City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Good evening. We're gonna call this Monday, 04/27/2026 city council meeting to order. Missus Wilkinson, will you please call roll?

Council member Carter? Here. Council member Capisi?

Here.

Council member Edwards? Here. Mayor Pro Temps Bradley?

Here.

Council member Lebowski? Here. Council member Ryan? Here. And mayor Leonard?

Here. We have a quorum. And council member Carter is gonna lead us in the invocation followed by the pledges.

Including the recent attempt on the life of our president, we ask for calm hearts, steady minds, and a renewed commitment unity over division. Let respect reign in this chamber and throughout our city. Let peace guide our words and decisions. We give thanks for our law enforcement officers and firefighters who stand ready in the face of danger with courage and resolve. Grant them strength and protection. May wisdom and grace guide us all. Amen.

We get to start our meeting with on a positive note. So we're gonna issue a proclamation. Is that everybody? So whereas the Jean and Sue McLean community arts program of New Braunfels Inc is celebrating its eleventh anniversary in providing weekly free one on one professional instruction to special elementary school children in piano, guitar, violin, singing and music And whereas this program's mission is to promote creativity and confidence in these children through personal expression by learning to play musical instruments, group singing, and art lessons. And whereas by fostering cognitive, social, and emotional development, this program empowers students to discover their unique talents and express themselves with confidence.

And whereas, the program cultivates a sense of pride and self awareness while building lifelong skills that extend far beyond the arts, and whereas teachers, parents, and the students themselves have acknowledged the personal personal achievements of the children in this program, and whereas just as participation in sports such as football, basketball, baseball, tennis, swimming, and all other activities are known to enrich a child's growth and ability to develop lifelong mature habits, so equally does the exposure to and participation in performance on musical instruments in singing and creation and arts. And whereas the Jean and Sue McLean Community Arts Program of New Braunfels Inc. Stands as a testament to the transformative power of the arts helping young people overcome challenges, build resilience, and realize their full potential as human beings and citizens in our community. And whereas, this organization will celebrate its anniversary by having its annual children's recital and art exhibition on Tuesday, May 5 at 05:30PM in the parish hall of Saint John's Episcopal Church at 312 South Ginther Avenue, New Braunfels, Texas. And whereas the public is cordially invited to attend the recital and art exhibition and to enjoy refreshments thereafter.

Now therefore, be it resolved that I, Neil Leonard, mayor of the city of New Braunfels, Texas, hereby proclaim 05/05/2025 as children's music and art instruction day.

If you don't mind, I'll I'll read it. Good evening, everyone. I'm deeply honored to stand before you today as we celebrate this incredible moment, the recognition of our community arts program through the city proclamation. On behalf of our entire team, our students, and their families, thank you. This acknowledgment means more than words can fully capture.

Our program was built on a simple but powerful belief that every child deserves a safe space to be seen, heard, and inspired. For the students we serve, many of whom face challenges far beyond their years, music, singing, and visual art are not just extracurricular activities. They are lifelines. They are a way to process emotions, to build confidence, and to discover a sense of identity and belonging. This proclamation is not just a recognition of a program.

It's a recognition of potential. It says to our students, your voice matters. Your creativity matters. You matter. I wanna thank our dedicated instructors, volunteers, and partners who show up every Tuesday with compassion and commitment. And to our students, wish they were here. They're just so sweet, and they inspire us. Their creativity inspires us. As we celebrate today, we also look ahead. This honor strengthens our resolve to continue expanding opportunities, reaching more children and nurturing the artists and leaders of tomorrow. Thank you.

Why don't we get the rest of the house together, we'll take a group picture. We have some other people. Anybody else here with this group? If you're here with this group, come on up. We're gonna all scrunch in together.

Okay. Next up is citizens communication. This is a time for citizens to address the city council on issues and items of concern that are not on this agenda. There'll be no city council action at this time. If you'd like to address council, please step up to the podium, state your name, whether you're a resident, non resident, or live in the ETJ.

Jim Holster, resident. I wanted to follow-up. There was a pretty good presentation last a couple of well, I guess almost a month ago on the housing project and the report on the housing authority, is across the way here. But there were some questions I had after listening to press. I even went back, listened to it.

The city man, assistant city manager and I had a conversation about it, so I did go back and look, listen to it. So this right here is where this apartment this new public facilities corporation is going to put a kind of a housing, like a public housing project, but not quite the same, through very tax incentives that the city is going to give away. And I'm not saying it's a bad project, but next slide. This is where it's going to be located if you live here in New Braunfels. Gonna be on Loop 337.

And you're going before you get to River Road, if you're headed towards Austin, you'll see that we'll have to enter and you will see all the houses here in District 3 that we backed up to it. There's gonna be, I think, three stories. It's going to, as a result, if your house is near it, well, you might have been able to see the hill country previously, but once this goes up, that view will be Pretty, pretty similar to other things that have happened here in New Braunfels, especially out in Green, where I had some friends that lived there and they built the apartment complexes three and four stories next to them. Next slide. Now this was one that the Alamo Area Finance Corporation, but it's really the same animal.

Next slide please. And I'm really leaving this for you to look at. Next slide. Well, guess I'm going to have trouble maneuvering this thing. There. There, it's gonna deal with the missing middle here. And what we need to know is that this will help people who struggling, could be teachers. Next slide. Target demographic. I just want you all to review this so you have an opportunity to look at it later on.

Next slide. This is the 80%. I think even the new one that Citi is negotiating right now, public benefit. Next slide, Next slide. Project overview. Well, it's going be over here near so back then, the selling point was that teachers from New Braunfels High School could walk down there. They wouldn't need cars anymore in the city of New Braunfels. Kinda silly. But it, but that was actually what was in the presentation. So I, I want you to view it, look at it.

It has a lot of detail that was not in the presentation that that mister Alvarez did. Now, based on what mister Alvarez said, several questions came up. Miss miss Lebowski asked a very good question because the question came up, well, who's gonna serve the elderly? Because this is not gonna serve the elderly. How do I know that? Because if you go across the building over there, it's five stories. And what do five story buildings normally have? Elevators. It has an elevator. So, we know this will not serve the elderly because there's no provisions in it to serve the elderly.

Because it's a three story building and the developer told me that there are no, there's no requirement they elevators. So forget the elderly there. Now, what accommodations will be made? Obviously none. Mister Alvarez said Laurel Plaza is not for the elderly. Well, seven years ago, when I looked at the data, it was. And that was management practice. He's changed his management practice not to focus on the elderly. Why would he do that? Because their income is based on 30% of the income.

And if you're elderly, don't have as much income as those people that are working. So he needs it to generate income, and I understand why he's doing it. Now, what I would suggest is that what's gonna happen to Laurel Plaza? That wasn't covered in this presentation. Are we gonna tear it down?

So that the elderly will have nothing? Again, and what provisions are y'all going to send to NBISD for their participation project? I sent them an open records request and they said I have to, excuse me, they said I have to talk to you guys, which is the same thing mister Alvarez said. So the secret, what is the secret there? The final thing I would suggest is that, so that y'all stay in touch if we're only gonna do once a year, that we have a sleepover at the housing authority when there's a vacant room.

That could be the mayor, a sleepover, and I'll even go with you. And we'll see how the facility functions if it's going to remain as Laurel Plaza. Thank you very much. Think about that sleepover. Thank you.

Seeing no one else, we'll close citizens communication. Next item up is consent agenda. All items listed below are considered to be routine and non controversial by the city council and will be approved by one motion. There'll be no separate discussion of these items unless a council member or citizen so request in which case the item can be removed from the consent agenda and considered as part of the normal order of business. Citizens must be present to pull an item. Missus Wilkinson, have any items been pulled?

No, sir.

Council, any items you want to pull? No. Okay. Tonight, we'll be taking up action items a through g as well as resolutions starting with H, the approval of a resolution approving the submission of a grant application to the U. S.

