Urban New Braunfels

by Dale Dibello

Dale Dibello is an architect who lives and practices in New Braunfels. He serves on the New Braunfels Historic Landmark Commission.

Planning for growth in any city is essential; however, it is difficult to accept an outer loop (conceived over 40 years ago), as a beneficial element in New Braunfels’ plan for future growth. An outer loop will cut a concrete swath of destruction through the beauty of our Texas Hill Country and bring with it Home Depots, Wal-Marts and the like. Roads that may be intended to solve perceived mobility problems in fact cause further congestion because the commercial strips that attach themselves like parasites impede the through traffic and blight the countryside in the process.

Additionally, a phenomenon called “induced traffic” explains how road building actually makes traffic worse in the long run. In Suburban Nation, authors Duany, Plater-Zyberk, and Speck explain it like this: “Increased traffic capacity makes longer commutes less burdensome, and as a result, people are willing to live farther and farther from their workplace. As increasing numbers of people make similar decisions, the long-distance commute grows as crowded as the inner city, commuters clamor for additional lanes, and the cycle repeats itself.” Traffic engineers who are familiar with the mechanism at work behind induced traffic explain it with the aphorism: “Trying to cure traffic congestion by adding more capacity is like trying to cure obesity by loosening your belt.”

Like it or not, the fact that the Outer Loop Study has happened should be a wake-up call to seriously consider the bleak consequences of the plan that gave birth to the loop – the City of New Braunfels 2006 Future Land Use Plan. This is where the bigger problem lies.

This planning map clearly paints a picture of suburban sprawl as the intended pattern of growth for the city and the extra-territorial jurisdiction.  For starters, the plan shows a 2,500 foot wide swath of commercial land use in the path designated for the outer loop. That swath represents large single use pods of big-box retail and commercial development. Take a look at IH 35 to get a clear picture of what this will look like.

Equally disturbing is the 1,500 foot wide commercial swath along one or both sides of Highway 46 South, Loop 337 North, Highway 46 West, FM 725, FM 1104, FM 1863, River Road, and FM 306. In these, the swath is clearly intended as strip centers. These commercial strips are so prevalent that we have become numb to them as they gradually appear.

The use category of “Open Space / Agriculture” is indicated as a tiny fraction of the planning map. Instead, the dominate color on the map represents low-density residential. Stop and think about this for a moment. Sprawling suburbs gradually consume ranchland, farms, and natural areas. We no longer have access to locally-produced food. The beauty that attracted you to the area disappears a little a time. Demand for water reaches a breaking point.

“Mixed Use” is also practically non-existent on the plan. Nothing is near anything. You have no choice but to use your car for even the most basic errands. The concept of the corner store or neighborhood elementary school is not allowed by the land use plan. Living and working in the same neighborhood is only a dream.

Town planner and urban redevelopment expert Galina Tachieva notes in Traditional Building magazine’s 2010 Roundtable on Sustainability in the Urban Context: “Sprawl is a dysfunctional form of urbanism. It is a broken pattern that needs to be fixed. While it has been the prevalent growth model in this country for the past half century, it is in fact the least sustainable and least affordable.”

However, there is cause for hope to be found in another document prepared by the City Planning Department:  the 2006 NB Comprehensive Plan – 2007 Annual Report.

In striking contrast to the 2006 Future Land Use Plan, the 2007 Annual Report actually spells out goals and objectives for a sustainable model for future growth and development. The report recognizes the 21^st Century challenges of limited natural and economic resources. When the outer loop was first drawn around New Braunfels in 1964, no one could conceive that there may be a limit to resources – water, clean air, cheap gasoline.

We have an opportunity to collectively re-think the direction the city wants to go. The Outer Loop Study and the 2006 Future Land Use Plan should be set aside, and instead a comprehensive land plan for growth should be developed as a collaborative effort by stakeholders representing various interests. In a fashion similar to the inclusive process used to arrive at the Downtown Implementation Plan, this effort could be put into action by the mayor and City Council and be lead by a planning consultant. The beauty of this process is that many voices would shape the plan, resulting in shared vision for growth.

