 So I think I've met a lot of you either as you came in or at previous meetings, but for those who I have not met yet My name is Chris Ryerson With the city's planning department and then a lot of you met our staff if you guys can raise your hands We've been around the room Throughout and they'll be here after the meeting as well to help answer any any questions that come up after the after the presentation But we wanted to take about hopefully only 25 minutes or so to give you a presentation about essay tomorrow And the land use categories give you a little bit of an overview and background Just a little bit of detail on basically the same information that you were able to review on the posters in the back and then once I finish we'll open it up to any questions that you have and Whatever time is left, you know heading up into 730. We'll continue with an open house and you can answer Ask questions back by back by the boards Oh, yes, please I'm sorry Yeah Good and I apologize and I was also good reminder anybody who needs restrooms They are just outside this door and just past the registration table where you signed in So we wanted to start off with the basics and basically, you know, look at these questions like what is land use planning? Why is it important? Why are we looking at it as part of this process? So The overall context to this is that we are doing all of this under the auspices of the essay tomorrow planning effort That started back in 2015 2016 We adopted the city adopted three different plans the city's comprehensive plan Which our department the planning department was in charge of but also the city's first citywide sustainability plan and the multimodal transportation plan those are all long-term policy documents that look out to 2040 and set goals and policies for the city over that time frame Part of the comprehensive plan was also thinking about the geographies that we're going to use to plan for the city And so one of the geographies that emerged which are shown in blue here on the map and also blue here in the text Were the regional centers and those are identified as areas in the city that have or will soon have at least 15,000 jobs. So they were identified as employment centers But part of the idea behind essay tomorrow and the comprehensive plan is that they can be much more than that They can also be areas where people live work You know play go to school have hospitality opportunities just much more holistic cohesive places That as you can see are scattered throughout the whole city and ultimately long-term if we develop a more robust Mass transit system in the city You can easily see how connecting these regional centers would start to create a really interesting network throughout the city But we can't just plan for the regional center So you'll see all of the other areas in different shades of yellow and orange Those are the community areas and those basically take up the entire city outside of the regional centers So between the 13 regional centers and the 17 community areas We have 30 different sub areas that we will be doing planning for starting last summer and going out over the next Say five to seven years So one of the the main things we're looking at in those sub area plans is land use and that's why we're looking at these revised Categories why we're talking to you tonight That's kind of the foundation of these plans and part of the reason for that is that although we're the seventh largest city in the country We don't actually have a complete land use map that covers the whole city and we'll talk about that in a little more detail in a moment But on top of land use these sub area plans also look at other aspects that you would expect like mobility and transportation How do we get around? We're looking at housing and economic development strategies We're looking at parks and recreation and trails in a whole host of things that get layered on top of this foundation of land use So for those that aren't familiar with it What is a land use plan when it really comes down to it on paper? It's a map kind of like you see here They use different colors to represent the different land use categories And then there's text that goes along with that It gives you a little bit more context a little bit more description of what is meant by those land use categories If there's any nuance that the the neighborhood's the planning team the community wanted to express in relation to that land use in that particular area So one of the things that we need to have a successful land use plan and map is consistent and clearly defined land use Categories, and that's why we're here tonight Land use plan plan basically Communicates orderly and desired development patterns. It is different than zoning and that's what we're going to talk about in a moment But it's basically saying you know when we look at it big picture Where do we want these different types of uses throughout our city and in relation to each other? It is used as a regulatory guide and a decision-making tool for our city staff for the zoning commission planning commission city council So it's a document of consistency for those those bodies. So it's important in that respect and as I was saying it's important that we Create these land use maps in a way that facilitate good transitions between Uses so for instance, you know the old classic example would be you don't necessarily want you know Single-family neighborhoods sitting next to a heavy industrial type use right we want to think about how uses transition Based on density and intensity and make sure that they all work in concert with each other And then finally as you saw on the boards back there land use also helps us understand which zoning districts are going to be Appropriate in different areas different categories So we will go through this in detail and this presentation for those who want a reference point after the meeting This is going to be posted on our planning department website, and I'll show you at the end how to get there how to find this very easily But as I mentioned earlier you want to make sure to keep in mind the difference between land use and zoning and land use Really is that broader set of policies and guidance about our development patterns? Whereas zoning is really the actual legal regulations about how a particular parcel of land can be used So they're related to each other, but they aren't the same and it's important to keep in mind those differences another thing to keep in mind About what we're talking about tonight is that adoption of these categories By city council as a UBC amendment isn't going to change anybody's zoning right away This is basically as I'm going to describe in a moment Just agreeing basically kind of on the template or the ingredients that we're going to be using as we do all of these land use maps throughout the city So what are we talking about today? I put this slide in on Saturday just to try to make it a little more relatable And it seemed to work okay on Saturday So we'll see how it works with a much a much larger crowd tonight So basically we're just talking about the ingredients of land use right you can equate it to making a pizza We've got onions to use tomatoes so I mean most everybody could agree on the typical ingredients You would you would use to make your pizza doesn't mean everybody likes the same ingredients or think the same ingredients go together But that's not really what we're talking about tonight tonight. We're just agreeing on the list of ingredients that might be out there Making the pizza actually applying these categories and creating the land use maps are these separate Processes when we're doing the sub area plans and their process is to have lots of community engagement Neighborhoods are involved landowners are involved businesses are involved So the community has this separate say about how we actually go about making the pizza Which ingredients or uses belong next to each other and are appropriate in different areas, so Generally makes sense what we're what we're trying to do yesterday. So using your analogy With the crust and being like the zoning It's the appropriate thing you're going to be able to put these Potentially add and the staff got pressing me on how far I could take this I think zone to me zoning might be more like We've agreed that bell peppers generally could be an ingredient and zoning might