Comp Plan public outreach survey available Feb. 2

The VisionSMTX Comprehensive Plan rollout was not without controversy. The focus of public comment centered around the feeling of being left out of the planning process as compared to the previous comprehensive plan — Vision San Marcos - A River Runs Through Us. With that in mind, the council provided feedback to city staff, at a previous meeting, that more public outreach should occur before taking action.

As suggested by city staff, the council passed a motion, five to zero with two absent, to postpone voting on the comprehensive plan until after the committee has formulated a recommendation and staff has time to post notice of a public hearing at the regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday.

Council received a staff presentation relaying the roll out for public outreach for the Comprehensive Plan, which is now being referred to as VisionSMTX++ Comprehensive Plan.

Some of what Amanda Hernandez, San Marcos director of planning and development services, described as higher level outreach platforms that staff will use to inform the public about the comprehensive plan survey are the city and comprehensive plan website, social media, flyers, direct emails, newsletters, press releases, utility bills and community partner engagement. Staff will launch the survey Feb. 2, and it will close on Feb. 23. Hernandez said the survey will be distributed as a hard copy, an online survey in the form of a Survey Monkey and Konveio, a service which provides online direct commenting.

San Marcos Mayor Jane Hughson and San Marcos City Council Member Mark Gleason expressed concern about Konveio and the possibility of negative back and forth communication between members of the public.

“Someone might hold back on a comment knowing that it’s going to get called out and get poked at online,” Gleason said. “They should be open and free to say what they want.”

Garza disagreed and said she felt that removing the ability to comment back and forth would be a form of censorship.

“I feel like we’re adults, we should be able to engage in a dialogue,” Garza said. “That’s not for us to mitigate.”

Staff will then compile the survey responses into one place to show the council at a later date. Hernandez said staff was directed to focus on the changes that have been made to the plan in the past year.

“In the survey, we will ask people to be specific about their comments. That way we know exactly what people are concerned with [and] why, and we’ll ask them to provide alternate language if they have some,” Hernandez said.

Hughson wanted to address some of the public's concern that the plan would benefit wealthy neighborhoods more than others.

“We’re looking at protecting all neighborhoods,” Hughson said. “Honestly, the higher dollar neighborhoods aren’t going to need such protection, because they’re built out. There’s not a lot of vacant lots or they are already planned for. There’s HOAs. What I’m looking for is protecting neighborhoods that don’t have those options — for Sunset Acres and Blanco Gardens … and especially for people who live near the university, which is often in danger of some sort of change that the neighborhood doesn’t want.”

Gleason wanted the survey to have a question identifying whether a respondent is from the community or is a stakeholder in some way. Garza said she thought it would be interesting to see the breakdown of the feedback among groups who are and are not local and/ or stakeholders.

The changes made in 2023 to the VisionSMTX Comprehensive Plan are on page 276 of the agenda packet, which can be found at this link sanmarcostx.gov/Agenda-Center/ViewFile/Agenda/_ 01162024-3726.