Department of Homeland Security, Urban Area Security Initiative or UASI regular projects grant for project year 2026 to request funding toward the purchase of tactical medical unit communication systems, a dive trailer and two police utility terrain utility terrain vehicles or UTVs and their associated trailers and designation of the city manager of the grant as the grant's authorized official to act on behalf of the city and all matters related to the grant if awarded and designation of the director of finance as the financial officer for the grant. Approval of a resolution for a memorandum of understanding between Comal County and the City Of New Braunfels supporting the submission of a grant application for the purchase of updated recruiting materials from the New Braunfels Police Department using a joint allocation of funding by the fiscal year twenty twenty five Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program local solicitation. Approval of a resolution of the New Braunfels City Council authorizing the submission for funding under the Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority fiscal year 2027 SB two twenty four catalytic converter grant program designating the city manager or their designee as authorized official to act on behalf of the city in all matters related to the grant including the execution of all required documentation and designating Jace Hobbs or his designee as program director and Sandy Pollos or her designee as finance officer for the grant if awarded.

Approval of a resolution adopting New Braunfels Arts and Culture Master Plan and ordinances beginning with approval of the first reading of an ordinance amending chapter one thirty four of the city of New Braunfels Code of Ordinances related to the New Braunfels Police Department's rotation list system for incident management tows and updating fees charged by tow companies to the vehicle owners. Approval of the second and final reading of an ordinance in accordance with adopted agreements with the property owner to annex for limited purposes Lots 12 And 900 Block 2 Mayfair South Ransom Commercial Subdivision consisting of approximately 10 acres, approval of a second final reading of an ordinance updating section 86 dash three rules and regulations for control of park and recreation areas of the city near Braunfels code of ordinances authorizing the city manager to set operating hours for city parks facilities and parks concessions. Motion for

approval. I'll second.

Mayor Pro Tem Spradley moves for approval. Council Member Ryan seconds. Mrs. Wilkinson will you please call roll.

Council Member Carter. Aye. Council Member Capizzi.

Aye.

Council Member Edwards. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Spradley. Aye. Council member Lebowski. Aye. Council member Ryan. Aye. Mayor Leonard.

Aye. Motion carries unanimously. Next up is a public hearing and first reading of an ordinance requested by John Holler to rezone approximately 1.5 acres of the Baystone Subdivision Lots 1 And 2 from R2 Ah single family and two family airport hazard overlay and R2AH SUP single family and two family airport hazard overlay district with the special use permit for multifamily use to C1AH Neighborhood Business Airport hazard District currently addressed at 222 And 224 Lane. Mr. Sumant?

Good evening, Mayor Leonard and council members. Matthew Sumant with Neighborhood and Community Planning. The property being requested for rezoning is approximately 1.5 acres in area with frontage along Alvis Lane and existing minor arterial. The site is approximately one third of a mile northeast of the intersection of Alvis Lane and State Highway 46 South. A duplex was constructed in 2022 at the rear of

quarter 20 year.

20. The The applicant first is requesting a rezoning to C1A, which is the neighborhood business district. The applicant is requesting the rezoning so that an assisted living facility may be developed on the property, which is intended to provide light nonmedical caregiving support in a quiet residential style environment. Staff recommends approval. C1A is appropriate at this location as it is intended to accommodate various low impact neighborhood uses, which includes an assisted living facility.

The request is consistent with environs new Braunfels, the strategic master plan. Public hearing notices were sent to 28 owners of property within two hundred feet of the request and five responses have been I'm sorry, six responses have been received and are reflected on the response map. This concludes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions and I believe the applicant is here to present their request.

Mr. Samant, is this does it require super majority?

It does not. Okay. No.

All right, any other questions for Mr. Simonte? All right, does the applicant have anything they'd like to add?

Yes, sir. Thank you. My name is John Hollard. Thank you for letting me speak this evening. This facility is designed to be a low key kind of an operation.

They'll be mainly it's a type B. The folks that will be staying with us take very little care. We'll have care there for them, but it won't be any medical procedures or anything like that performed with them. So they'll basically just come there to live out their final moments and stuff. And I do have the partnership with the operator here so she can explain they've done this in several other neighborhoods and it's fit well in those residential neighborhoods without creating any type of real traffic issues or any other disturbances that would be unseemingly for the neighborhood. If you don't mind, I'd like to have her speak as well.

Hi, I'm Norma Baloo, and we currently own in San Antonio and Comal County assisted livings. They are all type b assisted livings. We're looking to expand to New Braunfels area. Like mister John explained, they're a lower level of care. We're not gonna, you know, have a lot of ambulance coming in and out. A lot of the residents that we do assist currently come with some memory loss, and there's just to age in place. We plan on keeping each facility small, 16 bed max. We're looking to do 12 at this new duplex. We have been doing this for about thirty years. I work with my parents.

My dad is a registered nurse, so we do live within twenty minutes maybe of the community. And yeah, we are just hoping to help the community and expand out towards New Braunfels. I think we are doing well and take care of lots of families and we are happy to always help

the community however we can.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Council, any questions for the applicant?

I have a question.

How many as far as the ratio between your residents and caregivers, what does that look like?

So currently, right now, we have 16 residents. And during the day, we have anywhere between three to four caregivers. At night, we have two. It all depends. We kind of go based on the population. If a lot of residents walk a lot, interact more, we bring in more caregivers. A lot of them are bed bound or wheelchair bound, things like that. We don't need as many people, right? Because the walkers, we just have to make sure they're safe, they're not at fall risk, and things like that. So you need more personnel. But if pretty much we can keep a routine, we will bring in about three in a day.

And who stays overnight?

The caregivers.

Caregivers.

Yeah. Have 20 fourseven staffing.

And those are rotating staff or that's Yes. With

Rotating, yes. Everybody will be rotating. We do not have live in caregivers.

And so they don't have a place to like, that's what you're saying. Caregivers are technically not using this as their home as well?

No, not at all. No, we want them to go home, get some rest, and it gives more jobs to the community. Okay,

well thank you. We'll open this to public hearing. If anybody would like to speak to this item, step up to the podium, state your name, whether you're a resident, non resident or live in the ETJ. Seeing none, we'll close public hearing. Any discussion?

So I do have a question because I've had some calls on this in regards to it's in the middle of a neighborhood and I see I mean that there is some opposition on this.

I'm sorry you said you have calls about it and what was that? I'm so sorry.

That it's in the middle of a neighborhood. We're changing it from a neighborhood residential zoning into a commercial zoning, and and they were very worried about that.

So a lot of our residents do aging in place. At some point, most of them turn into hospice patients. So they are there to just age in place. They have their nursing has come out. Like today, the 40 residents that we help in total of all three communities, I would say about 95% of them have a DNR, a do not resuscitate, and they are on hospice services. So we don't even call the ambulance if they have a DNR. We call hospice and a nurse shows up. So there's not a lot of traffic, especially being a smaller community. A lot of families live out of town, not in the area. So it won't bring a lot of traffic or ambulance or fire.

We do currently all our other three assisted livings are in neighborhoods. Well, like one is right off of 1863, the other one is 3009, and another one is in Timberwood area.

We have some pictures. If we could bring the slides up past the presentation, we have pictures of our current facility. Okay.

There we go.

Okay. So here is what the villages of Garden Ridge looks like. It's a type b, 16 bed facility, also has twenty four seven staffing. This is right off of eighteen sixty three on five acres.

This is the layout that's proposed for this particular property.

Oops. Sorry.

Nope. That's not us.

That's not us. Okay. Sorry.

Right there. That's it.

So your residents don't get no visitors at all?

Some do.

I mean, like today

My belief is I have people I have family in in nurse in assisted living nursing homes.

They do get visitors. I would say, it just depends. Right now, we have somebody that has their husband visit every day, but that's all that visits her. Or some live out of town. It's not like we're going to have 50 cars at once. I would say on a busy day and that's usually Mondays because you have the hospice nurses coming in. You have everybody starting their week. A parking lot might have, like, max 12 cars.