be well as its Green pepper yellow peppers or red peppers or we'd agree that you know some type of salumi is on there That's as good as I can come up with Hopefully that helps you understand what we're talking about tonight and then what that separate part of the process is later on And then the only other question I had I don't know how cucumber ended up in a list of ingredients for pizza Has anybody heard of such a thing now? Nobody Saturday had I just sorry. I don't know where that came from But we're gonna we're gonna go with it All right, so we have these name use categories We establish why they're important and how we're going to use them But why are we having these meetings and going through this process to revise them? So one of the reasons we already touched on we need a consistent Set of categories that are going to be used across the entire city all 30 sub area plans That everybody understands and that are the same in every single area so that neighborhoods understand them So the developers understand them so that city staff has a clear understanding. I think everybody can agree That's a solid basis to build on We also wanted to make sure that we could address challenges that we know we're out there based on current land use categories And we'll talk about some of those in a moment, and then we wanted to make sure that we're either creating Eliminating or revising categories that will allow us to better implement the goals of the subject of the comprehensive plan So that included finding Areas where more density is appropriate Because a lot of you probably heard the statistic that the city is growing by about a million for the county is growing by about a million People from 2010 to 2040 so we know a lot of growth is coming Our job as a planning department and as a city is to figure out the best way to manage that the best way to leverage that And what the comprehensive plan calls for is directing Density to certain areas like the regional centers and to our main corridors Partly as a way of making sure that some of our existing neighborhoods don't get impacted as heavily But with that said we didn't necessarily have all the land use categories to help us do that effectively We'll talk about that a little more here in a second So to put this in perspective, this is a list of the adopted land use plans in the city. I think there's 44 of them Neighborhood plans adopted anywhere from 1988 when the program started up to the last one in 2013 or 14 to the Lone Star plan Within each of these plans there are Tons of different land uses and I'll show you an example in a minute, but across these plans The land uses are not consistent and the land uses don't necessarily mean mean the same thing from one plan to the other So medium density residential in one plan doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as medium density residential in another plan So you can see how that starts to create confusion and frustration for people So here's an example of it. I don't believe those south stars are more a plan actually borders with the Lone Star community plan But as you can see using that same example medium density residential is in both of those plans But there's very different zoning districts that are associated with that that category in these two plans And then furthermore, you know, the Lone Star plan has two different mixed use categories, but there's no mixed use categories here This one has high-density residential, but there's no high-density residential here But yet these two plans could literally be guiding development across a street from each other So again, I think it's pretty obvious that this doesn't create the best System for planning across our city and making sure everybody can understand it so With all of those ideas in mind we started a process last October to Try and accomplish those goals for why we want to revise these plans And it's important to note that we started with there are a set of land uses adopted in the UDC However, those UDC land use categories were adopted long after most of the neighborhood and community and sector plans Had already been created. So a lot of those plans don't reflect the adopted UDC Categories, but we did start with those categories since that's what's in our ordinances right now Next step was a series of focus group meetings. So we met with community and nonprofit groups We met with neighborhood associations and alliances We met with city departments that are affected by land use decisions the development community sort of extra or extra governmental entities like via and the River Authority and CPS and Saw is just trying to get a variety of perspectives about what are the challenges? What's working? What things do we need to change? You know, we just wanted to get that wide variety of perspectives We put different versions of our revisions up on the website for people to track We then had a city-wide land use anything in late January. Hopefully some of you were there I think about a hundred hundred twenty people attended We met with a variety of city council offices We launched this webpage that I talked about that's still up to date and you can kind of track our progress And I will go through these in detail, but starting kind of in March April We started going through the official adoption process which meant meeting with the planning commission's technical advisory committee Briefing the zoning commission getting approval from the zoning commission Briefing the planning commission getting approval from the planning commission And these categories went through all of these bodies basically with unanimous approval There was a few questions, but nothing got held up We were then asked the last one of the last time the city council met to kind of take a pause Come back out and do a little bit more education and create a little bit more awareness about these policies before city council We'll go ahead and decide Once and for all to make this a EDC amendment So we've had these four community meetings and then our goal is to be back in front of the comprehensive plan committee One of the committees of city council On august 15th to have them hear this again and kind of forward it on to city council Hopefully in late august or early september So this just gives you a little snapshot again. We won't dwell on this too long This will be available online But to give you an idea of some of the categories that we replaced We only had one mixed use category in the adopted udc Categories, but we've opted and decided that it's a good idea to replace that actually with five different mixed use categories So that we can apply that that idea and that category with a lot more nuance and a lot of different scales ranging from neighborhood mixed use up to How mixed use for instance We got rid of that kind of outmoded business office part type category But it's been replaced with this business innovation mixed use that represents a lot of the same Types of things you would expect and we'll talk about each of the categories here in a minute But again, we tried to get rid of categories that felt a little a little dated or not quite as applicable And we tried to replace them with categories that were really speaking to the future and to the goals of the comprehensive plan So I have a slide for each of the land use categories. I don't want to spend a lot of time on them More importantly, I think what you can realize looking at this next sequence of slides and when you look at the boards is When you look at any General type of category say residential We're always going to present them from basically sort of the least dense or intense Up through the most dense and intense and that applies whether we're talking about commercial residential mixed use etc So as we go through we're going to follow that same arc each time So residential estate really doesn't apply that many parts of the city. There's a few Areas within the city itself But a lot of these areas are you know a little further out along the 1604 etc These tend to be areas that have at least one two acre or larger lots, you know more rural areas almost Then we have low density residential and this is representative of a lot of the neighborhoods that a lot of us live in This is very typical Single-family neighborhoods Found both inside the 410 and outside the 410. I mean, this is a very typical type of land use One of the