P&Z recommends approval of housing action plan

After a year of work by the Workforce Housing Task Force, San Marcos’ Planning and Zoning Commission has recommended approval of a strategic housing action plan. 

On Tuesday evening, the commission voted unanimously to recommend the action plan but made several amendments to the draft before approval. 

Abby Gillfillan, planning manager and manager of the SMTX 4 All Housing Initiative, said workforce housing is a strategic initiative of the city, which led to the creation of the workforce housing task force. The task force was created in September of 2018, and spent five months understanding the complex issue of housing in San Marcos. 

“In order to do that, we did go out and do what we call a needs assessment, a needs analysis,” Gillfillan said. “We had Root Policy Research come in to really understand ‘what are our demographics in our community, what type of housing do we have?’ and then match those two up and see where are the big gaps.”

The task force then initiated various working groups to create goals for the plan. 

“Seventy-two percent of our community rents, and of that 72%, 65% of those households are cost-burdened. Cost-burdened means that they're spending more than 30% of their income on their housing costs,” Gillfillan said. “And actually 40% are severely cost burdened, meaning that they're spending more than 50% of their income on housing costs.”

The task force began drafting solutions and came out with a draft plan in May. Over the summer, the taskforce then worked on the draft.

In order to involve the community in the creation of the housing plan, the task force talked to 38 groups, over 730 individuals from all different sectors of the community, received over 214 written comments and heard 101 housing stories. 

“One thing that this community really values is that San Marcos be a place for all, be a place where all different types of people are able to have a place here within our community and have housing that meets their needs,” Gillfillan said. 

According to Gillfillan, the housing plan is a guiding document that provides policy, but each action included in the plan will still need to be approved individually. 

During public comment, individuals expressed approval for the plan, as well as concern for certain strategies include in the proposal. 

Laura Dupont, who served as chair of the SMTX For All Housing Task Force, urged the commission to approve the plan. 

“As always there are those who misunderstand or misrepresent information and the good intentions of others,” she said. “From what I have witnessed, the people who are most opposed to this action plan do not understand its intention and frankly are not people who are in jeopardy of being displaced or would ever have to worry about housing in general.”

Diana Baker, along with other individuals, expressed concern with the plan. 

“What I am afraid is that something very authentic and valuable like my neighborhood is going to go away …” Baker said. “I am sure that there are a lot of good things about this and I do not question the purity of your goals, okay, what I am telling you that yes maybe it is progressive but what has progress brought us in the past? What, bottled water? Global warming? I mean is progress always good?”

Jim Garber, chair of P&Z, said that despite any controversy, he believes everyone is on the same page when it comes to the goals of the plan.

“I think that this is an incredibly valuable document,” Garber said. “I like it and I think we can move forward with it but I do believe there are some areas where we can make some adjustments in the form of amendments.”

After deliberation on each amendment, the commission decided to strike Action D2 from the plan, which states “The City should pro-actively zone both undeveloped and infill areas in accordance with the Comprehensive Plan to ensure that the capacity for residential growth is in excess of the anticipated population growth instead of relying on each individual project to request zoning.”

Commissioners also voted to strike action B3, which states “Assist builders with fee waivers, clear-path permitting, and regulatory incentives like reduced parking or additional units in exchange for permanently affordable housing in pre-identified infill sites.” 

Likewise, P&Z decided to add the words “medium and high intensity zones” to Action D1 so that the action reads “Create Opt-In zoning districts in medium and high Intensity Zones that offer an option for increased density and fast tracked permitting in exchange for affordable housing and other community benefits important to those strategic locations,”  and amend Action E4 to strike the words “parking, height and maximum density” from the action item. 

After the amendments, P&Z voted unanimously to approve the recommendation of the plan, which will now be presented to City Council for approval.