Arredondo challenging Derrick for City Council Place 6

Juan Miguel Arredondo

SMDR: What do you see as the three major issues the city is likely to face in the next two years?

Arredondo: Managing our city’s rapid growth while creating a climate that promotes housing affordability and supports small businesses and job creation is essential to San Marcos’ prosperity. Also, ensuring our community is safe and the environment is protected is very important, through additional staffing, equipment and training, and adequately funding projects to address stormwater management and flood mitigation. Finally, addressing our city’s growing transportation issues by investing in infrastructure and supporting  multimodal transportation options for our residents to decrease traffic on our streets and neighborhoods, while connecting citizens to essential goods and services is absolutely necessary. 

SMDR: How would you balance historical preservation efforts with environmental concerns? How about balancing historical preservation efforts with economic development opportunities? 

Arredondo: I believe that environmental stewardship and historic preservation are an asset to economic development. All communities, including San Marcos, struggle with moving their economy forward while trying to find the balance among historic preservation, environmental stewardship, and supporting economic development. As a fifth generation San Marcos native, a product of our public schools and Texas State University, I grew up in our neighborhoods, learned how to swim in our river, and have watched this community grow over the last 27 years. I will bring that perspective to the council so our community does not lose its unique sense of place. There is no “one size fits all” solution to the balance among historic preservation, environmental stewardship and economic development opportunities, but through commitment to our values, we can achieve compatibility.

SMDR: In the wake of the Iconic Village fire, do you believe the city should revisit its fire code and consider making the rules for multifamily and purpose-built student housing projects more stringent?

Arredondo: The Iconic Village Fire was a tragedy that will forever scar our community. I believe we should do more to ensure that our residents are safe. Investing in our first responders and ensuring residents are properly educated in regards to fire prevention, evacuations, and safety procedures should be our first priority. We must also do more to ensure that our multifamily and purpose-built student housing  are being inspected regularly and comply with all local, state, and federal standards. I support revisiting fire codes and researching ways other cities protect their residents living in multifamily homes.

SMDR: Regarding “workforce housing” — do you support the city’s efforts to make more affordable housing options available to local residents? What would you suggest as a way to make housing more affordable?

Arredondo: Government cannot and should not get involved in the private market. However, the City of San Marcos should focus its resources on making it less cost prohibitive for builders to build more affordable housing in our community. Housing affordability is like a game of musical chairs, if there aren’t enough chairs, someone is going to lose. To change the current condition of a seller’s market to a buyer’s market to provide relief from housing price increases, we must promote efforts to increase the supply of housing within our existing city limits, through partnerships with the private sector. We must do more to ensure San Marcos remains affordable. 

SMDR: How do you think we should deal with increasing traffic congestion?

Arredondo: Communities nationwide are utilizing Uber, Lyft, and other rideshare and bikeshare platforms to decrease the amount of vehicular traffic on the roads. Updating the city’s bus and mobility plan to make using alternative forms of transit more attractive and effective is a good first step. We must encourage development near the core of our city, in particular our downtown, while preserving the unique charm and history of our community. If we work to locate new residents near essential goods and services and their jobs, we can address the city’s chronic traffic issues in our neighborhoods and on our roads. Regionally, we must be at the table to participate in broader based mobility solutions to ensure that our local  needs are considered, particularly over our most sensitive environmental areas and that costs are borne equitably. 

Melissa Derrick

SMDR: What do you see as the three major issues the city is likely to face in the next two years?

Derrick: Many issues face us during this time of growth that must be addressed in concert. Affordable workforce housing and student housing, must be matched with an improved transportation network to create efficient mobility. All future housing must be built resilient to our common flood events, and current affordable housing must be maintained to keep gentrification at bay. Preservation of our rivers and neighborhoods are also vital when addressing plans for growth and transportation. Further acquisition of greenspace will assist in flood mitigation and river stewardship. The completion of neighborhood character and small area studies will ensure our new land development code works towards our community’s vision. We must also gain community input and analyze, amend and adopt our Transportation and Parks Master Plans. Working with our regional partners towards shared goals, is critical to our success with flood mitigation, workforce housing and a no kill shelter to name a few. 

SMDR: How would you balance historical preservation efforts with environmental concerns? How about balancing historical preservation efforts with economic development opportunities? 

Derrick: Preservation of environment and historic areas are vital to economic development, as they make us unique, drawing tourists, citizens and businesses. Conversations surrounding Capes dam were once a debate about the merits of a scientific study, but if this site is both historically and culturally valued by our community, let’s have that conversation in that context, so we can explore a common ground and achieve a balance of preservation and responsible river stewardship. We must weigh the pros and cons of high increases of density close to our historic neighborhoods versus less dense development that could act as buffer between historic neighborhoods and higher density developments. CODE SMTX provides an alternative to the unsustainable development practices of the past, but the cultural significance of historic areas can’t be undervalued. We must work with developers to create projects that will be assets not only to them, but to our community.  

SMDR: In the wake of the Iconic Village fire, do you believe the city should revisit its fire code and consider making the rules for multifamily and purpose-built student housing projects more stringent?

Derrick: Absolutely! Our staff is currently looking into significant changes in our fire safety codes as it relates to all existing multi-family. Priority issues are fire suppression and alarm systems, as the State doesn’t require that older rentals meet current safety standards. New, web-based alarm systems make retrofitting much more affordable, and I would be in favor of an incentivize program to encourage rental property owners to increase safety for the 70 percent of our population who rent, most of whom are struggling families, college students, and young people who are routinely exploited by the rental market. This population is one of our most vulnerable, as they must rely on owners for their safety and welfare and accept the standards provided if they can’t afford to live in newer housing that must adhere to current code requirements. We can and must do better do better for most of our citizens.

SMDR: Regarding “workforce housing” — do you support the city’s efforts to make more affordable housing options available to local residents? What would you suggest as a way to make housing more affordable?

Derrick: I’m on the Workforce Housing Committee, and we’ve set ambitious new policy for city led initiatives to provide affordable housing for the backbone of our community. Our newly appointed Workforce Housing Task Force, comprised of stakeholders such as affordable housing developers and builders, residents, and mortgage lenders are tasked with helping the City address San Marcos’ housing crisis. This isn’t just a city issue and can’t be solved by the city alone. This is a community issue; thus, we need partners to increase homeownership opportunities for the roughly 70 percent of our residents who are renters. We’ve dedicated funding for Fiscal Year 2019 for the acquisition of tax foreclosed properties via partnership with the County and School District. We hope to build homes on the City owned land, thus decreasing the cost of the homes to the structure only. The City’s First-Time Homebuyer Program, will also assist with increase home ownership. 

SMDR: How do you think we should deal with increasing traffic congestion?

Derrick: We are currently working on our Transportation Master Plan, with much thought given to environmental preservation and economic development. Removal of the Craddock extension aligns with the county vision, and therefore will produce a more environmentally feasible and fiscally responsible alternative. We are moving toward becoming direct recipient for mobility grants to qualify for additional funding available to “disadvantage communities,” so we may increase transit hours, days of service and routes, while reducing our carbon foot print. Our Transportation Department will be conducting a transit needs survey to include outreach to our SMCISD students at the request of the San Marcos Commission on Youth and Children, for which I am the Council representative. Increased ridership from primary school students would result in increased funding and less traffic. The new Aquarena overpass has provided relief and Loop 110 will provide both traffic mobility and economic development.