Community Planning
Through the City of San Antonio

WHAT IS THE COMMUNITY PLANNING PROCESS?

A Community Plan is a written document expressing the consensus of community stakeholders on:

• Issues: what works/what could be better
• Goals and strategies: where do you want to go
• Action steps on how to achieve the community’s vision for the future.

Stakeholders include residents, community groups, property owners, businesses and others. The City of San Antonio Planning Department conducts on-site workshops to facilitate the formulation of each Community Plan. Once completed, the Plan is submitted by the Planning Commission to the City Council for their approval. The Council adopts the Community Plan as a component of the City’s Comprehensive Master Plan.

Criteria for adoption include:

• Goals that are consistent with adopted policies, plans and regulations of the City of San Antonio
• Opportunities were available for all interest groups to participate
• The Plan is a definitive statement of the neighborhoods, addressing
  • Land use and housing
  • Community facilities
  • Transportation
  • Infrastructure
  • Economic development

Plans are to be reviewed and updated, if necessary, every 5 years to reflect changing conditions.

Once adopted, Community Plans are the basis for future actions.

• Plan participants carry out projects from the Community Plan.
• The City funds Plan capital improvement projects based on the Plan.
• The Zoning Commission considers whether or not a proposed zoning change is consistent with the Plan.

WHAT DO NEIGHBORS SAY WHO HAVE COMMUNITY PLANS?

• Westfort Neighborhood Plan: Gil Murillo

Ours is one of the older neighborhood plans. On a scale of 1 – 10, I’d rate what was accomplished a 6. The process took a long time, so we lost our sense of how, when, and by whom the great ideas we generated would be implemented. Implementation requires someone or a group to be on top of the situation in a timely fashion, and with a voluntary neighborhood situation, with limited resources, that does not always happen.

Even with these drawbacks, it was still worth the effort! We have more control of our neighborhoood’s future!

My concern is that there is a lot of room for improving San Antonio’s neighborhood planning. For example, Seattle, among other cities, does a much better job of balancing voluntarism with city resources, e.g., neighborhoods may qualify for small administrative grants.

Improving the process means, first of all, that it becomes a major priority for the City Council. Their commitment will be shown by providing creative and sufficient resources according to the individualized vision, conditions and needs of each neighborhood.

• Highlands Community Plan: Mary Wallace

The Plan helps us uphold our ideas about what we want in our neighborhood. For example, part of our area is totally residential; and a man bought a house that he wants to use as an office to do taxes. Because he has an employee who does not live there, the property will need to be rezoned. We think our Plan will help us defend our residential zoning.

We meet for an hour and a half every two months to discuss Plan implementation. There were a lot of folks involved in developing what we wanted in our Plan, and these meetings will keep our plans alive and true to our sense of what is acceptable in our neighborhood.

• IH 10 E Plan: Jerelyne Williams

It has been a good experience for us. We let the Planning Department know what we wanted, and they came back with maps and other information. And we put the Plan together. The City lets us know when someone wants to develop in our area. We have been able to use the Plan to discourage certain kinds of development and to encourage the kinds of development that we want.

We tell our people that they now have an investment in the Plan, and it will require diligence on our part to uphold the Plan.

WHY WOULD ANYONE OBJECT TO A COMMUNITY PLAN?
AND RESPONSE BY THE SAN ANTONIO CONSERVATION SOCIETY AND SAN ANTONIO NEIGHBORS TOGETHER.

• A lot of work, effort and time on the part of staff goes into community plans. Is this the best use of their time, when zoning is already in place?

Response: Zoning is no substitute for community plans. While zoning addresses certain neighborhood concerns, it is on a parcel-by-parcel basis. The community planning process encourages consensus and consideration of a wider range of issues by all stakeholders.

• Only a few people appear to be involved in the community plan process.

Response: The City and the community area make an effort to have an open process for all property owners/stakeholders during plan development. Once the plans are adopted, those implementing the plan may be smaller in number but are still obligated to carry out the intent of the plans.

• Plans create expectations of a vision that may be unrealistic.

Response: A vision expresses the hopes of the stakeholders at a given point in time for a better neighborhood with a certain quality of life. If unrealistic, the vision can be modified when their plan is updated.

• Is there any real need to have a community plan in an established area?

Response: Change is happening in all sections of the city, new and old. The point of a community plan is to assess existing conditions and guide new development so that it is beneficial to existing businesses and neighborhoods.

• Community plans have been used as weapons against development by a few vocal participants – is this healthy for the community?

Response: Developers who ignore community plans will have difficulty with neighborhood representatives. What would be “healthy” for neighborhoods with community plans is dialogue between developers and neighborhood leaders to explore mutually beneficial solutions.

• The City seems to be forcing certain kinds of development – shouldn’t development occur naturally, based on supply and demand?

Response: Where neighborhoods have community plans, their desires for the type of development they wish to have are expressed in their plans. One can look upon this expression as the “demand” for development. Those who can “supply” this type of development will do well. Those who ignore this expression will continue to be frustrated and out of touch with “demand.”