Why Plan Now?

Projected growth for Bexar County is expected to add up to 1.1 million new residents, with 500,000 new jobs, and 500,000 new dwelling units by 2040. We need to update the city’s Comprehensive Plan to prepare our community for this anticipated population and employment growth, and to help us understand what that growth will look like and how it will affect our daily lives. With a relatively fixed area available for future development, the anticipated population and employment growth will certainly have an impact on our community’s overall quality of life and livability. We also have to ask ourselves if it’s now time to expand our boundaries or focus on development within the city’s existing footprint. To be successful and truly address the long-term issues facing San Antonio, the Comprehensive Plan has to tackle those difficult questions that arise from an honest assessment of our community’s challenges and clearly state the hard choices we must make to achieve the community’s vision for the future. Many of these hard choices are rooted in the fact that a “business as usual” approach is beginning to result in systems and patterns that are unsustainable or that produce results counter to our community’s stated vision and goals. Reversing decades-old habits and changing entrenched systems is difficult. The uncertainty and complexity associated with planning for the next 25 years is daunting.

Perhaps the most important task tackled by our community in crafting this Comprehensive Plan was determining where growth should be directed and encouraged, and doing so in a way that protects vital historic, cultural, social and natural resources. By engaging an array of community stakeholders, jurisdictions and communities, the planning process has allowed us to articulate where growth should be encouraged and where it should be discouraged. With these areas identified, we can deploy policies and regulatory techniques that encourage development in the desired areas. Such efforts are predicated on a new way of thinking about growth that requires significant cooperation and coordination between different jurisdictions, utilities and other members of the community at a citywide and regional level.

If San Antonio continues to develop along recent trends and using existing development patterns, our quality of life will decrease significantly over time leading to increases in cost of living, commute times and congestion levels.

If guided properly, the influx of new residents and jobs will enhance our city and all our residents. Planning now will allow us to direct growth consistent with the community’s vision and our goals for the future. The goals of the Comprehensive Plan effort are to:

• Update the 1997 Master Plan Policies;
• Re-affirm the community’s vision for the future;
• Implement and expand on the SA2020 vision for the built environment;
• Articulate the form of future physical growth;
• Accommodate and distribute projected population growth;
• Guide strategic decision making;
• Guide infrastructure investments and incentives;
• Reconcile existing plans, policies, and assumptions; and
• Update the city’s current comprehensive planning program."

A variety of previous and concurrent efforts were critical inputs to the Comprehensive Plan process. Several of those efforts are highlighted below.

1997 MASTER PLAN POLICIES

The previous umbrella document is the San Antonio Master Plan Policies, adopted May 29, 1997. These policies provided guidance in the evaluation of future decisions on land use, infrastructure improvements, transportation and other issues, setting broad, long-range goals for San Antonio. The 1997 Master Plan Policies have been largely implemented through more detailed levels of planning by means of other citywide functional plans, sector plans, neighborhood and community plans and community development plans.

2020 MASTER PLAN POLICIES

The SA2020 process was a community-wide visioning effort guided by a steering committee of community leaders and representatives. The Steering Committee consisted of three Tri-Chairs and 22 respected members of the community, representing the public, private and nonprofit sectors. The Steering Committee drew from the diversity of San Antonio, including a broad range of interests and areas of expertise. The process was supported by the City of San Antonio and the Office of the Mayor, whose staff was responsible for meeting logistics, publicity and coordination.

The SA2020 process began with a Vision Scan to honor and build upon past community visioning efforts, including both broad-based visions and targeted vision statements from various community sectors. The Vision Scan process identified common themes and values, and provided the foundation of a structural framework for the SA2020 process, which is organized into 11 areas:

• Arts & Culture;
• Community Safety;
• Downtown Development;
• Economic Competitiveness;
• Education;
• Family Well-Being;
• Government Accountability & Civic Engagement;
• Health & Fitness;
• Natural Resources & Environmental Sustainability;
• Neighborhoods & Growth Management; and
• Transportation.

SA2020 resulted in an overarching vision for our community, as well as more detailed visions, targets and strategies for each of the 11 areas. SA2020 provides a significant foundation for the Comprehensive Plan and the larger SA Tomorrow efforts.

COMPREHENSIVE PLAN INITAL STUDIES

The city completed several technical studies before initiating the more formal SA Tomorrow effort. These studies provided a baseline understanding of how San Antonio fares in terms of capacity, land buildout and costs associated with different growth scenarios and community goals. The three major components to the initial studies are summarized below.

Component 1: Land and Development Capacity Study

This study assessed the land and infrastructure capacity necessary to accommodate additional employment and housing development within the existing city limits and the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ). The study found a lack of residentially-zoned land to accommodate the forecasted demand for housing in several portions of the city. There isn’t enough land to capture housing development, particularly within the north part of the city—if development continues under the same density and development patterns. Increasing the density of neighborhoods and the average density of single-family development will help reduce some of the demand for land. Additionally, there is an oversupply of land in underutilized commercial- and industrial-zoned parcels. Areas with large concentrations of vacant and underutilized commercial and industrial-zoned parcels can be repositioned as residentially-focused, mixed-use neighborhoods that will increase the supply of residential land in these inner subareas.

The analysis of housing preferences and existing housing conditions indicated there is unmet demand for walkable neighborhoods, based on existing conditions and consumer preferences. San Antonio lacks walkable neighborhoods. Despite limited newly constructed single-family development projects that have a more walkable design, local demand exists for more walkable development. The recent inner city development and the strength of the city’s historic neighborhoods—which, on average, are more walkable than the rest of San Antonio—are indicative of this demand.

San Antonio has reached the limits of unconstrained outward growth due to land availability, high cost and difficulty of developing infrastructure and utility service. There is land capacity within the county to accommodate the growth forecasted by 2040; however, it will likely require investment in currently under performing parts of the city and development at slightly higher densities in targeted locations.

Component 2: Future Jobs, Economic Opportunity and Housing Study

This study analyzed the demand for jobs and housing over the next 25 years and the impact of forecasted demand on development patterns and geographic locations. Employment in San Antonio has a polycentric geographic pattern, with clusters of employment dispersed throughout the city. This reflects the dispersed nature of the major economic drivers of the city’s economy (military, healthcare, education and tourism). There are currently inadequate land use controls or incentives, and a lack of appropriate master plans to guide and attract employment growth. This has made it difficult for the city to leverage these assets to their full potential.

However, jobs within the city have somewhat organically concentrated into 13 centers or nodes, largely along major transportation routes. This configuration offers an opportunity to align economic development efforts with land use planning and infrastructure investment. Focusing economic development within these centers will help transform these areas from employment centers to true mixed-use activity centers.

Component 3: Fiscal Impact of Alternative Growth Scenarios

This fiscal analysis had two main findings regarding new development. First, infill development was found to have a lower cost (infrastructure, services, etc.) to the city relative to potential tax revenues than greenfield development (in vacant areas). Second, the density of a development is key. The potential costs and benefits of five existing development patterns were also assessed. The denser programs tested had the greatest revenue relative to costs for the city. Bexar County also recently analyzed the fiscal impact of development. The County found that it is not equipped to provide an adequate level of urban services due to limitations in its revenue generation and service provision tools provided by the State, which will ultimately create a burden for the city.