new use categories that we introduced is this idea of urban low density residential And this cropped up in a few of the existing plans But we really thought it was a good one to put in because it also is very representative Not only of a lot of the neighborhoods that are inside the 410 and closer to downtown And the difference here is that this is an areas that tend to have a little bit smaller parcels The you know the uses are a little bit more closely knit There's a little bit more kind of built-in density to this type of use But not only is it really representative of a lot of our existing neighborhoods But it can be a great pattern as some of our regional centers and our other community areas develop out This is another Applicable category that could be used throughout the city So then we have this idea meaning density residential, you know, we tried to pick pictures Of course, we've never picked enough pictures to give Exactly the representation, but it starts to give you an idea These are maybe two three story up to garden style apartments that they're most dense But it can still be some of the you know the more typical Zoning pattern or zoning districts like r3 r4 etc We did we do still have high density residential and this is you know Getting up into those four or five six story type apartments some of the stuff you're starting to see along broadway Some of the other parts of the city, but definitely a little bit more density and intensity to these uses We did get rid of the very high density residential category because we think that anybody that's building residential at that Type of density it probably should be mixed use anyway And so the regional center mixed use category that we'll touch on in a moment captures that even higher density type development So then we're back to commercial and again, we're starting at one side of that arc with the least Intense and then we're going to move through to more intense. So neighborhood commercial a lot of you be familiar with this This can be one intersection. It could be one or two blocks or it could be several blocks But it's businesses that are embedded in a neighborhood that people typically walk to They really just serve the local neighborhood a couple restaurants a couple shops, etc They're meant to be very low-scale and very compatible with the neighborhood Then you go up to community commercial These are usually a little bit larger Size buildings a little bit more intensive uses they may attract people from a little bit further away As currently configured you often have to drive to these unless you happen to live really close So, you know examples of these are tip what we currently have are more like strip shopping centers You know that the little bit added intensity that doesn't really quite blend into a neighborhood And then we have the highest end regional scale commercial, which is larger shopping malls You know the really big commercial type uses and business uses that we have throughout the city Then we head back again the same side of the arc at least intense heading towards most intense and same exact nomenclature So we have neighborhood mixed use Very similar type pictures to what you saw in neighborhood commercial The idea is just that it's not just meant to be commercial uses But maybe there's a couple apartments above on the second floor just allowing even more people to live in proximity to the shops the restaurants the Barber the accountant whoever it is that they want to be able to walk to Just creating that little bit greater mix of uses that create walkable places that we've heard a lot of people want in the city Then you go up to urban mixed use. So this is going to be a compact note Obviously a little bit more intense again a mix of uses residential office. It could be educational Commercial lots of different things in here And this might be the scale that attracts people from I don't know 10 or 12 neighborhoods around Hopefully they can still walk or bike there or take transit there They can certainly still drive there, but it serves a little bit larger catching area It's got enough uses that it's going to draw people from a little bit wider area And then again the same idea finding we have regional center mixed use Which are going to be the biggest and most intense mix use knows throughout the city And there's only a certain few certain parts of the city where this Scale and intensity of mixed use is going to make make sense But the pearl is a great example of that in a way a lot can tear as a great example of that And mixed use can be vertical it can be you know can be about height But mixed use can also be horizontal It can be a lot of different uses in close proximity It doesn't necessarily have to go up six or eight stories to be what we're talking about and lot can tear As an example of that to some degree So we also have this idea of employment Flex mixed use and this came up during this process But the idea behind this and you know coming down actually into this area in the Brooks regional center Is part of what inspired this idea and also on the west side where i'm a project manager It's a lot of older buildings Maybe they're older warehouses or you know old brick buildings things like that that maybe aren't really used anymore They're vacant What is happening in a lot of cities and what we think could be great here is Where a building once housed one company and needed a huge building Well, you can take those buildings divide them up into five or six or ten little smaller spots You can kind of open them up a little bit and now five or six or ten smaller businesses can be located there And the great part about it is these types of areas can often be close to neighborhoods So it allows jobs to be close to where people live That's not to say everybody's going to be able to live close to their job But the idea is that there are jobs in closer proximity People may not have to drive all the way across the city to get what they need And we're adaptively reusing these buildings that oftentimes have great character Or already built and it would not be necessary to be environmentally responsible just to level them and try to build something else So then we already touched on this idea of business innovation mixed use These are typically going to be a little bit larger floor plate like brooks is an example where some of this might happen They might be r&d facilities or a little bit larger manufacturing or you know, a little bit larger floor plate businesses A little bit along the lines of those typical business parks that we've known from say the 70s and 80s and 90s But we are trying to say they should be mixed use there should be places to go out to eat There should be recreational opportunities embedded in these areas So people don't just drive in from nine to five Monday through Friday and then they just become empty the rest of the time And then finally the last few we can go over quickly. There's you know, these really haven't changed There's light industrial and heavy industrial uses which most people don't really want next to where they live But we do need to find places in the city where these can exist Because they do provide jobs and they do provide important goods and services throughout the city Parks and open space obviously hasn't changed. We want to be very clear and protective about where we have parks and open space and trails and protect those amenities for all of us agricultural obviously really only exists a little bit more on the perimeter for the most part And then the only other one that changed slightly is city state federal government We used to have one called public institutional and it really wasn't clear exactly what fit in public institutional It was kind of open to interpretation. So this one is now very precise. It means any Parcel that is owned and operated by a city state or federal entity. So very easy to define very easy to map So I'll open up to questions in just a second. There is one more meeting So if you want to come here and give this fabulous presentation again Thursday night, we'll be at the Iga library up north Or if you know some folks who would be interested in this and weren't able to attend one of our previous meetings Please let them know to come and join us These are some resources that you can look to to get more information about what I talked about tonight Svmorrow.com is kind of the