City of Kyle looks at implementing Comprehensive Plan 2030

KYLE — During a special joint meeting on July 12 with the Planning and Zoning Commission, Kyle City Council heard a presentation from AJ Fawver of Verdunity regarding the Comprehensive Plan 2030.

In March 2022, the city of Kyle put out a request for qualifications intended to find consultant teams who were experienced in planning and development, so that a new Comprehensive Plan could be created, according to the city. The existing 2020 Comprehensive Plan was adopted in 2010, updated in 2017 and is the long-range planning document that has helped guide the city of Kyle over the last decade.

The goal of this meeting was to inform the council and commission about the implementation of the Comprehensive Plan following an open house meeting held on the evening prior on July 11.

Verdunity is in part four of its comprehensive planning process — prioritizing an implementation table, tracking and reporting results and providing a final draft plan. The city will soon receive a final draft in two forms — a planned draft and the implementation strategy.

“[These are] two elements that, together, will formulate the final document,” Fawver said.

There are two components to the implementation portion of the plan — incremental and neighborhood-centric.

“[The incremental component] uses a series of small, achievable, attainable steps, it’s a culture of experimentation. It’s a very important process because it’s a slight paradigm shift for cities … We want to be open to idea generation and test those ideas and lower the barriers for people to come forward and share their thoughts,” Fawver said, noting the neighborhood-centric component: “Great neighborhoods make great communities … This plan focuses on this idea of collective ownership of the plan … It belongs to us all. We worked with the community to identify those resources to carry out and implement the plan.”

Verdunity’s general recommendations, which focus on aligning decisions with the community’s principles, include the following as the city begins to implement feedback:

• Use the annual budget report to show how financial decisions and priorities align with this plan.

• Develop and apply assessments for sustainability and equity impacts on key decisions, projects and policies.

• Define the “gold standard” so that residents, developers, businesses and others interested in Kyle know what it means and how it is applied.

• Engage the Youth Advisory Committee to act as advisors to city council to provide a prospective not typically present in decision-making.

• Administer the vibrant community assessment annually to all local citizens and track ratings while using them to inform governing decisions.

“These are starting points,” she said. “But you need to have a list of items that make this collectively work and happen.”

Fawver then explored the specific recommendations to the city. The land use recommendation is to encourage a development pattern that preserves green spaces. The neighborhood recommendation is to support the creation of complete and cohesive neighborhoods citywide.

In an exercise, she encouraged the group to come up with incremental ideas to maximize the types of housing offered in Kyle. After sharing their initial thoughts, Fawver asked them to refine their ideas. After honing in on actionable goals, she said, “Don’t let perfection get in the way of something good.”

Refining and updating the plan is cyclical: assess needs, engage the public, make recommendations, generate actions and implement the plan.

“You want to avoid the curse of a Comprehensive Plan … The needs of the community today are not always going to be the needs of the community in a year from now or two years from now … It’s a process that continues and continues,” Fawver said. “Have those conversations of, ‘Is this still meeting our needs?’ … and you’re engaging the public in that process … This loop is going to continue and be something that you all will be very much involved in … The truth is: you don’t need us to do this. You are all very well equipped to make sure this plan stays germane and relevant in what you’re trying to do.”

She did warn of some challenges in the implementation process, including tradeoffs, funding, sequencing, policy and data.

“There are five different areas where we see challenges in the implementation process,” Fawver said. “With tradeoffs, there’s going to come a time when a choice must be made if you’re going to implement this action or that action … Funding is always going to be a challenge as well. There’s always going to be more demands than funds you have available, but you all had really great ideas about how to use your local resources to expand your reach.”

“Sequencing challenges are going to become present; you’re going to think we got it all in the right order and in the right sequence and then, you’ll have a recognition of, ‘Oh gosh, we need to do this before this,’ and your staff will be there for you,” she continued. “Policy is going to be another challenge. A really important piece is going to be this check-in and making sure the policy makes possible the thing you want to have happen … It's usually where the pushback happens the most. Those are the meetings where people are going to show up and have public comments. And then data is the last piece. Data is always present, but it has to be sourced … It’s really important to establish who is going to collect it and share it. So these are some of the challenges you’re going to face, but they’re all made easier with an adopted document.”

The next step in the project timeline is adoption, which will take place from September to October and will include a community summit. For more information on the Kyle Comprehensive Plan, visit www.kyle2030.com.