The written goals of the 2007 Annual Report can serve as a jumping off point for a collaborative planning effort. Some of the stated goals in the report are:

• Allow different uses in close proximity to help streets, public spaces and pedestrian-oriented retail become places where people meet, attracting pedestrians back into the street and helping to revitalize the community life.
• Enable residents to live within walking or a short commuting distance from their work, school, and shopping.
• Change the zoning ordinance to provide districts that allow mixed uses.
• Approve rezoning that provides for a mix of land uses.
• Integrate compact design into mixed use developments.
• Encourage designs that provide for the preservation and protection of open space and natural resources and minimize disturbance of native vegetation.
• Work with developers to make a more efficient use of land and resources and discourage sprawl.
• Promote development patterns which make it less expensive to provide municipal infrastructure and services.
• Acquire or set aside as much land as possible along the Guadalupe and Comal Rivers, and creeks within the 100-year flood plain and develop that land as greenbelts for public attraction.
• Cooperate in providing commuter rail service in the San Antonio/Austin corridor.
• Provide a public transit system as the need develops. Land use and zoning should be designed so that destinations are clustered to facilitate potential future transit service and simplify route planning.
• Include consideration of historic and cultural resources in all transportation project planning.
• Provide improved pedestrian and bicycle transportation facilities.

These strategies are components of the New Urbanism and have been successfully implemented in other U. S. cities to help reverse the damage caused by 60 years of unrestrained growth. Walkable, interconnected communities are achieving greater acceptance and momentum while auto-dominated, discontinuous sprawl is beginning to lose value.

New Braunfels was once promoted as “The Beauty Spot of Texas”. A regional land use plan that expresses goals for sustainable growth will help the city and surrounding land retain its beauty and enjoy prosperity as it grows. However, we will miss a great opportunity to collaborate on a shared vision for growth if we are passive about the planned outer loop and its father, the 2006 Future Land Use Plan.

Dale Dibello is an architect who lives and practices in New Braunfels. He serves on the New Braunfels Historic Landmark Commission.

By Chris Cobb
The Herald-Zeitung

Published March 9, 2010

Construction fencing has been guiding traffic around Main Plaza for nearly a month.

It’s allowed crews to safely begin work on the four-month renovation to the plaza’s lighting and electrical systems, and it’s also given residents a glimpse at what New Braunfels would be like with only a single lane of traffic circling the city’s centerpiece.

“Overall, the reaction I’ve gotten has been very positive,” said City Councilor Mike Ybarra. “I think most residents have enjoyed it because that inside lane has been such a problem for so long, particularly for people who are coming in from out of town.”

The possibility of a one-lane Main Plaza was written into the city’s Downtown Implementation Plan, which was passed in January.

It has not been proposed, or even discussed at length by the New Braunfels City Council, but the current construction acted as a small testing ground for a possible closure of the inside traffic lane.

The city has taken any steps to formally gauge community reaction to the traffic choking, but councilors agreed that the community response to a slimmer Main Plaza has been a good one.

“I’ve received a number of reactions, and quite frankly, the positives have outweighed the negatives,” said Mayor Bruce Boyer.

Boyer said things could change though, once the summer tourism rush sets in and more people are using the single traffic lane, especially since cars already have been backed up to the Landa Street overpass during peak hours.

If the council was to seriously consider choking Main Plaza traffic, Boyer said they also would need to weigh the impact traffic lights and the railroad on West San Antonio Street would have on the amount of cars backed up at the circle.

“There are a lot of things we would have to take into account if we were to ever officially look into making some permanent changes,” he said.

The $192,000 electrical upgrade is expected to have residents utilize one lane until June.

By then, councilors are expecting to have a clearer picture of whether the traffic plan might work.

“I haven’t had a single complaint,” said Councilor Kathleen Krueger.

By Chris Cobb
The Herald-Zeitung

Published February 10, 2010

Upcoming construction could give residents and city officials a look at the future of downtown — a future with just one lane of traffic whirling around Main Plaza.

The city will start to overhaul the lighting and audio systems on Main Plaza beginning this week.

The $192,000 installation of new bulbs, speakers and wiring is expected to close down one lane of traffic around the plaza for four months.

In doing so, it also could illustrate if the traffic calming strategies outlined in the recently passed downtown implementation plan might work.

Consulting firm Torti-Gallas Partners first brought up the possibility of squeezing traffic around Main Plaza down to a single lane in May of 2009, in an effort to make it safer for both cars and pedestrians.

The idea was met with skepticism by some in the community, and city officials said the installation of the new electrical system might prove to be an unintended testing ground for the controversial notion.

“That was not the purpose of this construction, but we’ll see how it goes,” said Mayor Bruce Boyer. “Hopefully it won’t stop people from going through downtown and they’ll get used to it.”

