Kyle city leaders earlier this month approved a mid-term update to the 2010 Comprehensive Plan, which maps out future development in the city.
Howard Koontz, Kyle director of planning, said the biggest change to the comprehensive plan is how much the city has grown since the 2010 plan.
“We’ve annexed so much land just in the past two years, that was never really envisioned in the 2010 plan,” Koontz said. “Those new lands need to be incorporated into our future land use map.”
The update to the comprehensive plan had to establish a plan for the future development of annexed land, Koontz said.
Most of the land was voluntarily annexed by the property owners and its development was already planned for through development agreements, Koontz said.
This includes the Blanco River North, Blanco Central, Blanco South and Pecan Woods developments, which are marked in the map.
Therefore, land use for those areas had to be assigned in concurrence with the existing development agreements.
Koontz said there were no wholesale changes of land use to other areas. He said amendments better reflect the development that has occurred.
“The predominant land pattern and the history of development had changed so much from what we envisioned during the 2010 process that we were better able to tailor what exactly the expectation were for those regions,” Koontz said.
Officials also had to take into account the city’s strategic plans for growth, Koontz said.
“The biggest focus was that the comprehensive plan needed to parallel the expectation of newer strategic plans that we had completed in other more specific disciplines,” Koontz said.
For example, the city’s economic development plan targeted creating an environment that would bring more employment centers and businesses to Kyle.
Similarly, a recently approved parks plan shows the city needed more public areas for recreation and the city’s transportation plans shows the level of service that needs to increase as the population increases.
“The plan from 2010 needed to keep pace with the direction, the vision, and the goals that we have for more specific plans,” Koontz said.
Essentially, the goals of the update to the comprehensive plans had to reflect the goals of separate strategic plans.
Councilmember Daphne Tenorio, who voted against the comprehensive plan update, said she felt officials did not do their best to gather public input.
“You’re asking me to approve a map that I’m just seeing, that’s just been completed and hasn’t had the opportunity to go through citizens’ discussion as it’s evolved,” Tenorio said at the May 16 city council meeting.
Tenorio also had a concern about residents being unable to access the comprehensive plan on the city’s website. It is now located on the website’s “news and information” tab.
The process of updating the 2010 comprehensive plan began August 2015.
It was a long process because the city didn’t outsource it and everything was done in-house, Koontz said.
“This is a just update, just a tweak to the overall plan,” Koontz said. “We’re going to completely recreate the document plan for 2020.”
The midterm update to the comprehensive plan will be officially approved after a final reading at the June 6 city council meeting.