overarching website that gives you the information about the whole project This is a re reimagined kind of interactive version of the city's comprehensive plan The SA corridors project looks at how land uses should be Integrated along our major transit corridors that we are starting to think about more actively And then you can also go to our department website And one of the reasons you would want to do that is with three easy clicks You can get to all of this land use information that we've been talking about So you go to our website along the left side. You'll see a little tab That says planning resources When you click on that a little drop-down menu will come up that says future land use And when you go to that there will be some text that gives you background. It talks about the process Talks about these changes a little bit and then there's a whole series of documents Including the handouts that you all have tonight and we will also be posting this presentation as well So with that said happy to open it up to questions comments If I have a loud voice, but if folks aren't able to hear jake up here has a microphone That he could bring around so everybody can hear the questions And I can try to repeat questions as well. Yes, sir. Yeah. Hi. My name is Larry Dotson I'm with the San Antonio Neighborhoods for everyone and I just want to you made a statement there chris at regional mixed use Only works in particular areas like the pearl can you explain the rational logic? Well, yeah, I shouldn't say it only works. I'm just saying I think we're cognizant of the fact that At certain densities and intensities are only going to be appropriate in certain parts of the city So that's not to say only the pearl is where it exists, but we're not going to go recommending urban Or you know regional center mixed use right in the center of a neighborhood, for instance It's going to be a long and arterial or adjacent to other uses that help it transition into single family neighborhoods For instance, it's just to say we understand that it's not going to work exactly everywhere but it we hope as you can see from Creating those those three mixed use neighborhood urban and regional center, but also the more employment focused ones We really do hope that people start to recognize that mixed use can be Integrated throughout the city at different scales and different intensities to create those more walkable places Those places with more amenities that a lot of people have expressed that they they hope to have in their neighborhood Yes, sir Jack said there's a sense in the neighborhood spreader one also with that in mind. Why wouldn't you allow housing in Community commercial and regional commercial? Why would you even have land use areas that don't allow commercial? I'm thinking it's maybe park north all the former central park malls a good example There's big empty parking lots. We have hotels there. Why wouldn't we allow something apartment building? Yeah, and something like that could easily be read categorized as mixed use, but We actually we we thought about the idea of just getting rid of the commercial categories for that very reason because As you said in most cases you can envision that there, you know You can mix housing with these commercial office, etc uses in many many places and it's appropriate I think throughout all those focus groups we did and our interactions with all the different who talked to As many jumps as we're making with these categories It just felt like a little bit too big a jump to some people to just completely get rid of The commercial category, so we did leave them in there But I think when we talk to a lot of people they recognize that those Commercial categories could really be synonymous with mixed use categories in a lot of cases So what other questions aren't there? Yes, then you refer to transitions between single family residential and other use system Are those going to be somewhat firm as our current buffers? Zoning or is it going to be a little more loosely applied? Well land use Just kind of by its definition is as like I said, it's those broader development patterns So, you know, there's always there there's always so much detail you can give by showing the land uses You then take the next step and actually Either have the existing zoning because it's appropriate or what our department is committed to is if There's lots of parts of the city right now where their Existing land use doesn't actually match up or their existing zoning I should say doesn't match up with what is actually on the ground There's parts of the south side here that have industrial zoning But they've clearly been built out as single family neighborhoods and that's caused a lot of consternation over the years So what we've committed to when we finish a sub area plan and we've said here's the the land use map That we've worked with the community on If there's large areas where we have that inconsistency Our department will come along and work on large area rezonings to make sure That those transitions work that those buffers are there that the land that the zoning that is in place Actually matches with the land use plan so that everybody has a lot more to rely on when zoning commission planning commission, etc Are asking to make changes those things would all be consistent and overlapping with each other Does that answer your question? I just understand you're saying that after the land uses are signed off There could be large barrier rezoning there could be and the reason that we would do that is if The existing zoning is not compatible with the land use that's recommended now in a lot of cases Where we're looking at certain land uses the zoning is going to be compatible But we do know there are those areas in city where it already is incompatible and a few more could crop up Through this process what we've committed to is making sure that that doesn't just drag on for years and years with With that discrepancy or that inconsistency and we want to make sure that our department works to clarify that for everybody But again, it's it's kind of that double layer There's the the land use that starts to create those barriers in that sense of transition between uses But it's the actual zoning on the ground that governs how people can use their property that will really truly Do that in terms of regulation Are some of those that are currently large majority of those that are Basically non-conforming basically our heritage areas. I mean that's in our older neighborhoods But they haven't changed our zoning just keeps changing Uh, no, I'm going to show I mean in some cases and there's a few staff here who have who have been here longer than me Who may be able to speak to that but in some cases it just happened because uh, like I think it was 2001 the zoning code Like had a major revamp and there were certain sort of rules of thumb that were used where if you used to be One together zoning district you kind of automatically became another one But I think what we learned is those rules of thumb just didn't always quite work right And there's some areas that fell between the cracks or didn't get updated in the way that they should have been You had a hand up before yeah It's I know san Antonio is the driving force in bell county of everything that's happening I get that But there's a lot of small Other suburban cities within san Antonio are next to san Antonio And it's your department or Whatever department needs to be addressed willing to Work with these other small suburban cities to be sure that We we get together and not have industrial one side of the street and residential on the other Absolutely, it's a great question. Um, yes our department has uh, we haven't dealt with all of those cities But where we are doing first year sub area plans We have met with those cities with their city managers with their planning departments To talk to them about what we're looking at and to also understand what their plans are To make sure that there aren't major discrepancies. So as an example, we're working on the mid-time area right now Just north of downtown and that border is the city of alamol height. So we've met with them twice to say Okay, here's what we're thinking. Here's where our planning team and our community is the starting direct things How does that sync up with what you're doing? Similarly up in the medical center, we've talked