PRESENTER: Presenter
Christopher J. Looney, AICP, Planning Director
Body
SUBJECT: Title
Presentation on the forthcoming update to the community’s comprehensive plan: Envision New Braunfels.
Header
DEPARTMENT: All
Body
COUNCIL DISTRICTS IMPACTED: All
BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
In August, 2018, City Council adopted Envision New Braunfels, our community’s comprehensive plan. A comprehensive plan is an over-arching, policy document that guides community decision making to reach end-goals. Driven by citizen and stakeholder input, it informs all other plans communities engage in at different hierarchical levels. Time horizons for comprehensive plans range from 5 to 25 years depending on rate of community change.
Envision New Braunfels was an update to New Braunfels’ 1999 Comprehensive Plan. It includes 9 plan elements, 46 broad goals, 8 coalescing strategies, and over 260 individual actions to drive policies, projects, programs, plans, and partnerships to improve the built environment, enhance mobility, protect resources, retain and attract community talent, increase housing options, and incent regional collaboration. It is not a regulatory document, but a guide to steer strategic decision making around core issues to sustain our quality of life. As a community-driven plan, the actions are not the City’s to implement alone, but are intended to be a collaboration with the entire community: school districts, not-for-profits, tourism industry, businesses, medical industry, etc.
The plan was developed over two years through data collection, trend analysis, multi-jurisdiction cooperation, and a continuous, robust public engagement process. Over 700 residents, property owners, business owners, and other stakeholders served on plan element advisory groups; almost 1,500 written comments were received from residents via 37 community input events; and over 7,500 participants were engaged online. The resulting plan not only guided New Braunfels as our residents intended, but also won the American Planning Association award in 2018 as the best comprehensive plan in the state of Texas.
ISSUE:
New Braunfels’ Charter requires frequent updates to the comprehensive plan. Additionally, much has been accomplished since 2018, and our community has experienced much change. Therefore, the City is preparing a forthcoming plan update initiation process for Council consideration. This effort will not be a plan rewrite, but an update. Its focus will include:
• Public outreach to obtain the long-range vision and aspirations of our community residents
• Recording accomplishments and identifying new or updated goals and actions
• Using the Land Use Fiscal Analysis, other plans and studies completed since the comprehensive plan adoption, and a capacity and demand analysis to inform data-driven updates to the Future Land Use Map
• Scenario modeling and evaluation
• Creating a detailed, milestone-driven implementation strategy
STRATEGIC PLAN REFERENCE:
☐Economic Mobility ☐Enhanced Connectivity ☒Community Identity
☐Organizational Excellence ☐Community Well-Being ☐N/A
1. Initiate the update to Envision New Braunfels, the City’s comprehensive plan, and use the Land Use Fiscal Assessment to bring a data-driven element to the Future Land Use Map.
FISCAL IMPACT:
N/A
Recommendation
RECOMMENDATION:
N/A
RESOURCE LINKS:
Envision New Braunfels: <https://www.newbraunfels.gov/3454/Comprehensive-Planning>