I I know when I go visit my family, the parking lot's full, and we're having to park somewhere else.

So I don't know how large the community you're going to is, but this is

It's here in New Braunfels.

Is it a 16 bed community?

I'm sorry?

Is it a 16 bed community, meaning the max residence is 16 bed, 16 people?

I don't I don't really think that that would matter though.

Well I just ask because like since we're smaller, there's not as many visitors all at once. And

then So

is the concern the parking or the traffic because

I think that both, both and then being, we're changing it from residential to commercial. Have Something that comes here

uses like this, senior hospice there are halfway houses for senior care that you have sober houses that operate in residential. There are a number of factors in this grouping that comply or fit with residential. And this is probably an issue whether it should have been done as an SUP or a change of zoning. But I can see where it's beneficial and it's not contradictory to surrounding area because of the type and service it is. And the other thing is you're trying to put these closer to residents that may be in aging and the type ability.

So even though I think it's more a situation that maybe the neighbors don't understand is why they're having concern because just the general zoning says well it could be all of these things and yet there's a specific use designed to go in here currently. So that would my only comment.

And also comment to that. This is not, we have facilities like this already in our community.

Yes. And I don't know if you have a 16 bed one but I do know y'all have 32 bed ones.

Okay, any other discussion?

Did I hear you say, I thought you said somewhere when you were doing the presentation something about it being zoned or a fourplex was intended there. So did I hear something? That's correct.

Front property, the smaller one was rezoned previously. It's probably been five years or so to allow for a fourplex on that property.

Okay. So I think just and the reason I bring that up is I think kind of keeping things in perspective. If there was a fourplex there with an average of two vehicles per fourplex, you're looking at about eight vehicles in and out for any time of the day, right? I mean could be normal consideration there.

And they didn't have any teenagers.

Right. And none of the residents in this home are drivers, correct?

Mostly, I think so. So Those are more independent.

And it's a usually a max of four staffers there at any given time, right?

Right. Yes.

Okay. So traffic and parking are going be less of an impact than

if this was residential. Exactly what I'm doing. Yeah, Mayor. That's correct.

Well are there other commercial services such as cleaning and laundry?

So everything is in house, yes. Caregivers take care of all currently.

I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second.

Yeah, I'll second a motion

to approve. Someone has seconded.

Council Member Capizi made the motion to approve and Mayor Pro Tem Spradley seconded. All in favor, raise your right hand. All opposed, raise your right hand. Motion carries, five-two. Okay.

Next item is a public hearing and first reading of an ordinance requested by Killing Griffin and Fairmont, PLLC on behalf of Farmers Mutual Fire, Leslie Lamers and Tom Tomlinson, Melvin Nolte Jr, Chad L. Nolte, Sandra J. Nolte, Comal Properties LLC and Q Dream LLC to rezone approximately 2.112 acres out of City Blocks 20042007 And 2014 from C2 General Business District, M1 Light Industrial District and M1SUP Light Industrial District with a special use permit for a short term rental to MUBSUP High Intensity mixed Use district with a special use permit currently addressed at 342352 And 353 East Bridge Street, 343 And 353 East Mill Street, 218232266 And 288 North Market Avenue and 309 And 351 East San Antonio Street. And Mrs. Matney, I'm going to recuse myself rejoin on the next item.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem, the floor is yours. Thank you, mayor. I'm glad you read all that, Stephanie.

Mayor Pro Tem, City Council, good evening. Jordan Matney, Deputy City Manager. Tonight, you are considering some additional properties to what will eventually be the redevelopment of the Dittlinger Mill property located in our historic downtown. So I wanted to provide a little bit of history about this property. The property dates all the way back to 1880 and was originally known as the Dittlinger Mill.

It was a large mill for the production of flour and seed. In the late twentieth century, ADM purchased that property, so that's why sometimes you hear it called the Dittlinger Mill, sometimes we refer to it as the ADM Mill. They operated continuously until that property closed after a hundred and thirty years in March 2023. The rest of the property previously came before the city council for rezoning in December 2024, and we really have an opportunity right now to to take what was formerly a very heavy industrial use in the heart of our historic downtown and create a very unique opportunity for redevelopment. The site is just under nine and a half acres and has a city park within the in the center of the development.

Redevelopment of this site affords us several opportunities. Number one, the plan calls for significant flood plain preservation. We know how important that is to our community and how important it is along the Comal River as well. The plan also, when the applicant gets up and makes presentation, they're gonna have some really great renderings for you to view, and you'll see a pedestrian bridge and some enhancements, some additional open space in that area that will be a wonderful addition to the existing tube shoot park, to the Comal River, and then, of course, to Prince Salms Park as well. So it calls for a pedestrian bridge over, the Comal River connecting Henman Island and Prince Salms Park.

This converts a low intensity industrial use to a very high value mixed use. It increases the value, so currently the Dittlinger Mill properties pay about $10,000 annually in their city portion of taxes to the city. Of course, with redevelopment, that will increase significantly. This property is located in TERS 3, so it will also significantly increase the increment so that we can do major capital investment within TERS 3. And then of course improved pedestrian connectivity in downtown and linking the core of downtown to the Comal River, which we've talked about for many years.

You can see here the properties that are outlined. They are primarily along Market Avenue, West of East San Antonio Street. They are asking for that property to be rezoned as the same as to the same as the abutting properties, which I mentioned was rezoned previously in December 2024. This will, of course, allow for the overall redevelopment of the former and ADM mill site. The adjacent properties include, of course, the vacant mill and all of their parking surfaces.

The Prince Alms Inn, some short term rentals, offices, and some houses as well. They most of the lots are currently zoned manufacturing. The two at the corner of East San Antonio Street and Market are zoned commercial currently. This, of course, as I mentioned, was a formerly a heavy industrial use and will be rezoned to MUB mixed use with a special use overlay to allow for hotel, residential, restaurants, retail, offices, parking facilities. Here's our notification map.

So as of 4PM today, 27 property owners within 200 feet of the subject property have been notified. Eight responses have been sent in in favor and opposition. I want to go over some of the policy alignment for this project. So this project is unlike a lot of projects in our community. I don't think I've ever seen a project that aligns more thoroughly with policies across multiple divisions and departments in our city.

So, you see outlined Envision New Braunfels. I have two slides where it aligns with policy from Envision New Braunfels. Of course, I'm not going to go over all of these, but I do want to highlight just a couple. Action 1.6, incentivizing infill development and redevelopment. 1.15, implement downtown improvements.

3.4, revitalize the core of New Braunfels. 3.21, enhance local recreational venues. As I mentioned, when the applicant comes up here, you're gonna see some renderings of increased open space for the public, enhancements to the public space that is already down there, flood plain preservation. Action 4.26, enhancing sense of place through unique spaces. 7.27, encouraging thoughtful mixed use projects that blend in with the character and design of the community.

7.43, locating parking on underutilized part parcels citywide and within core attraction corridors through collaboration with private property owners. As we continue to explore parking in downtown, we are working with private property owners as they redevelop their properties. Of course, they will be parking on-site. We hope to work with them to upsize those parking amenities to provide for public parking in addition to parking on-site. Our land use fiscal analysis, we have significant policy alignment as well, providing a mix of uses and building types in a more walkable context, prioritizing infill infill projects that add people and buildings in areas where existing infrastructure already exists.

This will increase tax revenue without significant impacts on services and infrastructure costs. So in downtown, of course,

we have

roadway, utility infrastructure. We also currently have all of our other city services, solid waste, police, and fire, servicing those areas. Alignment with our strategic plan as well, you can see here four out of the five strategic priorities are highlighted that align with this project. Just to highlight a few, economic mobility, incentivizing mixed use developments and redevelopments in targeted locations, community identity, beautification and streetscape enhancements, community identity, protecting historic structures, preserving an increasing green space and tree canopy, and protecting natural resources, and then community well-being, reconnecting the community by mitigating highways, waterways, and other transportation facilities. For our downtown implementation plan, we, again, of course, talk about infill opportunities and infill development, increasing the number of residents downtown.