to leon valley and balcony's heights because our area's border They're areas and we want to make sure there's good consistency and good coordination And as we do plans that get further out towards the periphery, we'll we'll talk to those cities as well I hope that they want to have that conversation with us if we wanted to have it sooner than you made for it Who would I contact? You can reach out to me or on our website You can reach out to bridget white who's our our department director or rudy neemio Who's our assistant director and yeah, we would be happy to come out And talk to you at any point and just start to set the stage and have the conversation So that when we get to planning in an area jason tears, we we could get anywhere. Where do you live or where are you asking about? Trying to go Okay, great. Yeah. Yeah, just reach out to one of us and we can certainly come and brief you on what we're doing Give you a little more detail. Even then I gave it tonight. Absolutely What other questions? Yes, ma'am and chris mertle parks from uh, even homeowners association wearing district 10 The question if I understood it The the changes that you are making to the Categories You will be going back to brief council again the 28th of august Is that I don't know if that data has been said, you know my god That was kind of a hopeful date for us But we we're sort of subject to their agendas in terms of what we get back the one day We know is august 15th is when we're going to the comprehensive plan committee, which has five council members on And we go back and brief them Because a couple of those council members the ones that had questions and asked us to come out and do a little bit more In terms of education and outreach and then I know how soon we're hoping to get on the council agenda for their actual Discussion and approval Once it let's say this is voted through and approved by council Uh and the possibility for zoning changes then that will mean to Take place as you go through the development process How is that going to work? Like he said certain places are already with hard established zones But we'll definitely change it seems to me based on so many there's many parts of the city that already have the Appropriate zoning that's going to match the land use that ends up being assigned during the separated planning process So I don't want to make too big a deal about the rezoning. It's just we recognize that in the past It's been a problem. So where we need to we will go in and try to make sure those are aligned But that's not to say that we expect to have to do that across most of the city I think most of the city probably will will be aligned with the land use and there's there will be no rezoning That has to take place But no rezoning will take place because of the adoption of these categories That would only take place once we go through and do a sub area plan in your area Uh, we check a lot of the plans up in your area or years four and five. I think Only what we've gone through and that sub area plan has been adopted by city council Will we then go and do an analysis and say are there any areas within this particular sub area That require rezoning to make sure things are aligned. So it's nothing that's going to happen immediately And you'll be quite negative in advance With those areas Oh, absolutely. Yeah, and and we'll have relationships with we call it a planning team It's basically like the steering committee That's put together for each of these sub area plans and that consists of representatives of the neighborhood associations that are within the planning area Major institutions, you know, major landowners major nonprofits things like that We try to have a really diverse group that are on these planning teams So we'll also be able to reach back out to the planning teams to help us communicate and and you know Set up the meetings and the education about the reasons Uh, I think I saw hand over here. Yes, ma'am. What is the shelf life of this Sub area planning and and was there one before it? How long did that take to get to this point? So what what are the ladders up for change? Sure. So as I described before there was Basically what was called the neighborhood planning program? I don't know that's the exact name of it, but the city embarked on a lot of neighborhood scale planning back in the late 80s And I think it was 44 plans were adopted between 1988 and 2013 Which could sound like a lot But a lot of you may know we now have over 300 registered neighborhood associations throughout the city of san Antonio So we didn't get very far in 35 years of planning And so it's partly in recognition of that that when we were working on the comprehensive plan that we started to Look at this this idea of doing these larger geographies as our main geography of planning So that we could actually plan effectively for the entire city in a reasonable amount of time So again, our hope is to get through all 30 sub area plans within You know six to eight years probably is what it's looking like right now We'll be able to plan for the whole city finally, which has never happened before And then you know we'll be able to renew and update those plans on a more regular basis Um with that said we recognize that within each of these regional centers and each of these community areas You know, they're gonna have anywhere from three or four up to on the west side I think we now have 11 neighborhood associations So each of those associations gets a neighborhood profile and priority within the plan that you know It's not as long as the old neighborhood plans But it still is the chance to go in and work with those neighborhoods about their priorities Their particular challenges the things that they think should be particular recommendations or investments And still recognize that neighborhood scale Even though we're just forced to plan at this little bit larger scale We do have a handout in back if you want some more information. Micah is folding it up That gives a lot of that history and background if you want to read it And then any questions that you have certainly reach out to us and we're happy to answer those But and so the shelf life of these you know is realistically like 10 years is the typical You know shelf life for a sub area plan before you really want to revisit it because neighborhoods change The city has changed who is living there changes and you want to revisit that and make sure it's updated Based on current challenges. Yeah, yes, sir. Was there Any thought or consideration to the wall heritage area and delineating it out in this plan So they aren't two separate efforts as I'm sure you know the world heritage effort in terms of Plan amendments and rezoning started before our I say tomorrow effort started With that said we've tried to coordinate with world heritage. I mean in fact down here We're I guess we're just outside of the Brooks regional center area but we've been doing one of our first year plans in the area surrounding the Brooks campus and Partway through that some of the parcels that were within the world heritage buffer zone We're actually removed from that and are now being looked at in terms of land use within the regional center Because it felt more appropriate for some of those parcels to be taken or to be evaluated and looked at Within the regional center context rather than the world heritage context But for the most part they were kind of separate, but hopefully coordinated efforts, but with that said There are sub areas that overlap with the different world heritage Boundaries and will come along in future years Do the full sub area planning process which involves much more than just land use and zoning It involves all those other things I talked about like transportation and mobility and economic development and housing and parks and trails, etc And hopefully what we find is that the whatever ends up getting adopted or not by city council either later this week or whenever that happens Hopefully we'll find that that was a well done job and it's consistent If things have changed or we need to make some adjustments and recommend a slightly different land use Then of course we will do that and it will be based on these revised categories here But our hope is that we we end up finding the things for the most part Worked out well, but we recognize it's been a controversial process And you know no matter