Committee to probe further into plan for Lindsey Hill
San Marcos City Council members Jane Hughson, Saul Gonzales and Melissa Derrick will take a look at the details of the proposed Lindsey Hill development. Council created the Lindsey Hill subcommittee at its meeting Tuesday night.
“The developers have reached out to many council members to discuss this development,” Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Prewitt said. “I personally have refused because of the Texas Open meetings Act. This is a way that council can really dig into the details of this development.”
The subcommittee will not include members of the public, but City Attorney Michael Cosentino said that notices of the subcommittee meetings will be posted and that meetings will be open to the public. Residents, other council members and members of the Planning and Zoning commission can attend to hear the discussions that take place.
Lindsey Hill is a planned mixed-use development proposed for the current site of the old Lamar campus at the corner of Hutchison Street and Ranch Road 12. Concerns about historic preservation, stormwater drainage, density and character have made the proposal a controversial one, although some residents believe the development would put the property to good use.
In other business Tuesday night, council approved the first reading of one zoning change but denied another. Nearly half an acre at 1520 Old Ranch Road 12 will be changed from “OP” Office Professional to “N-MS” Neighborhood-Main Street to allow for more development. Currently there is a chiropractor’s office and a massage therapist’s business at that location, but Shannon Mattingly from the city’s planning department said the new zoning will make more retail uses, potentially including a coffee shop, possible for the property. Hughson abstained from the vote because, she said, her sister lives next door to the location.
The zoning change that council denied was for a little over three-quarters of an acre at the end of Windmill Drive. Owners wanted to change the zoning from “D” Duplex Residential District to Neighborhood District 3.5 to allow for the construction of townhomes there. There are currently townhomes located elsewhere on Windmill Drive, but the property in question is a vacant lot, Mattingly told council. Surrounding the lot is a mixture of single-family, duplex and multi-family housing, Mattingly said, and with single family accounting for 50 percent of the surrounding uses according to the “Pac-Man” buffer, the zoning change would require approval from at least five council members. Several neighbors spoke against the proposed zoning change, citing concerns about density and privacy, and ultimately the council denied the change 4-3.