We talk about this a lot. All of small businesses in our downtown rely on people being in downtown, spending money and shopping, visiting their restaurants every day of the week. Right? Not just Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So adding more residents in downtown, of course, helps with that.

It also the downtown implementation plan also identified large industrial lots in the downtown for perfect perfect for revitalization efforts. Those those spaces create a barrier to the continued revitalization of downtown when you have a large heavy industrial use in a historic downtown. And then the downtown implementation plan was adopted in 2010. And since that time, we've been talking about a pedestrian bridge over the Comal. So this is a real opportunity.

And then as we've talked about previously, the New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation recently adopted strategic priorities. Two of those two of those four strategic priorities align with this project as well, planning and infrastructure and enhancing sense of place. Before I hand it over to the applicant, I did just wanna follow-up that staff and the planning commission both recommend approval with the conditions that are outlined in the memo. Those can the the SUP conditions include parking garage design standards, building setbacks, and stair step standards to protect the nearby residences. And so at this time, I'll turn it over to the app. Okay.

Miss Matney? Yes, If you don't mind, I have a question.

Yes, sir.

Can you explain to the audience what TERS 3 is?

Yes. Great. Great question. TERS 3 is a tax increment reinvestment zone. It is established over downtown. The borders kind of extend in all four directions. Borders This is at one end of that tax increment reinvestment zone. What that tax increment reinvestment zone is zone does is set a baseline of value at when that was adopted. And any increase in value is the increment that can be reinvested within those boundaries in public infrastructure improvements and quality of life improvements. So the redevelopment of this property will create a significant increment that will be used to reinvest in our historic downtown.

Wasn't that also in the downtown implementation plan to have a tourist

to Absolutely. Yes.

I thought so. And then you mentioned increase in property value. You have any idea of what what it may be?

Yeah, that's hard to project just because the project is still new. Currently

the ADM property was $10,000

It will be a tremendous increase. Significant more than that? Okay. Yes.

Thank you. Anybody else have questions for Ms. Mann? And

this will include a parking garage downtown?

Yes, ma'am. It will include a parking garage. We are in conversations with the developer about the construction of that park parking garage and ensuring that there there is sufficient space to park the development, but also additional space for public parking as well. So it's a tremendous opportunity.

Thank you. Hope you got one?

I'll wait until the final presentation.

Hi. Good evening, counsel. Ashley Fairmont with Killing Griffin and Fairmont. Nice to see you all and thank you, Jordan. I'm here tonight on behalf of the developer of this project. Jordan did a great job summarizing, so I I will add to it as as best as I can. But everyone here, I think, is familiar with the Dittlinger Mill. As Jordan mentioned, it was in operation for a hundred and thirty seven years. But in 2023, ADM closed that mill and it's been vacant since then. The goal here is to create an adaptive reuse project to take what's there, celebrate the history of the mill, but make it a place where people can go, where people can live and visit, and really enjoy outside and also have that historic aspect honored really.

As was mentioned in December 2024, nine and a half acres of this area was rezoned from a mixture of commercial and industrial to the MUB, which we're asking for tonight, with a specific use permit. And along with that came a lot of conditions. And so what we're trying to do as additional properties are being added, it squares off some of the blocks, but we're really trying to have a consistent zoning over the entirety of the project. So the two acres or so that we're adding are outlined in green here, but you can still see the aerial beneath, and then everything with the white background is what was rezoned in 2024. Another thing that you may remember came to council last year was a street closure.

There's right of way portion of Bridge Street that is next to the Tube Shoe property that was never improved. And as part of this project, council approved the closure of that right of way and the sale of it. And so if this property and project goes through, when it's platted, we will pay for that right of way which is $435,000 to the city. Again, the the rezoning request, and really important here is trying to get rid of the industrial zoning. So what's currently allowed under the industrial zoning and the SUP for the short term rental, but really that industrial base zoning allows for a lot of uses, allows for a whole lot of commercial uses that would fit in with the project.

But it allows for a lot of industrial uses that I don't think anybody wants to see here. So we're trying to get rid of that. The commercial at the corner also try for that piece really just trying to have consistent zoning over the entire property. There are some uses in the commercial zoning that are also restricted in the MUV such as everything associated with automotive. So automotive repair, those types of things would go away with the rezoning on that commercial piece at the hard corner.

So vision and design. As I previously mentioned, it's proposed to be a mixed use project and thinks there's just such a great opportunity here to take advantage of the history of this site, access to the river, city park, outdoor space, the floodplain which can be used for outdoor space as well, and then the proximity to downtown. So this site plan here, we zoning, as you all know, is very early on in the process. So the project is not fully designed. These additional two acres are are really critical to this project and how it will be designed.

So it's very important for us tonight to have that rezoning approved so that the project has that one comprehensive zoning over the entirety. But what this does show is kind of what we envision as the buildable areas. So in the black would be new structures, not covering the entirety of those black areas, but just where you would maybe see new structures on the property. A few things to point out here is also the existing structures. So it's, again, important the history of this site.

So the striped structures will remain. So you can see the mill property which fronts on San Antonio Street, the silos which would remain. There is a large tank that's there that was in the first picture I showed, And then there's also a warehouse building that would stay too. So we think that really adds to the character and creates something that's very unique for this project. Another thing here is this, it's a little hard to see, but it says the mill spine. So that is kind of the the heart of the project. So it runs down the center. It used to be Gilbert Street, but that was closed by ADM. So it's actually owned and part of this project. It's where the old train tracks run, so that will also be incorporated into the project.

But the idea, and we'll show you on the next slides here, but is to create this pedestrian community space. So a place where people can go eat, they can shop, you know, meet your friends, meet your family, or live here. You know, all of these things are very important, but again, creates this kind of sense of community, which is the goal. Just some other outdoor spaces which are really critical to the project, we believe. This is what we call Silo Square.

So if you look here, this is next to the silos. You can kind of see it towards the bottom of the property. But again, outdoor space for outdoor movies, farmer's markets, those types of things. Just to give you a few more visuals. This would be next to the hotel. I'll go over the uses in just a second, but there is a hotel proposed along with the project. So you can see the tank here and then the hotel would be in the background. And again, some more outdoor space. So this here is kind of the proposed use concept plan. What you see in red is commercial and retail.

Retail. And one thing to highlight, I know there's a question about it and it's really critical to the project and we think all of downtown, we know it's a concern, is parking. So number seven on here would be where a parking garage would go. You know there's a new city light proposed at Market in San Antonio Street, so this parking garage would be as close to that light as possible. And the the idea here in one of the SUP conditions that it's not just a garage, so it needs to be lined with commercial space.

You're not going to see a garage at the ground level. You would see a store or a restaurant or something that is more engaging to a pedestrian or somebody traveling to this property. And again, also the economic benefit of this project, I think you all are aware, but the idea of sales tax in addition to the ad valorem, that's pretty important here. So that parking garage, the idea right now, again still under design, but is that it is oversized to accommodate not only this project, but also the parking needs and some of them as best as possible that are currently existing. 500 plus spaces is what we currently looking at.

Other uses on here, again, red is retail, restaurant, and then blue, which you can sort of see around some of the red, would be office. So idea of creating again, you know, the mill was a place where people worked. We also want this not only to be a place people visit, but people work. So there would be office space above the retail and a few of the buildings. Also, obviously, can work in the retail restaurant space as well.

The purple is the reuse and adaptation of the existing mill, and that would be a hotel space. So that would front on San Antonio Street and use the existing building. So that is the purple. And then also residential proposed as well. These communities, these mixed use communities really thrive when you have, as Jordan mentioned, people who live there, who can shop at the small coffee shops, who have that constant presence and really help the state place, you know, not only just be an office, not only be a place people come during the day, but also people are comfortable going at night.