what city council adopter does there's going to be happy people and unhappy And same thing when we come along people are going to agree with some of the things that we end up recommending based on our Stakeholder input and there's going to be folks that disagree with some of it Absolutely and you know, I mean that's the Difficult part of our job But you know also the challenging part is you know, we can say we go out and get community Input but that's not homogeneous. We can talk to people from the same neighborhood who have different ideas about what's appropriate and so You know, we're often put in a position like well, you're not listening to us. I'm a neighborhood resident You haven't heard us But we might have heard the exact opposite from another neighborhood resident And so it's an interesting and challenging part of our job to try to balance all of those different perspectives And make sure that they're aligned with the overall goals of the city that were established in the comprehensive So it's an adventure someday it's for sure What other questions out there? Yes sir Hey, yeah, thanks chris collin jones, uh tier one neighborhood coalition Hey with that though was looking over the draft in that first complete sentence The director of the planning department shall make a determination if a use not included blah blah blah Is that just pretty much status quo to put in something like this that sounds awfully So like a very weighty position and having said that backing up a little bit I guess I don't want to mix It wouldn't be a metaphor. I don't want to make symbols with the pizza buffet and all that But in my mind In my mind Coast is now trying to erase the blackboard and start as clean as they can because zoning and land use can be over thoughtful on the best of days Having said that though, I was curious about that and just as an observation I was doing when the when the uses are described the word schools Would it be helpful to clarify schools? I mean is that an artist school? Is that a welting school? Could that create a farther down the road? Yeah I'm actually look to Mike or Jacob on that and schools. I think generally it's probably like K-312 or I don't know how we define that these guys would know better um, so schools are typically public or private k-312 and state or private universities As defined in the unified development code. Okay There are Vocational schools that are allowed in different zoning districts that are not captured in that general term So it would say like add mechanics Right. Okay. Okay. Um, and your the first questions Are common the the language that gives the director the authority to to make an interpretation There is very similar language in the unified development code already that relates to zoning and uses that are permitted in a zoning district They have a very extensive list of what uses are allowed in which district But inevitably some uses will not be addressed or someone will come up with a new use And so the director of the development services department has the authority to make that interpretation when that instance rises So this this new language is very much based on that existing language And then to your other question or comment about feeling like, uh, you know, we're trying to just start with a blank slate Yeah, I'm not saying that's bad. Yeah Yeah, I mean we're certainly trying to Take a pause and say okay. We're kind of on the cusp of a new era We have a new comprehensive plan. We need to create land use categories and plans that reflect that Um, but I would also say, you know, as I pointed out the the categories that we started with The great majority of them are already adopted in our code in our udc Okay, you can look at you can do it sign by sign. Well, there's has like 85 And the other one has 10. I hope that's yeah, but actually there's even a slide here. I'll get to I can show you But yeah, so one point is we did start with the existing udc So it's not like we started from scratch and just said hey, what uses do you know? There was definitely a very solid basis for it The other thing I would say is and that's kind of the ingredients conversation Here we go. So these are the adopted udc categories those struck out in red are the ones that Are meant to be replaced or or gotten rid of and then this is the list of existing So there's a lot of similarities there and for instance in a case of mixed use It essentially just got expanded into this wider variety of mixed use But back to the pizza analogy. So that's the ingredients and we definitely didn't just start from scratch Although that's the best way to start with the ingredients, but we didn't But when it gets to making the pizza We also don't just go in and plop new land uses down We look at the old neighborhood plans the old community plans the old sector plans We work with the communities to say what land uses are already in place. What makes sense How do we need to adapt these for the future? Where do we anticipate changes may happen? So there's definitely a lot of background that goes into all of this Rather than just new people deciding on new things. Does that make sense? With that though, is this the venue to weigh in on specific zoning Things being pulled from one from one category and put in another or should that Conversation take place at the sub area of plans where it's a little more Little more intimate regards to neighborhoods Versus cosa across the board and trying to get back to the pizza thing. Yeah, okay here are the ingredients now It's your turn to go through and make a pie Exactly. Yeah, I think you hit it right on. I mean we certainly welcome your comments tonight And if you have a concern or something you really like or something you say Hey, I really want to make sure the zoning district's in a category or it isn't Hopefully all of you saw on the back tables We do have these comment cards and on each of these comment cards all of these categories are listed So you can circle or put it next through the one you want to talk about and leave your comment But to to the follow-up way that you talked about that As I said at the beginning the land use plans are the map, you know the colors on the map which can feel somewhat blunt But there is also the text that then goes along with it into your point We have to create these categories to be applicable across the whole city So they do have to be a little bit general But when we get to making the pizza when we get to doing that specific sub area land use plan That's the opportunity for a particular neighborhood or a particular set of stakeholders to say Well, yeah, we're fine with this being you know urban mixed use But we'd really like to make sure such and such isn't in it and we can put text in there that expresses The opinions of the stakeholders and that becomes part of the reference document that the different entities will look at when they're looking for a consistency Now that's not to say just like now that people can't come along and request plan amendments or request zoning changes I mean there will still be that legal process but it does give Communities stakeholders neighborhoods of every sort the opportunity to to sort of fine tune what they hope those land uses will look like In their neighborhoods how those transitions will work etc So, yeah What other questions Yes, sir. Oh, and then I'll come back over here. I'm sorry. I just saw your hand a second ago Yeah, please. I just have a comment. I just wanted to say I'm close to camera I'm here on behalf of the real estate council. It's in Antonio You know, we definitely support this and you know, thank you guys Reducing the complexity of this is going to be a good thing to allow the existing neighborhoods to be supported as well as the growth of the city long term And just we you know, there's been a lot of meetings and stuff and we really feel like your staff has done a very good job with that Yeah, we've tried to reach out to everybody and hear everybody and and like I said, I mean We're not always able to make everybody happy but we hope we have done a lot of work and come to A pretty good happy medium that most everybody can can work with us over the next few years So did you still have a comment? Yeah, I just want to understand Chris how What's the intent in the application once it gets into the UDC? But what's the application is because Somebody who studied the zoning map and