City's master plan nearing completion
BY PHIL REYNOLDS SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

With city council approval of the thoroughfare portion of the master plan on Aug. 16, Port Aransas is poised to wrap up a complicated comprehensive plan designed to give the city something to aim at in coming years.

As it is generally recognized, a city's comprehensive plan provides a set of goals, policies and objectives that city officials are to use in mapping the city's future. A comprehensive plan is supposed to be consulted before zoning or land use changes are made, and before decisions are made that will affect city street directions and construction, among other things.

However, a comprehensive plan doesn't dictate; it guides.

Key to the comprehensive plan is the land use plan, which gives planners and city council members an idea of how and in what direction the city should be growing in the future. Like the comprehensive plan itself, the land use plan doesn't tie the city to details, but it does indicate what good land use practices and citizens' expectations are.

As an example, the Port Aransas land use plan calls for South 11th Street to become an area of shortterm rental properties largely devoted to tourism. While most of the property on South 11th Street isn't zoned for short-term rentals, it's clear from the direction homes have been headed in the area that the section of land will develop that way in the future. Including this in the land use plan reminds planners and council members of the direction in which the neighborhood is headed.

It also provides ancillary guidance - for instance, if South 11th Street is developing in that direction, clearly the street itself must be improved, widened, resurfaced and provided with curbs and gutters, and probably with sidewalks, in the future. That project is part of the city's thoroughfare plan, another major part of the overall comprehensive plan.

Other major sections of the plan, each of which deals with its own topic, are the drainage master plan, the master facilities plan, the city's harbor plan and the parks and open space plan. The plan for the nature preserve is a major plan in its own right and, though it technically deals with parks and open space, has its own place in the comprehensive plan.

To date, the drainage, facilities, open space, nature preserve, thoroughfare, pedestrian and bike mobility, harbor, land use and economic development plans have been approved by the city council. A plan for the city's gas utilities division, one for airport operations, the public transportation plan and a historical properties report all have been started. However, none of those is considered a major component of the master plan.

"We're at the bottom of the rankings for municipal airports," said David Parsons, the city's director of planning and projects. "We'd like to move up a couple of steps and get to the 90-10 (federal-state and matching funds) level instead of 50-50. But to do that we have to have a commercial lease."

While the city leases land to two airplane ride operators, neither is considered a major lease. And to get a commercial lease, the city has to change its own lease with the General Land Office (GLO), which owns the land on which the airport sits. That lease forbids commercial use of the property.

The city and the GLO are re-negotiating the lease, but progress on that has been slow, in part because the airport is adjacent to environmentally sensitive wetlands.

For other progress, Parsons points to the drainage master plan, the starting point for a group of voter-approved bond issues that are intended to improve streets and drainage in various parts of the city.

First bids on those projects should come in during October, with the second batch coming in December, Parsons said.

Among the projects voters approved:

• East Cotter Avenue between Station Street and the beach

• Leslie Lane • South Station Street • Alister Street • Avenue A • Drainage outfalls 14 and 19 • Concrete drainage structures

• La Rhonda Street.

The land use plan itself is awaiting bids from contractors to rewrite the city's code chapters that deal with subdivisions and zoning - two areas city council members have said need to be looked at anew.

Planners have noted it's important to remember that a land use plan is not a zoning document. It doesn't control how land is used; it only guides city officials in approving requests for land use changes.

Copies of the city's comprehensive plan are available for review at city hall, 710 W. Ave. A and on the city's Web site, www.cityofportaransas. org (once in the Web site, click on "City Departments," then on "Planning," then on "comprehensive planning.")