SUP conditions. Again, this is just an extension of of what we worked with city staff on in 2024. The use restrictions. There are 87 additional use restrictions that come with the SUP. I did not include all of them here, but just some of the examples of things that are restricted from the MUB.

Again, are required to do a parking study as part of the project. The garage conditions I mentioned, surface parking lots, additional landscaping there, setbacks, the buildings, the idea the building should front along the street, again, to engage a pedestrian, create a more modern look, and so it's not a building setback with surface parking in front. One thing we have worked with city staff on and I think they're supportive of is this compatibility setback. So the setback from residential use is obviously very important, but what we've worked on is as the project has sort of shifted to include new parcels is updating this compatibility language. So what this allows for is still a 20 foot setback from residential.

However, and I'll show you an exhibit in a second, if there's not a structure, a residential structure within 50 feet of that property line, we're asking that that setback be reduced to 10 feet. And in exchange what we're doing in those setback areas is adding landscape standards. So what we feel is the best way to buffer existing residential use is with more landscaping because that is what you see and kind of what you feel. So there will be 20 feet and 10 feet of landscaping that includes trees that are three inches, which is double the code, as well as the addition of shrubs and other trees within that space. And then also what we're doing is we'd like to update the stair step standards to where we can go a little bit higher up close, but then reduce the overall height as you get further away.

So the building closest to the one residential residential area would be able to not go at quite as high as the rest of the property. In residential buffer wall, that was something back in 2024 that did feel very inclusive to have a residential buffer wall. So that is not being included. And then setback screening of dumpsters and lot coverage. So again this is the only property that that compatibility setback standard would apply to.

And so in the green you can see the 20 foot setback and then in the teal or so turquoise is where we're requesting the 10 foot setback and there's you can see there's no residential structure. And again, Chris and his team have been very helpful and so that is something that we would request tonight as part of the approval hopefully. So with that, I've talked for a long time. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Ms. Fairmont. I have one question. Do you mind expanding on the roadway improvements? You said 400 something thousand dollars for roadway improvement?

No. So this no, that's wrong. I don't know how to erase that. I'm sorry. The $435,000 is what is owed if the project moves forward for the closure of that right of way. So that's what came to council last year and was supported for closure. So when the property comes in for plotting, in order for that to actually be formally closed, the developer would have to pay the city the 435,000.

And then you also mentioned the traffic light on Market Avenue and San Antonio Street.

Yeah, believe that's a city project. Oh, okay. But as you know, traffic study will have to be done for the project.

I haven't completed a TIA or anything.

No, Thanks.

My question was great presentation. Thank you. The people have asked about the lighting. I know you all mentioned that you all were going to have it more low key. Can you go over that?

Yeah. So it'll have to comply with city downward lighting requirements and dark sky requirements. There's nothing additional in the SUP on the downward lighting, but it's pretty important to the project in that you need the security at night, but there will be people living here. So we know there's neighbors next door, but also people living in the project. So we don't want to be not too dark but but not too light also that's important.

Any other questions from council?

I have a couple. When you were talking about landscaping and there's additional requirements. Have you guys considered making sure that these are native plants and that their water use is appropriate? I know sometimes when the city we see especially our commercial people consuming a lot of water. We always want to be conscious of that. Tell me how the project is aligning with conservation efforts happening here in this area.

That's a great question. We haven't done the landscape plans yet. So I mean, that's good in that we can take the feedback. But it is important, and I know that for this developer in particular, it's pretty important. So yes, we can incorporate that in. I know water usage is a big concern. And also water runoff here is important too. So being next to the river, it's heightened scrutiny, I would say, in terms of what's planted here, what happens on the site. Again, another reason why we think this is better than industrial, but also I don't have landscape plans today but we just have the specific requirements that are in addition in the SUP but happy to take all of that feedback.

And tell me also as of now right this is our size. Do you anticipate this coming back to our table if you were to acquire additional properties or that are we are we done at this point?

There there could be additional properties. I don't think it would be anything south of I say south on this exhibit below or west of market. But there there could be some additional properties on the

other side. And obviously we would be coming back to

discuss that.

At your discretion.

Yes. Yes. Wonderful. Thank you so

conceptual plan as it is at this point right now. It's on so many different components like the pedestrian bridge, which is something that I think that's been desired by a lot of people in this community for a long time around the canal. A city park which is something that's a lot of the people here in the city desire to see as well. And then of course some accommodations made for parking too. I think you said somewhere around five hundred spaces there about And something like then I just wanted to, can we touch on just one more time too, so it's currently zoned C 2, is that correct?

It's a mixture of, let me go back. So the purple here outlined in the blue or so, that's industrial. And then there's C2 at the corner Of Market in San Antonio.

Okay. So I just wanted to point that out just for the benefit of those listening whether online or here in the audience as well too that if action was not taken to move this forward for to the M1 could you give us maybe some examples Ms. Matney of some things that would be acceptable under the current zoning right now that could go in tomorrow if somebody so chose?

Sure. So in our industrial zoning, you can have any form of manufacturing. You've got a lot of auto uses, so body shop, tire shop, auto paint, storage, mini storage, outdoor storage of boats or recreational vehicles. Christopher, do you have any you want to add to that?

Sure. Electroplating is another industrial use. Repair shops, small and large types of repair shops. Moving and transfer storage, both the equipment as well as what you're actually moving. Lumber yards, a lot of those kind of industrial, not the heavy industrial, the noxious fumes, but industrial uses.

I appreciate this. I mean, I think we all kind of get the picture there. Things that we would, I think as a community would be far less desirable than anything else along that zoning area right there. So I think this is a great, great opportunity for this city. I'm really pleased with the work that was put into it.

I like what I see so far. And I think it's also worth noting as well again too that the current property tax revenue for this, I think it's for this entire nine acre area right now or thereabouts or is bringing in roughly 10 ks a year which is what the price of a family for three or four to go to Disney maybe. So it's not much money. So I think the potential for this to really benefit the city in a lot of ways from the bridge to the park, to the parking garage, to the increased revenue to the city I think is pretty significant.

Yeah. And councilman just on that I mean there will be I don't know have an exact number but hundreds of millions of dollars invested into this project.

Absolutely.

So the property values will significantly increase but there's also

some Right and that's

what I'm getting at, yes.

And hotel occupancy. Yes.

That's what I'm saying. Compared to what it currently is now it would be significant. And all that goes back into our general fund.

And it's people centric and not industrial. Centric. Industrial runoff can go into the river and people can go to this place and enjoy them.

I do just want to really quickly, 85% of the property of the increment for property taxes stays in the TERS. Yes. Okay.

And the TERS, I mean, we've used them effectively for infrastructure and enhancement roadways and detention and a number of things of that nature. So this is a large economic driver into that. So it's an excellent project, Matt. A couple of things that in your design to consider would be an Uber or Rio drop off so that we don't interrupt traffic with constant drop off and the more that Rio is being used, it's more significance is going to come out of that. The other is enhanced cross with the amount of traffic generated by the parks and so on to make sure that they're well eliminated or they're well marked in all the different directions to go in order to provide for some safety features in there would be excellent besides the dark sky kind of things that we were talking about.

And then water catchment can be discussed in a number of designs. With this much impervious cover of the buildings and the parking garage, any catchment that you could provide for that and then the reuse or the redistribution of that water would probably be an excellent issue. And any pollutants and things that we worry about coming from the project to the river could be mitigated in that standpoint.

Thank you. Anything else from counsel? No. Okay, thank you Ms. Fairmont. Thank you. Okay, we're gonna open up for a public hearing for comments of property owners living within 200 feet within the notification area to speak. Those who in favor please come up now. And that would be no one. Okay. Anyone outside the 200 feet that would like to speak in favor? I

don't know if I'm in 200 feet or not.

Please state your name, please. Yeah.