the zoning and the permitted uses It is a myriad complex to sort out In in a lot of I mean, I've seen examples where there's a tract of three single family residentials Next to a bottling plant Are farms in industrial zones It is the So the current unified development code is is surgically applied And it's it's captured a lot of grandfathered parcels is the intent with this to Apply it surgically or apply it a little bit broader so that that within that broad zoning area that The land use can kind of self-regulate So it's one of those places where we have to be careful I think about whether we're talking about land use or zoning because land use is A little bit more general. I mean ultimately when we create the maps we have to go down to the parcel level but When you're really working on land use you try not to look at it parcel by parcel at the beginning You just try to say what is the general pattern that we want to see in this area Where does a certain transition or buffer make sense? Now ultimately to create the maps that you can all go find on the dsd one stop We'll have to get it down to the parcel by parcel layer and that's where zoning really really applies So it's actually the zoning. I think that becomes much more surgical And there are going to be and there's people in the room who are way more zoning experts than me So chime in if I don't characterize this, right? But that's one of the reasons we were going to do rezoning is if there are large blocks where it's really clear That we have any consistency if there are single parcels, you know, the city may not initiate Initiate rezoning for those that may end up being left up to the individual property owner If they wanted to rezone to become aligned with the land use etc. Does that do you think that captures it? Okay, and does that answer your your question? Okay What other questions are there Anybody in the far back Has been quiet back here. Yes, sir What's by what process would the zoning? Well, that's outside of our department. So that will be Development services I don't know exactly what plans they have. I mean, I think that as Micah said When you look at the permitted uses tables, it's It's crazy the number of uses that we have in this city and that's true lots of cities But I would imagine that there are aspirations to try to also simplify The zoning code over time, but I'm not sure what What the timeline would be on that because that's going to be a pretty monumental Um effort, but you know, they're the ones who deal with those types of cases and questions every day Um, so just like we were hoping to streamline and make things more simple for everybody I would guess that development services Would like to do the same but I can't speak for them for sure one other thing I can add though is Our assistant director rooting Nino who a lot of you would have met also has a lot of your experience in zoning And one of the things we've also talked about because we are heading up to the the five-year cycle update for the udc And because we have a few new categories One of the things that's been talked about is to try and create a zoning district That would reflect urban mixed use So it would be a little more obvious That that zoning district applies rather than having to rely on Four or five zoning districts to maybe kind of capture what we meant by that So that's one idea that we may as a department put forward during the udc update process But we haven't quite finalized that yet Yes, ma'am. I'm a little confused when they when you talk about buffer between that commercial residential What's a buffer type industry or a buffer type business that would Would Capturize that stuff. I'm sure because uh when you go Like on the Beatles world or anything you've got the commercial and then you've got residential line back But with it's like I don't see a buffer. I mean, I'm not sure what yeah Well, it's because the the land use planning or the zoning or the way that area was developed maybe hadn't Definitely considered that like we tried to now but and unfortunately I put kind of a white mask over this Just could I wanted to be kind of background? But if you can see it well enough it may give you kind of an idea so this is Along San Pedro boulevard up in midtown. This is the old fire the existing five points neighborhood plan Not the new sub area plan to work on but the existing land use plan So you've got very intensive, you know Commercial uses along here right along San Pedro big busy street And then you have a light yellow here is more typical kind of urban low density Mostly residential right but what you see in between are medium density residential or a certain type of mixed use So the idea is that these Areas here you could kind of consider to be a buffer or a transition From the really intensive uses that would make sense along San Pedro To the more quiet inner parts of the neighborhood that you wouldn't necessarily want to see that level of intensity That level of traffic Etc. And so you can use these different land uses and that's why we wanted to have that gradation You know, we didn't want to just have mixed use We wanted to have neighborhood mixed use urban mixed use and regional center mixed use So, you know this corridor could end up being say regional center mixed use along San Pedro You might have urban mixed use or medium density residential residential along here Then before you go into lower density residential So that's the idea behind transitions and it just makes it so We under we recognize You know through all of our different planning that there are certain Codores and certain parts of the city that are either already really intense or have the ability and the desire to be more intense You know if VIA ends up deciding to use San Pedro for a more rapid transit We would want to put more intensive uses near that so more people can can utilize it But you want to create that buffer transition back into the neighborhoods that already exist And wouldn't necessarily want that scale intensity right in the middle of their neighborhood. Does that make sense? It does. I'm just trying to figure out what type of businesses would be in the transitional business the orange Oh, sure. Well, that could be anything from and it depends on the area, right? And it depends on The the use and the intensity on either side of the buffer, but it could be anything from You know little restaurants little shops. It could be you know a little dry cleaner outlet. It could be professional offices It could be you know a small little, you know school It could be lots of different things, especially in these mixed use districts The idea is they can all kind of coexist as long as they kind of have the right level of intensity That doesn't feel overwhelming to one side And and still kind of relates to the busier the more intense side So it can be lots of different things or it can just be a change in intensity of housing It could just be and that's not what's shown on this map, but it could be You know like say along broadway another example You can have you know, you've already seen there's those four and five story buildings right along broadway Well, maybe a block back it makes sense to have you know only two or three story or more duplexes Triplexes, I mean, I'm not saying that's what it is But you know a lower scale and then another block or two back you're into the way the neighborhood looks Already with more single family moment So you can do it lots of different ways the idea is just to acknowledge That you don't want to put two uses next to each other that just have really jarringly different Fields to them for the most part. So yes, ma'am I think the part that I'm struggling with is past versus present Um, many neighborhoods were kind of quiet little neighborhoods and then I came through And now they're a little more active Um, maybe they were at some point in the 80s when there was a craze to make everything Historic neighborhood, maybe it's a historic neighborhood and people are freaking out that it's no longer historic Or there's things coming in that aren't historic but it States change so rapidly and my problem is kind of wrapping around the difference between urban and neighborhood and I think that having those two words as a distinction Make it confusing because Even in a downtown urban area. It's still a neighborhood And um, so that that's where I I'm struggling