Dales story on the citys Strategic Planning Development with no mention of the Island - the citys step-child. The Big Daily calls it Building Our Future and last Sunday began a five part series with topics: Our (new Harbor) Bridge; Our Streets; Our Bayfront; Our Downtown; Our Growth. The City Council calls it Strategic Planning and this week committed $1.5 million for a two-year contract with Goody Clancy & Associates Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts which will review the ten area development plans that cover the city, five of which are sixteen years old and five of which are nine years old. The money will be used to (A) compile the various Area Development plans into a comprehensive plan based on the old plans ($900,000); (B) compose an Area Downtown Development Plan ($400,000) (C) compose a Southside Area Development Plan ($200,000). According to City Manager Ron Olson’s message to the City Council on Tuesday, once those are complete the other eight parts of the city will be “looked at” in two years. A common element in both the stories by the Big Daily and the $1.5 million city plan is what is missing – Our Island. Twenty minutes of City Council discussion, 1500 words, with another 4000 or so to come, in the Big Daily, $1.5 million of tax money spent and not a single mention in either of The Island. Two years and good luck So we’re on the shelf for at least two years, and then the time it takes to complete and implement the study; four to five years is a good guess. But work on a new Area Development Plan for The Island won’t begin for at least two years. Two years from now when The Island may be “looked at” it will be very late in the game for an updated Island Area Development Plan. By then the new Schlitterbahn waterpark will have been in operation for two seasons, a bridge will connect Lake Padre with the Island’s canal system, most if not all of the 3200 feet of new canals on the Beachwalk will be in place; a new marina will likely either be under construction or open on Lake Padre, the area at the JFK Causeway now under construction will be finished, a plan currently being worked on by, among others, the Texas General Land Office for the Village area in the area adjacent to the JFK Causeway on the west will likely be complete, a new waterline to The Island will be flowing, 3600 acres of new parkland in Kleberg County will be open under the management of the Nueces County Coastal Parks, and according to the city’s own projections the population of The Island will be 22,000 people (not likely given the current number at around 10,000); and all that doesn’t include any new development that is sure to follow the opening of the watepark and the Beachwalk and the fact that at any given moment between fifty and sixty new houses have been under construction on The Island since 2011. That’s a lot of change in two years. It would seem that if there was an area of the city which needs an updated Area Development plan it would that area. There is already more going on here than will likely be happening downtown two years from now. By the time our city planners get around to developing a plan to manage Island growth Island growth will have managed itself. Any associated traffic problems will have resolved themselves. The best we can hope for at that point will be for a plan to unsnarl the Gordian traffic knot that has had four to five years to wrap itself around the Island axle. By that time the damage, or the solutions, will be a fait accompli. The Island will have de facto planned itself. The proverbial cow will have not only left the barn he will have been butchered, grilled to rare goodness, and served up on Island decks. I realize both the Big Daily and our city planners have many fish to fry, but for both to take on the task of looking at Area Development and leaving out the tourist attraction that brings eighty percent of the visitors to our area and is already undergoing the biggest changes in the city seems shortsighted. We’re used to it by now, but it still seems foolhardy. The old plan The current Mustang-Padre Island Area Development Plan was drawn up in 2004. Current Nueces County Judge Lloyd Neal was Mayor, current County Court At-Law Judge and County Commission Precinct 4 candidate Brent Chesney was on the council, and the only current member of the city council still there is Mark Scott. The City Charter mandates the Corpus Christi Comprehensive Plan and the City Council to establish comprehensive planning as a continuous governmental function to guide, regulate, and manage future development . . . and that . . . all city improvements, ordinances, and regulations shall be consistent with the Comprehensive Plan . . . When the plan was drafted Packery Channel was not open, the Island Overlay District did not exist (story for another day), there was no plans for an Island Beachwalk, and an Island Schlitterbahn was not yet even a gleam in a planner’s eye. A plan drawn up before all that cannot possibly meet that charter mandate and will more likely do nothing but cause a plethora of problems that wouldn’t exist without it as outdated assumptions get in the way of modern day realities. Island gets the bills The $1.5 million plan with nothing for The Island is just the latest in a long line of instances where downtown gets the money and The Island gets the bills. I’m no city planner but I must ask, wouldn’t it have made much more sense to do a downtown development study BEFORE asking voters to cough up $42 million in borrowed money for Destination Bayfront? If that initiative had passed Goody Clancy & Associates Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts would now be tasked with developing a Downtown Area Development Plan and, by the way, while you’re doing that we’re going to drop this park right in the middle of it so you’ll need to plan around that; the cart before the horse. It makes me wonder if anyone knew this comprehensive plan was coming when the Destination Bayfront vote was put on the ballot. From what I can tell the Goody Clancy & Associates Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts knows their stuff. It will be interesting to see how their findings mesh with the current mantra that says “as downtown goes so goes the city.” Certainly there will be pressure from the oligarchy to stick to that course. But as we Islanders have been pointing out for decades, most downtowns are not attached to an island so our focus might need to be a little different. Our city seems to put no stock in that. Let’s hope the Goody sees it another way so that in Clancy & Associates Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts a few years we’re not sitting in Island traffic wondering why we didn’t come up with a plan. We’re not asking to be served first, we’re just asking for a seat at the table.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 14:41:30 +0000
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