I'm Doctor. Mary Sagert. I live at 257 East Bridge, which is one house away from what you're talking about doing, which means you're essentially turning of what used to be a neighborhood dead ending in the river. So it was very quiet. Now it's going to be very busy, and I am in favor of that. I think that can be wonderful. But I also don't want to lose the history of some of those places. On Mill And Market Street, there are four houses that were houses housing for the mill. They're just alike. And you can see by the one that's been fixed up that they're really cute.

I think they'd be great stores. But if we're turning this into more industrial, we're losing that. And then on the other corner is a Sears house, which is an I don't know if you know the history of Sears houses, but they were built in like 1916, say, and Sears would just order a whole house and comes in by railroad and the railroad was right there. So Paul Leatherwood's it sounds like it's going to be gone. All that history that's right there would be gone unless you can say, just keep the history that's on Market Street and then develop behind it, I would rather see.

But I think that the idea of the development is wonderful. So that's not just all pro, that's both.

Okay, thank you. Anybody else would like to speak in favor? Okay, no one's going to speak in favor. Anyone would like to speak not in favor of this, please come forward.

Good evening. My name is Julie King. I'm a resident of New Braunfels since 2009. I'd like to start out by saying I'm not anti development. I don't quarrel with the outcome here. I quarrel with the process. And I'll explain, if you will allow me a few minutes to explain. By a little way of personal background, I have spent my entire career in commercial real estate. I've been a banker for major Sunnier banks, and let me point out, I don't have any conflicts in New Braunfels. And prior coming to the attention of City Council, I attended the Planning Commission meeting, which is the second one I've come on March 3, when this particular item was brought up for the two acres.

And I have two observations about that Planning Commission meeting that I'd like to share with you. First, prior to the meeting's agenda, I pointed out that one of the Planning Commission commissioners is actually a named partner of this development. And I felt that he had a most direct conflict with what was gonna be discussed and suggested that he be recused from the discussion, and he was. The second comment, and I'm glad Doctor. Sager is here again, was she made a similar comment at the time that she was confused about the scope of the project.

And at the time, the presenter on behalf of the developers said was then available to share. Magically it appeared tonight, and to me, I think it's a cool project. I like creative reuse of properties. I think it's a really cool thing. So my comment and my request is that you defer this first reading until after the election.

I look at things, I'm an economics major. I look at things from a macro point of view. This is not the only major project, project, and it is cool that's in the queue. I know, and maybe the citizens do know or do not know, that there are other projects that are also under development in the city of New Braunfels. And maybe it'll be covered in the strategic plan, but on a macro basis when you do two or three of these, it changes the composition of the town that we have grown to know and love.

So I'm not I think this is a really cool redevelopment. I think it's been explained well. But I would like to see, and I would like citizens to know that what are other things are in the queue. So to use expression that I think is quite funny, we don't know how we make the sausage into Braunfels after it leaves this this meeting. We go as to a second reading, then it goes back to staff, and then the scope is we never see it until it's finally approved and permitted, there.

And then it's permanent. And then it doesn't go back multiple times. It goes through this test phase. And I would just argue that this a sizable multimillion dollar commitment, which is gonna change profile, good and bad, for New Braunfels in perpetuity. And I would just like to see some more consideration on a citywide basis, and maybe it'll be covered in the strategic plan of what other projects might impact the the city we love. I appreciate your time and consideration. Thank you and I appreciate it.

Thank you. Else? Anybody else? In opposition? Okay, at this time we'll close the public hearing. Any discussion for city council? Do you want to bang that thing? Is one motion

to I was gonna motion for

Let's have discussion quickly.

But I do have a discussion. Can you come back up? No. No. Ashley. Fairmont. Miss Fairmont, I'm sorry. My question is on the housing that was the houses, the older homes, is there any plans for those or currently there isn't?

Still looking at what to do with them, looking considering moving them eventually. So they would be still saved but relocated.

Fantastic. Okay, thank you. I it.

I would make a motion to approve this.

I'm not,

got a comment.

Let's have the discussion first.

I want somebody to address a named partner being allowed to participate in any port, how can a named partner know not to recuse? Who can address it? That individual did recuse. Before or after they were asked?

I would have to go back and watch the video, but but he left the room and was not part of the discussion.

But he was in the room for the opening. I mean, we have to do better. No, he wasn't. He recursed himself before. What what happened? You seem to be the only one in the room that knows what happened. Sure. Because I wanna know.

I was in the when it happened. You heard that expression?

Mhmm.

And yes, the minute I pointed it out, he did leave the room for the discussion. But I would argue that the composition of that precursor to this meeting has got flaws in in it. It. And I would address all of you to take serious consideration as you progress forward on these other projects that committee needs to be thoughtfully constituted. And by the way, the vote was four to two, and it passed, there was some discussion.

And one other question I failed to ask is, when this project gets done, and it's really early, do we as citizens face the fact that we will expect then someone to come and ask for incentives for this project from the taxpayers. Way early to judge, but I've seen it happen twice in the last twelve months. So those are my concerns. I'd like to see this addressed in a macro concept. And I really would address to you city council people, need to rethink the planning commission. I mean it's just thank you.

Mayor Pro Tems Bradley, just as a clarification, the planning commission recommendation was approved six two with one abstention.

Thank you. Okay.

Thank you. And This

was brought to us a while back for its first presentation. What? Six months ago?

This is the second phase. So everything that you see in orange on the screen right now was previously rezoned to MUB with an SUP in December 2024.

Correct. And a modification?

Yes. And

this is also a SUP, so it will not change going forward, is that correct? They to comply with the special use permit so they can't change on the fly. Any other discussion? No, but I do motion for approval. We already have one motion for approval.

And then I second it.

Okay, we have a motion for approval and a With

stipulations that were provided.

Stipulations, what are the stipulations?

Second. There were conditions outlined in the memo, if you would like those conditions to apply, you can make a motion to approve with staff You

want to state your motion? So the motion is to approve with staff recommendations that's in the memo. And we have a second by Marianne Lebowski. Anybody else? Roll call please.

It can be a show of hands but I can do roll call if you'd like.

We can do show of hands. Those in favor please raise your right hand. And those in opposition? Okay, we have one in opposition. Motion passes.

Here he comes.

Okay, our next item is a public hearing and first reading of an ordinance requested by Monica Mason on behalf of Brett Baer to rezone approximately 0.2 of an acre out of City Block Subdivision 5068 Lot 5 from R3 multifamily district to R3 SUP multifamily district with a special use permit to allow short term rental of a residence currently addressed at 226 North Liberty Avenue. Mr. Looney.

Thank you mayor. Good evening mayor, city council. This property is on Liberty Avenue. It's across the street from Schlitterbahn. The three bedroom house on the site does have space for the required minimum three paved parking spaces if this were turned into a short term rental. It is actually just down the street from actually a parcel that's within the same block face on the same side of the road is already zoned to allow short term rental. And there are several resort cabin short term rentals across the street. I believe those are owned by Schlitterbahn. So the proposed use, while it is mid block, it does fit in with the character of the block. Therefore, and planning commission both recommend approval with the conditions that are listed in your memo.

We mailed 11 notices received two responses in favor one in opposition. Thank you.

Any questions for Mr. Looney? Alright, does the applicant have anything they'd like to add?

Hi. My name is Max Stewart representing twenty fourseven Designer of Marks and Architect and help design this project. And what I wanted to add is that, you know, I do feel like this project is fitting within the community. Oh, is that better?

There we go.

Yes, I do believe that this project is fitting in the community and I've worked with the owners on this and, you know, like, trying to make accommodations, telling them about the off street parking and what kind of accommodations that they need. But, yeah, overall, I think this is a great design for this community. And it's right across the street from Prince Salmon's Park Himmun Island. I think people are gonna be enjoying this property. Thank you.

Just happy to answer any questions if there are any.

So I have a question. And who will be managing the property?

It will be me.

It will be Yes. Will you be living on the property or No. No? No. Okay. But you're you live in New Braunfels?