with this and how it's going to be applied for people In areas that are so transition and are transitioning in a positive way in my opinion as far as density goes And being more useful So hopefully I I understood what you were asking but yeah, it's it's kind of like it's that fight between Uh terminology. Yeah and reality And the need for more density in a place that was once Just dug and healed single family. We can't live that way Yeah, well and and that's the the conflict, right? I mean there are people that want their neighborhood to stay exactly the same as it's been and we hear those voices And then there are those that say wait, we need to evolve. We need to find ways to add Density within the neighborhoods or along the corridors, you know find those places we can agree Or those styles of density we can agree will work Um, and of course we hear you know from folks like you and some of the others in the neighborhood that yes We want more density. We think it improves our neighborhoods It adds amenities to our neighborhoods, and then we definitely hear from those who say we do not want that but one thing I can say because to me neighborhood is not a Is not a term that's in conflict with urban. I think san Antonio Even there's other cities that have this more, but san Antonio certainly has urban neighborhoods I mean a lot of those neighborhoods in close to downtown Midtown south town, etc really are kind of urban neighborhoods. I mean they have access to those urban amenities Some of them will be some some of them won't admit it and some of them are I think clamoring for it. We'd love to have it but this particular Category was meant to help reflect that that exists that pattern that already exists and some people want to see accentuated where They kind of feel like single family neighborhoods, but you never know on any one block That's a duplex, but I never even really realized it or that's a triplex, but it fits great into the neighborhood or that's a little complex you know there are those ways of Having density in neighborhoods that doesn't just have to be a vertical Forestry apartment building that of course doesn't belong everywhere and so this category and some of the mixed-use categories try to Reflect that idea that there are ways of integrating density in the right places and in the right way And that it's not appropriate in in certain areas or in certain ways But we hear from a lot of people and that's why the mixed-use category is so important that Even though they want to see a family neighborhood I think most people love the idea that they could walk to their neighborhood restaurant or their neighborhood shop or you know Ride their bike close by that they wouldn't have to get in their car to do literally every Trip which is the way a lot of neighborhoods in san Antonio are right now So I think the idea behind the mixed-use districts and rethinking our land use is to provide those opportunities Where we hear from the community that they want it that we can help incorporate that So your job is changing parts of lives Well to some degree I mean to the to the extent that our job is to implement the comprehensive plan and and find those nodes and corridors of the city where density makes sense But part of the comprehensive plan also said we want to help protect Those existing neighborhoods particularly if they're historic like these land use categories do not change anything If you're already historic neighborhood or you already have a neighborhood conservation district The adoption of these new revised categories does not affect that you're still an historic district You still have your regulations in place. So, um, you know, there's a recognition that there's this tension Um, and we're doing our best to find that middle ground of of that tension and and those kind of Two opposing ways that people people want to see the city so Um, I really have a comment. I'm currently serving on one of the regal's planning teams and I really encourage neighborhoods to get involved when they're working in your area You know your community is better than anyone else because the city has put a lot of effort into understanding areas and mapping them and all but you know You have a sense of what will work and you have a sense of what is where And whether it all will work together. So it's important that you participate in the planning. You also begin to realize How complicated it is and how many other people entities are involved, you know, we work with sauce and sara and you know the developer developer representatives and all and uh The university's medical center and um, you start understanding that we can't just take a single focus on it That you have to look at it from what's what works for the whole area Yeah, thank you for that. I mean it is a really complex complicated process and we know that a lot of you that are involved aren't technical experts And it can feel very overwhelming and so we really try to do our best to help educate Whether you're the general public or whether you're on one of our planning teams Um, but yeah, it's complicated and we just appreciate everybody coming to the table and you know We're getting ready to start our second phase of plans heading into october And so we're already reaching out to those neighborhood associations those nonprofits those Major stakeholders that we want to have involved and we're already starting to educate them about the process How to select somebody to be on the planning team? And and how to help us with that two-way communication because one of the things we found is You know the the neighborhood representatives or the other stakeholders can be on the planning team But if they're not then taking information They hear from us and from the other experts that help present and taking it back to their neighborhood Or to their organization. We've lost an important link In that communication. Um, and I know there's there's other neighborhoods out there that are really stressing this as well So I don't know if anybody went to the bow and center neighborhood day Um, yeah, so I presented there along with Cynthia Spiegelman who's from Beacon Hill, right? Yeah Beacon Hill and the tier one And you know what we talked about is how neighborhoods can be involved because we aren't doing this specific neighborhood level of planning But that's not to say that neighborhoods aren't a key component Of the input that we want to get and so I really appreciate your comment that it really is important for people to be involved And to help us with that communication back and forth to the residents of the neighborhood or whatever organization You're involved with so we are I was getting a signal Yeah, we're at 7 30. So we want to be respectful of your time We'll be cleaning up. So if you have any, you know, quick comments in back Please leave us your comment cards if we didn't get to one of your questions or comments We have the boxes back there and plenty of comment cards for you to fill up. Uh, and then I don't I don't think I put my email on here But you can go to our department website as I showed you Look up all of this information read and I think shepard who's here his Uh email is on the land use page website. So if you have any specific questions You can certainly email shepard and we can try to get back to And the presentation is on the website, right? It will be. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, there's one already from, uh Uh last thursday That's out there It doesn't have my winning pizza analogy though. So we're going to put this one We're going to put this one up there as well. Uh, and this is the same Presentation that all rules thursday night for any of you who missed it. Um, what else was I going to say about that? Oh, we are also going to take uh, one of our staff has been taking notes throughout this and every other meeting We're going to take those notes about questions and comments as well as the written comment cards that we get And we'll publish some sort of, you know quick synopsis of those And post it to that same webpage so that people can see their questions reflected And if we have any specific answers to a certain category of questions, we'll put those up there as well. So Anyway, thank you all for your time. We really appreciate the good turnout and, uh, hopefully we'll See you at cpc or city council saying we love our countries Thank you guys