprint 2040 and like any comprehensive plan, should be sort of like a future land use map where in more fluffy general terms, vision terms is described like, okay, this is a residential area, this is a commercial area.

On our 2016 comprehensive plan or a future land use map, we had the area along highway 47 described as a western gateway.

We thought that was a cool term at the time.

Again, not really knowing which direction relative is going and what all that's going to be.

So more recently here, 2 or 3 years ago, we adopted.

So you have the comprehensive plan that is the vision.

And then you have the actual rules, the ordinances that the city adopts, where the rubber meets the road, where it tells you what you can do and where and how, how wide your driveways can be, where you plant your trees, all those things.

And so we actually, created new zoning districts that with binding rules for what in the comp plan is still called the Western corridor, but we called it the innovation corridor, kind of branded that way.

And there's three different districts there.

So and there's other parts for it.

And when you ask about, you know, what needs changing in the plan, I think on the future land use plan, there's a big area around downtown, a central urban area, and it was kind of left very vague and not not and purposefully so.

And, you know, over time, as we can see, you know, as developments occur and how this is really going, we kind of we firm it up a little bit and that's what we've charged our consultants to do this time around.

It's like, hey, kind of look at this and make sure we on the right track.

And we've had already had some conversations with them about our zoning map, which, you know, you growing up and Bryan love being here.

You know, we've we didn't get zoning until 1989, effective 1990.

And, for what it's worth and blueprint 20 2040, there is an excellent article, but with footnotes and everything written about the history of zoning and Bryan, which we'll probably just copy over.

I mean, I co-wrote it with Randy Haynes, so okay, we'll definitely go and keep that.

But it kind of tells that story of how how Bryan got zoning, which is somewhat unique.

I think, in the state.

But, and so, yeah, those are the things, I mean, and the plan also includes some general planning principles that are just they're just that they're repeated, like we basically take them out of planning textbooks and put them in the comprehensive plan, because not everybody has a planning textbook laying around at home.

But it just has some general really good, planning principles that we can then use when we when we have to make a recommendation or the council has to make a decision on a, on a land use proposals like you shall not put auto repair shops in the middle of the residential neighborhood.

Right.

I mean, it goes without saying, but you know, somewhere sometimes you have to write it down.

I'm going to reintroduce you guys for just a moment here if you're just tuning in.

I'm Jay Socol.

Our guests today are Martin Zimmerman and Katie Williams with the City of Bryan's Department of Development Services.

We're talking about the ongoing process for updating the city's comprehensive plan.

There is an online survey that allows citizens to articulate preferences and priorities, Mark maps where we believe things like trails or sidewalks might need to go, or where a new park would be great, or some kind of infrastructure retention, and so on.

I took the survey, maybe took 15 minutes or so, something like that.

And by the way, if you see, a suggestion for a park right next to my house, you'll know what happened there.

But how much are those responses from each citizen really analyzed and elevated to city staff and even city council?

Yeah.

So we are still, taking those survey answers.

So once we close the survey, then the consultants are going to kind of tally everything up, and we're going to look at all the suggestions or all the priorities that people have listed.

And that's really going to help us kind of lay out the framework for this plan moving forward.

And if we see, you know, parks, you know, multiple people are putting a park in one area or a lot of people are having drainage issues in another area, we can kind of use that information as well.

And maybe it won't.

You know, it might be too granular to go into the comprehensive plan, but it's just really good data and information for us as staff and, you know, helping us with other plans.

Yeah, I know I can assure everyone that, every comment will be looked at.

So we will probably see your the, Jay Socol memorial Park proposal commemorative commemorative.

Thank you.

Yeah.

You know, literally every everything is looked at at least once.

And, you know, no matter how obscure it might be, because sometimes you can find some, some good ideas even in the, you know, something we haven't thought about, which is the whole point, you know, we're not just sitting in our cubicle.

So drive around and think about what Bryan should be.

You know, there's 95,000 other people that have thoughts about that, and that's who we want to hear from.

Yeah.

And by the way, I assume that comprehensive plans help inform councils about where to put their money, where to prioritize funding.

Is that fair to say?

Yeah, that's one that's one of the things, you know, others are potential, businesses that locate here.

They look at your neighborhoods, your schools.

If you if you don't have a vision of where your community wants to go.

And I'm looking to make a big investment, then I might choose not to come here, you know, and that gives you a gives.

You know, it's a in that sense also an advertising and marketing tool, of to look this is what we know.

This is what we're now as a reality assessment.

And then this is our vision for the future.

This is where we want to go.

So as we're having this conversation, I'm thinking back to my days with you at city of Bryan when the 2006 Comprehensive Plan was developed and land use plans were probably much different back then, than they are now, because we just didn't know what was on the horizon.

Right.

Is that a fair?

Yes, that is a fair statement.

Now, the 2006 plan also did not.

Well, we did give our first shot for Bryan at a at a at that future land use map.

Because of Bryan's history and the way we've grown over 150 plus years now, you know, you sometimes have the right building in the wrong spot, and that creates a lot of difficulties, you know, compared to you start from scratch.

And so, so, you know, you have to be a little creative sometimes and, and so, you know, the fundamental land use principles are still the same.

I would say there's nothing, that I can think of that hadn't really changed.

But yes, maybe going back to 2006, again, some of the priorities may still be the same, but they're framed a little different.

Maybe.

But when you were talking about maybe infill, when you're talking about older portions of the city, that or evolving into something very different.

And what I'm thinking of is kind of in the Northgate area behind College Station's Northgate is Bryan's Northgate, and they're very different.

That's evolving in a very different way than it has existed previously.

And so I wonder, does that land use need to change or be reflected in the, in the comprehensive plan, or was this always this evolution always sort of permitted to happen through these plans?

