Kyle staff hopes to offset the lack of employment opportunities within the city by creating a new zoning category.
On Sept. 26, the Kyle Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z) recommended the creation of the Office/Institutional (OI) zoning category. Currently, most of Kyle’s land area falls into agriculture, residential and retail commercial uses.
“Kyle has recognized a lack of employment opportunities in our corporate limits, and has designated new employment opportunities as our highest priority for new land uses,“ said Howard Koontz, Kyle community development director.
Koontz said OI zones would be activity centers where patrons spend “an extended amount of time without the expectation of a consumer purchase” as the reason for a visit.
Examples include libraries, museums, hospitals, parks, special event and government centers, along with uses that are “vital to a community serving its citizenry.”
Koontz said the hope is the city could use the zoning category to potentially bring in more office space or institutional type buildings to the city. The city could offer incentives to development in OI.
“The answer was to create a stand-alone category that would permit new employment opportunities for our citizens and others,” Koontz said. “... without creating new places for land uses that may not be in line with our expectations.”
There are exceptions that would negate the function of these zones, Koontz said. For example, an ambulance service would not fit within the criteria due to the high traffic use.