I'm about twenty minutes away. And I'll be the emergency contact and the property manager also. Okay.

Thank you. We'll open this item to public hearing. If anybody would like to speak to this item, please step up to the podium, state your name with your resident, non resident or live in the ETJ. Seeing none, we'll close public hearing, any discussion?

I only have one question and it was to find out is how many other short term rentals are around there?

Within that same block there is one on the same side of the street that well it has a zoning for it. Don't know if they're actually operating it as we speak but they have the ability to do so. And then there's at least two across the street that are owned by Schlitterbahn.

Okay, thank you.

I'd make a motion to approve.

I'll second it.

Council member Edwards moves for approval. Council member Lebowski seconds. All in favor raise your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. Next item is a public hearing and first reading of an ordinance requested by Nicholas Vargas to rezone approximately 0.25 of an acre out of the City Block Subdivision 1073 Lot 11 from C3 Commercial District to C 3 Sup Commercial District with a special use permit to allow short term rental of residents currently addressed at 182 Perryman Street. Mr. Sumant.

Thank you, Mayor Linens. Matthew Sumant again with neighborhood and community Planning. This residence was constructed in the 1950s and is about 1,600 square feet in area with three bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. As a short term rental, this dwelling would have a maximum occupancy of eight with a minimum of three paved parking spaces. The property is located on the Northwest Side of Perryman Street near its intersection with South Castel Avenue and close to the I-thirty 5 access road.

It's currently surrounded by C3 and M1 zoning and abutting residential use and businesses across Parriman. This request is consistent with actions from Envision New Braunfels and the strategic plan as noted in the staff report. Staff recommends approval. 18 notices were mailed to nearby property owners and the responses received do not trigger a super majority vote. So a straight majority vote would be required. That's all of my presentation. I can answer any questions that may have.

Any questions for Mr. Sumant? All right, thank you. Is there anything the applicant would like to add?

Good evening. My name is Nicholas Vargas. I'm here to answer any questions. I do feel like the neighborhood is getting a little old and it has prime locations. So I feel like this would be something to that would help New Braunfels. I've invested more money. The house did not look like that six months ago. So I feel like it's something that's gonna help New Braunfels.

Will you be managing it or are you hiring a company to manage?

No, it will be me and I live here.

And you do live here? How far from the facility?

Five minutes, forty six towards the King. Okay.

Thank you. We'll open this to public hearing. If anybody would like to speak to this item, please step up to the podium, state your name, whether you're resident, non resident or live in the ETJ. Seeing none, we'll close public hearing. Any discussion?

Motion for approval.

I'll second it.

Mayor Pro Tem Spradley moves for approval. Council Member Lebowski seconds. All in favor, raise your right hand. Motion carries unanimously. Next item is our presentation on our second annual update on the city's twenty twenty four to twenty twenty nine strategic plan.

Mister Werner? Thank you, mayor. Members of council, Jared Werner, assistant city manager. As you're aware, this presentation is, slightly over 70 slides. However, I can assure you, we're gonna work on getting this done in about twenty to thirty minutes.

Jordan and I plan on tag teaming this and really hitting one to two points per slide. That certainly is not meant to downplay the importance of this second annual update. It's worth mentioning that this presentation will be posted on our website, newbronffles.gov/strategicplan, of course, with the strategic plan and last year's first annual update. So just as a reminder, the strategic plan was adopted in spring of twenty twenty four, so we're already two years into this formal strategic plan. That April 2024 approval date was preceded by about a year of number of meetings that you as a city council held as well as various public engagement efforts from meetings to stakeholder interviews to online surveys and other forms of public engagement as well.

Before I get into our actual update or any additional information, I do want to pass along thanks especially to our executive leadership team and other team members in the organization that helped put this 70 slide presentation, most importantly the content in it together. As you'll see, we feel we've accomplished quite a bit in the last year. My last kind of overarching comment is that what you see in the second annual update really builds upon that first update from last year. It's not redundant, it's not repetitive, so the information that was in last year's presentation isn't just duplicated here. Again, that first annual update is online, and we printed a copy of your diocese in case you'd like that for reference.

Over the past two years, we've considered the fact that the strategic plan really is a living document, a dynamic document, and there really should be a process for us to consider updates or modifications. I've heard from you and some of the other members of councils that there should be a process to consider modifications. Our executive leadership team spent some time kind of off-site just about a month or two ago really evaluating what new data and information and considerations we should think about when potentially proposing small edits or modifications to this plan. To let you know, we're still working on formulating those, but we do plan to present those for your consideration at the July 10 summer retreat. That would also be an opportunity for you as a city council to make any suggestions to us as staff if there are any modifications or adjustments that you think are appropriate to our five year strategic plan.

One last kind of overarching slide before we get into the actual strategic plan updates. As you know, the plan across five strategic priorities includes 39 objectives and 62 performance measures. Collectively, you can see that all of our objectives are currently in some form of stage of in progress. And of our 62 performance measures, 49 are in progress and four are complete. And so to not take any more of your time, I'm going go ahead and turn it over to Jordan, and she will go through the updates for the first three strategic priorities.

Good evening again. As we worked through the public process with the strategic plan, very clear priorities came out from the public. So we continued to hear the same themes through all of that public feedback, and so that's how we came to our five strategic priorities. The first strategic priority is economic mobility. Within economic mobility, we have 21 objectives. As Jared previously mentioned, all of those are in some form of progress. So 17 are currently in progress, four are pending. Some of these will never be moved to a status of completion. Some of these will just be continue to be objectives that we move forward continuously. So a couple of things that I want to highlight for economic mobility.

One of our objectives is incentivizing mixed use developments and redevelopments in targeted locations. As we're working on the update to the comprehensive plan, we are identifying targeted redevelopment opportunities. And then, we're also working on incentives that will go along with those redevelopment opportunities so long as certain metrics are met by those redevelopments. So sort of buy right incentives to help move those important redevelopment projects forward. Ongoing emphasis on our catalytic mixed use projects, you can see some of those highlighted.

City council has already approved, portions of the NOIA, which is a mixed use development in downtown, the Co Op Marketplace, which will be a redevelopment of a site, within the historic downtown, the Faust Hotel, which of course is a building on the National Historic Register, and then future projects including the River Mill redevelopment, the Dittlinger Mill, which we just talked about, and then the future Mainzer property as well. I also wanted to highlight on here that our Economic Development Corporation and the city council recently approved funding for our first ever streets and utility design standards master plan. We're working closely with NBU on that and focusing on our downtown corridor to look at streetscape, to look at conversion of overhead utilities to underground. So it's a important project for us. Continuing on the same objective, highlighting some pedestrian improvements, making sure that we continue to move forward the design and construction phase one of the Castel Avenue visioning plan, which is the Call Street drainage.

We have open bids for that project, and we'll be moving forward. And then we also of course have ongoing design of the downtown right of way improvements. We are continuing to work with our utility providers as well. So we're currently working with NBU to a draft development agreement where we can address those catalytic projects and those important redevelopment projects that may see some bottlenecks in the development process if we don't work on that. And then, of course, ongoing work on parking garage concepts, both supporting private developments by over sizing those garage to add additional public parking and then also looking at public parking sites in downtown as well.

The next objective that I wanna highlight is support confluence, the New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Strategic Plan. So we are working with the Economic Development Corporation on the future development of the parcels that they own, bless you, at the Zip Family Sports Park. So we're looking forward to the opening of the Zip Family Sports Park. The EDC holds property at that hard corner, and we're looking for some strategic development of that in the future with uses that complement the Zip Family Sports Park and support the families in our community. We recently completed the strategic priority planning with the Economic Development Corporation.

I mentioned that a little bit in item B. They have adopted priorities that they are moving forward. And then, just a quick highlight of the City Council and Economic Development Corporation support of several major projects in our community. So, a $5,000,000 commitment to Northeast Lakeview College, which will result in a $20,000,000 investment in our community. Also filling a vacant space within our community, and providing a key service to families in the community.

