City maps future

City maps future

Written by Sarah Mangum Wednesday, 07 February 2007

When the Cedar Park planning department began working more than a year ago on a comprehensive plan detailing the city’s future growth and development, they kept in mind research showing the city would be built out completely between 2012 and 2015.

Council adopts comprehensive plan and land use map

When the Cedar Park planning department began working more than a year ago on a comprehensive plan detailing the city’s future growth and development, they kept in mind research showing the city would be built out completely between 2012 and 2015.

Even with about seven years to go, Duane Smith, the city’s planning and transportation director, believes it is never too soon to begin planning for the future of Cedar Park.

The second comprehensive plan in the city’s history (the first in 1998) is a blueprint for the future of the community, with a focus on creating and maintaining an economically viable environment.

The Comprehensive Plan: Then and Now

The 100-page document, completed last month, outlines the city’s vision, goals and objectives. It recognizes the city’s accomplishments and future plans for roads, land use, zoning, economic development, parks and public safety.

The plan was created by Smith and Valerie Kreger, development services director, after reviewing the 1998 plan and consolidating it with new findings through four workshops with citizens, input from landowners and businesses and planning with the city council.

“The first effort in comprehensive planning in 1998 happened when local officials recognized that we were not just a small, rural community anymore and that the growth was not slowing down,” Smith said. “We asked the questions, ‘what do we want to be in the future and what does it take for us to get there?’”

A Vision, Goals and Objectives

Smith and Kreger took those questions, along with many more, to citizens last year. They presented residents background information of the 1998 plan and also asked for comments on what they wanted their city to look like in the years to come. With markers in hand, citizens wrote concerns about land use on city maps and voiced what they thought the vision of the city should be.

“After retesting the goals and objectives from 1998, we found that they are just as valid today as then,” Smith said. “This created a great sense of accomplishment that we were sticking to the plan.”

The vision statements included that Cedar Park should be a family-oriented, business-friendly, viable, dynamic community that makes the best use of all its resources. Some goals and objectives that remain relevant are to make the city a place to live, work and play, enhance community charm, create a mix of housing types and develop a town center or downtown.

Smith and Kreger found in their research and public hearings that citizens wanted a city that offered housing, shopping, jobs, entertainment and culture.

“People really just wanted things that would keep them in town on evenings and weekends. They wanted no real reason to go somewhere else,” Kreger said.

Part of the comprehensive plan research was also looking at other cities similar to Cedar Park like Frisco, McKinney and Round Rock to see how they dealt with growth challenges and economic development.

“We wanted to look at the city as a whole and see what happens when things like US 183A are built,” Smith said. “We looked to other cities that built toll roads and asked them what they would do over again if they had the chance.”

City Accomplishments

At the request of the city council, the 2006 plan includes a list of accomplishments made by the city since the last plan in 1998. The council wanted to see if the plan was followed and how it helped the city reach its identified goals.

In 1998, citizens asked for more retail, commercial and job creation. Since then, the city initiated the 4A and 4B economic development corporations that have already created more than 600 jobs in Cedar Park.

Residents asked for a transportation master plan to have a comprehensive planned network of roads. In April 2002, the master plan was passed by the city council and added components to improve mobility and safety, while also adding more space for pedestrian and bicycle travel.

Roadway improvement expectations were met by the extensions of Cypress Creek Road and Lakeline Boulevard, and also improvements made to Brushy Creek Road.

According to Kreger, residents expressed a need for a downtown or town center to create a better sense of place. The city responded, in accordance with the plan, by creating a downtown district with an approved urban code and regulating plan in 2001. The designated district on FM 1431 includes the D.R. Horton neighborhood and surrounding land ready to be developed into commercial property.

Future Land Use Map

The 2006 comprehensive plan includes a future land use map with possible zoning options for undeveloped areas. It answers the question of what would be the best set of uses for a piece of property in order to ensure the maximum viability of the city. It also ensures future zoning choices because Texas law states that zoning regulations must coincide with a city’s comprehensive plan.

“In order to meet future goals of development, we needed to create a map that best utilized the existing land in the city,” Smith said.

The map, shown below, shows the percentage of land allocated to residential, retail, commercial, industrial, parks and employment centers and what type of zoning would work best for each section.

The Comprehensive Plan Today

The city council adopted the new and updated version of the comprehensive plan at their Jan. 11 meeting and shared their excitement for the plan that looks into Cedar Park’s distant future.

“The citizens affirmed their vision of the city and have given us their good will to move forward,” Mayor Bob Lemon said.

New goals outlined in the plan include updating zoning and site development ordinances, additional economic planning and including more bicycle routes and sidewalks. The city also plans to update and redevelop older areas of the city as the city gets closer to build out, as well as improve the look or aesthetics of US 183. For more information or to view the Comprehensive Plan, visit www.cedarparktx.us.

Citizen Feedback to 2006 Plan

Strengths

What does the City do well? What unique characteristics can the City draw on? What do others see as the City’s strengths?

• Active and invested citizens
• Leander ISD
• Accessible city leaders
• City-owned water and wastewater utilities ready for growth
• Cedar Park is a high-growth city
• Major transportation corridors are being created
• A new downtown being developed as a part of the Town Center Plan
• The city has a Parks and Open Space Plan and a Recreational Trails Plan

Weaknesses

What could the City improve? Where does the City have fewer resources than others? What are others likely to see as weaknesses?

• Over 80 percent of Cedar Park residents work in another city
• Lack of a commercial tax base
• Lack of jobs within the city
• Shopping occurs in other cities and Cedar Park receives none of the sales tax
• No public transit

Opportunities

What good opportunities are open to the City? What trends could the City take advantage of? How can the City turn its strengths into opportunities?

• Develop west side of town as gateway to Lake Travis
• Utilize US 183A as a new commercial and mixed-use corridor
• Build a commercial hub of regional significance at the intersection of FM 1431 and Parmer Lane
• Be a green city of open space networks, trails and parks
• Integrate the Town Center development with the Capital Metro Commuter Rail

Threats

What trends could harm the City? What are other cities doing? What threats do the City’s weaknesses expose it to?

• An imbalance between housing and jobs remains, branding Cedar Park as bedroom community without amenities
• Land availability is decreasing, build out is eminent
• The City’s tax base suffers because of lack of commercial and industrial properties and sales tax revenue
• Rapid growth overwhelms city services

Source: Cedar Park 2006 Comprehensive Plan