Well, it's a different plan.

We had the Midtown area plan that that actually brought about some changes with regard to the area north of Northgate.

That's right.

North north, north of Northgate.

And, and so, it actually that change has already happened when it comes to the regulatory side.

So the, the zoning districts were established and all of that, that has already happened.

And so yes, that is one area that, you know, in 2006 and 2016, we didn't know know that that was going to maybe be that way.

There were no high rise.

So through other through other, planning processes, in this case, the Midtown area plan, that was an area that that came into our focus.

And the council's focus and and that's how that came about.

And that certainly needs to be that will be included in this comprehensive plan.

Just as a, you know, this is here and this is the vision for for this area.

So our our state legislature has a history of not always being the friendliest to municipalities.

And I know that can be a challenge when cities are trying to generate revenue or manage growth.

And I'd love for you to talk about how the limitations on things like annexation or, the extension of the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction, which might require definition, how those things affect your world.

And a planning document like this.

Yeah.

So with annexation and so extraterritorial jurisdiction or it that is this kind of nebulous area outside of proper city limits, but still within our county.

And previously it was based on the population.

So if you know, you had a smaller population, your it might only extend out maybe half a mile.

For us, it would go out to two and a half miles.

The legislature froze that.

Not with the most recent session, but the previous one, 2023.

So even when we are annexing properties at an owners request, the it isn't going to expand with that.

So with annexations, we can really only take owner requested.

We can't unilaterally go out and say this is a great area.

We can't.

It's tough.

It's really tough.

And we the council so far has chosen not to.

Right, right.

So it really hasn't impacted us.

Really strongly.

The areas that we annexed before that law went into effect, are the RELLIS area and Texas Triangle Park.

So we were able to kind of get those prioritized areas in before that changed, but which I understand, sorry, neither do I. And that's why we're here.

Right?

Right.

So we've seen more development in those areas and so we've seen people wanting to annex and for city utilities or the upcoming utilities that are under construction.

So with that, we've seen a lot of owner requested annexation.

So that hasn't impacted us too much.

I think one of the recent changes that will potentially impact us is the, kind of the change that was made on the number of related people.

And you can't, regulate that anymore.

So you can't have no more than two or no more than four unrelated.

Right.

So, you know, that was put into place due to the proliferation of student housing in some established neighborhoods?

We haven't seen any kind of fallout with that yet, but it's also a recent law change.

So and just, you know, to add on to that, and the city doesn't have a whole lot of authority in the Atj the main concern is really that we we have a say in how properties are subdivided.

And that is the purpose of that is really just so that, things are done in an orderly fashion and that we are aware of what's happening just right outside our borders.

So when somebody divides property in that you called the nebulous.

Yeah.

It's kind of like a cloud.

Like a buffer.

Yeah, whatever you want to call it.

And then in as part of that approval process, we get to review those proposals.

But we have no land use controls.

We have no other authority there.

So, you know, like, like we said right now, as of right now, we don't we respond to owner requests for annexation.

Those are mainly done to get access to city services and facilities like water and sewer.

But other than that, knock on wood, I'm not supposed to knock on the table.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Okay.

So with with, couple minutes that we have left, I want to turn this back to you and talk about things that maybe I didn't ask about.

That you feel like people should know related to this entire comprehensive plan process?

I think, you know, there are, you know, be on the lookout.

Subscribe to newsletters that the city has there will be reminders of how you can engage us.

You can contact us at planning@bryantx.gov.

Or you know, we have a website for the for the project that we can send you.

Maybe we can put that in your show notes or something.

And, you know, we're always accessible, not just during this process.

You can always reach out if you have something that you want to talk about.

There is a 12 person advisory committee that the council has, appointed that helps us kind of review the plan as it's being made.

And so, you know, I think those meetings are public.

There are there I don't know that they're posted, but they should be advertised on our project website.

So the public is invited to attend and observe and maybe can even speak.

I don't know, I don't want to tell the committee what they can or can't do.

But again, this is this is this is the city's plan.

This is not the city staff's plan or the consultants plan.

And so we want to encourage public feedback as much as we can.

We already did an event at First Friday.

We had a booth there, gave away some prizes and got a lot of got a lot of good comments.

And so, we'll be doing some more of those things along the way.

You know, during our city open house that we have started to have annually, it's been really popular.

We have it at legends.

We are wanting to do another kind of public event there.

So that way we already have the people coming out and we can kind of hit two birds with one stone.

That's kind of our goal for that public event that we would have in the spring.

So I really hope we can get more feedback and we'll have an actual, more planned documentation to show people at that point.

And the finish line is going to be approximately one.

So end of, this year, it's 2026 now.

So end of the year, end of the year early next year.

Yeah.

And which sounds like a long ways away.

But it does.

But we just signed the contract in September.

Yeah.

And boy it feels like things have flown since then.

Are you the the main.

So I'm the project manager.

Yeah.

God bless you because I know you have this consulting firm, but I also know what a load it is for that, that staff liaison, the person really shouldering the load for for city staff.

That's a big deal.

That's a lot of work.

It is.

But I actually really enjoy it.

So it's actually been a really fun part of the job.

I gave her two weeks off at Christmas.

Good for you.

She's all charged up now, right I am, I am what a wonderful guy you are.

Martin Zimmerman Katie Williams, thank you so much for joining me, and good luck on the rest of the way with this comprehensive plant project.

Thank you very much.

Thanks so much for having us.

You bet.

Brazos Matters is a production of Aggielands Public Radio 90.9 KAMU FM, a member of Texas A&M University's Division of Community Engagement.

Our show is engineered and edited by Matt Dittman.

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I'm Jay Socol.

Thank you so much for watching and for listening.

Have a great day.