City Manager Mike Morrison said the four-month closure could give city officials an idea of where the traffic might back up, and what issues might arise if the city were to ever pursue the plan’s recommended “road diet.”

“It would give a good idea of where the trouble spots might be if we were to ever move forward,” he said, noting that cones and construction barriers would change drivers’ reactions. “Just naturally, I think that affects people. So it won’t be an exact test, but it should give us a pretty good idea of what happens when you shrink Main Plaza down to one lane.”

The plan also called to have one lane of traffic traveling each way down San Antonio Street and Seguin Avenue, with a center turn lane in the middle.

There are no current plans to move to move forward with the road diet, as it’s just one of more than 100 possible ideas outlined in the downtown implementation plan. Morrison said the plan steering committee will be meeting with the New Braunfels City Council later this month to begin to prioritize what downtown improvements should be at the top of the city’s to-do list.

But with the plaza construction not scheduled to finish until June, drivers and city officials should have an idea of how traffic would flow through a narrow Main Plaza.

“It’s a good test run for us,” Morrison said.

City, County exploring ways to regulate rentals
By Chris Cobb
The Herald-Zeitung

Published February 3, 2010

Homeowners are asking local governments to find some creative ways to quiet down unruly visitors.

Residents countywide have long argued that many rental properties are overcrowded, and full of loud, disorderly, and often drunken visitors on any given weekend.

“People have registered complaints that have ranged from excessive number of people, parking, trash, disorderly conduct — all kinds of things,” Planning Director Shannon Mattingly told the city’s Planning Commission Tuesday.

Both the City of New Braunfels and Comal County are working toward solutions to those issues by addressing the behavior of tenants in short-term rental properties — whether it be through zoning, by ordinance or through septic system regulation.

The effort is an attempt to be fair to property owners looking to make a profit on their rental homes, while being sympathetic to neighbors fed up with the conduct of tourists, said Planning Chair Cheryl Casteel.

“We’re trying to balance those two interests, and it’s not easy,” she said.

In a special workshop Tuesday, the city planning commission discussed imposing possible caps on the number of people who would be allowed in a rental property at any given time, as well as limiting the number of cars allowed to park on those properties.

Right now, the city grants case-by-case special use permits to allow property owners to rent out their vacation homes on a short-term basis. The commission also discussed creating possible zoning distinctions to allow rentals in certain neighborhoods.

But some residents and a few members of the planning commission said most the problems require legal, not legislative solutions.

“I’m trying to get to the core issues of the problem, and most of them seem to be behavioral and should be taken care of by law enforcement,” said Planning Commissioner Cory Elrod.

The commission ultimately decided to revisit the issue of short-term rentals at another workshop on Feb. 16.

COMAL COUNTY

County residents outside the city limits are also struggling to reign in the behavior of short-term rental tenants.

But unlike the city, County Commissioners have no zoning or land-use authority.

So property owners on the Guadalupe River have sought to take an environmental avenue to curb excessive overcrowding in rental homes.

To cut down the number of people renting the house next door, homeowners submitted a complaint to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in 2005. It stated that the septic systems in rented, single-family homes can’t handle the load of effluent produced by a large group of people, and could possibly contaminate the Guadalupe River.

The TCEQ agreed, and ordered Comal County to begin forcing the owners of short-term rental properties to install larger septic systems or make other changes to accommodate any increased occupancy.

“If you do have a high number of occupants in the house every weekend for three straight months in a single family home, it could affect the system,” said County Engineer Tom Hornseth. “So many of those complaints were not just because of land-use or behavioral issues, but were legitimate environmental concerns.”

But those with rental properties said there’s been no evidence of any contamination presented by the county or TCEQ, and don’t think it’s fair to have pay for new septic systems just because someone is unhappy with the tourists next door.

“The people that are sick of what’s going on already have their remedy, they can call the sheriff’s office,” said Shelby McDougall, the property manager of Scenic River Properties. “They don’t need to call the septic police.”

He said, depending on the property, installing a new septic system could cost anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000.

“We sympathize with the people who get disturbed, because it is a problem,” he said. “But this is not the remedy.”

Comal County Judge Danny Scheel said commissioners would set up a committee to evaluate the issue, and with input from TCEQ, try to find a solution.

Like the city, the county is trying to strike a balance between a person’s right to rent out a property, and someone else’s right to peace and quiet.

“I certainly have no problem with someone trying to rent out their house, but we don’t want it to get carried away and have 20 people in a two-bedroom home,” Scheel said. “We need to find a way to where it’s reasonable for everyone involved.”