We also have the expansion of Continental, which is major employer in our community. They located two New Braunfels, opened in 2021. They're already moving forward with an expansion, which is very exciting. And then also a small economic development incentive to locate Lefkoe's headquarters here in New Braunfels, and again filling a space that was currently vacant. Working with the in the New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation and NBU to develop a framework for economic development incentives.

Again, this is related to infill development, to increasing walkability, increasing streetscapes. A couple of things that I want to highlight is our continued work with New Braunfels Utilities, again, on the Dittlinger project. So this is a tremendously important project for our community and does have some major infrastructure needs. This will be another opportunity for us to really improve streetscape in downtown to underground utilities. We're also, again, working with them on streetscape improvements.

MBU was heavily involved in the NOIA project, so conversion of overhead to underground utilities on Genther from San Antonio to Cross additional streetscape, extension of sidewalks, landscaping in that area. Establishing programs for financing in the production and preservation of affordable workforce housing units. A lot of the things that, a lot of the businesses that make New Braunfels New Braunfels are are moved forward by service industry professionals, right? And so we know that that people have sometimes people have a hard time living and working in New Braunfels. And so we are working to move forward some affordable and workforce housing initiatives.

The NBEDC recently adopted one of their strategic initiatives to address workforce housing. We're also investigating different programs like the state home funds, the community land trust model, and then neighborhood empowerment zones as well. Encourage the construction of different housing types as part of our comprehensive plan update. We have brought forward some early out amendments for the city council to approve. One of those addressed accessory dwelling units, which just provides more flexibility for property owners in our community to have secondary accessory dwelling units, either for a child who's grown up, for an aging parent who needs to relocate with the the children, or just additional income for those property owners.

Also with our land development ordinance, we are proposing a new development pattern called an enclave subdivision. This is sort of like a condo regime that allows for single family detached homes on a single lot. Incentivized child development centers to increase supply. We know that this is a national trend, that child care has become very difficult for families to afford. It's really impacting people nationwide, and of course, in New Braunfels as well.

The Economic Development Corporation and the City Council recently moved forward initiative to create capacity in the general fund, so that we can support Early Matters New Braunfels, which is a three year funding program in conjunction with the Chamber of Commerce and the McKenna Foundation. And we have real strong belief that that initiative is going to help us move other initiatives in affordable childcare forward. We want to establish a formal presence on the steering committee for that. So, that may be a staff member, it may be a city council member, or an economic development corporation member, but we're working on that. And then we're also for undertaking an asset and ecosystem mapping exercise.

We are working with the EDC and the Chamber of Commerce, exploring a contract that will bring entrepreneurship focused programming, and we hope to bring that forward for the city council to consider in the near future. Continuing on economic mobility, secure a leasing or ownership opportunity for a business incubator. This is a major project. We're chipping away at it. We have made some small improvements.

One thing that I'd like to highlight here is that previously, library system, we had what we called study rooms. Those were only available for studying or only available to non profits. We have changed that model, and we have opened up those spaces to businesses, small businesses, entrepreneurs. People People come in and we've received great feedback about startups being able to hold meetings or take calls and being able to book those rooms in advance to make sure that they have a place where they can meet and move forward their business has been very well received. Established funding sources dedicated to the creation of additional workforce housing units.

As I mentioned, the NBEDC recently adopted workforce housing as one of their strategic priorities. So we continue to work with them to secure annual funding commitment. We do expect to continue the conversation with them and potentially bring an item to the city council at your summer retreat for continued discussion. Moving on to outputs, increase the number of new affordable housing units produced each fiscal year. So the Park At Dogwood project is still moving forward.

We are in conversations with them about impact fee waivers and other incentives from MBU or the Economic Development Corporation or the city. And we are also working internally with MBU to finalize firm guidance on LUE calculations for family and affordable housing. Those calculations can be really kind of the breaking point of what makes what allows for an affordable housing initiative to move forward. So for our outcomes, we look at the National Citizen Survey. So when you look here on the far right, where you see similar, that means not similar to the year before, or the two years before when we last did the community survey, but similar to other cities our size.

So the three that we were looking at were a variety housing options, availability of affordable quality housing, and then availability of affordable quality child care. I do want to point out that some of the work that we've done, we did see an increase in availability of affordable quality housing. We're happy to see that. Still clearly need some work there. And then the decrease that you can see on affordable quality childcare, again, that is a national trend.

But I do believe that the investments that the city council has approved for early matters New Braunfels is the first step in addressing those. Our second strategic priority is enhanced connectivity. Again, this is a theme that continues to come out from the public input of our strategic plan, our really, of the public input that we do. The Parks Master Plan, the Northwest Park Plan, the Hike and Bike Plan. So 21 objectives from this strategic priority as well, 16 in progress and five pending.

To go over some highlights for enhanced connectivity, support and maintain a well connected transportation network. So we updated our roadway impact fee program. We're utilizing that for traffic studies, for thoroughfare plan designs, for conceptual design. We have completed several projects that have made an impact in connectivity in our community, multimodal connectivity. So the Common Street Pedestrian Project, which was funded by the Alamo Area MPO and the New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation.

So, no general fund dollars going towards that project. That is completed and has added miles of sidewalk in our community in an area that was really needed. That also complemented the Union Avenue improvements, which included some sidewalks as well. And I also wanted to highlight the Alligator Creek Trail, which was added last year, and that, again, was funded by the Economic Development Corporation. We also continue to move forward lots of pedestrian focused projects, lots of transportation projects, and trail projects through various sources of funding.

So park development funds, which are paid by new development roadway impact fees, which are paid by new development. The Alamo Area MPO, the New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation. Support and maintain a well this is just a continuation, sorry. We received a Texas Parks and Wildlife Development Department grant for neighborhood park. This is a really exciting project that's actually gonna connect that park back to the Walnut Trail.

That project will fund 50%, and then we're using park development fees, again paid by new development, which will cover 100% of the cost for redevelopment of neighborhood park. That's a park that we worked with NBU when they decommissioned a water tower to expand the footprint of that park and we're excited about that moving forward. We are utilizing American Rescue Plan Act funds for several mobility projects that we will be moving forward this summer and will be completing by the end of the year. We received TxDOT funding for the Waterway Lane Trail and AMPO funding for San Antonio Spur pedestrian improvements and citywide signal retiming. We also this is one that I think is really important to our community.

We amended our ordinance that previously we previously required sidewalks at platting. We're now requiring sidewalks to be installed with a building permit, which allows us to stay on top of that. Right? And so if there's redevelopment going on, if there's major additions going on, we can get those sidewalk gaps filled through the development process, which is very needed. Support the ongoing maintenance of the city's multimodal transportation network.

This next budget year, we expect a budget request that will increase funding for traffic calming. We all know the importance of traffic calming throughout our community. We also want to improve the workflow for that as well. It moves across several different departments. We want to just make sure that that process moves seamlessly.

We're also working to identify additional levels of funding for right of way maintenance and beautification, which has become a really popular program that we moved forward. We also we wanna wanna focus that in on downtown, and we're looking at using funding from the downtown parking revenue, and we'll bring that forward to you within the next couple of months. Implement improved local and regional public transportation services. I don't know if you've heard, we launched micro transit this year. The Rio has been incredibly successful.

I'm pretty sure we're probably at 30,000 rides at this point. I think it's I mean, just since we've been working on this presentation. So Gary and his team hosted a showcase last week that I was able to attend. And just tremendous work that went into that. And then the impact that that's making in our community and helping people in this community has been tremendous.

So we are working on adding to the fleet. The main issue that we're seeing, the only issue that we're seeing with Rio is that we're not able to serve the demand that we have. So we are looking to increase so that we can better serve the city. Another project that's really exciting is we're working with the Chamber of Commerce and TxDOT to take what is currently the visitor center. So as you all know, the visitor center's relocating to downtown, which is fantastic. But that will free up the space that is out there over by it's either CVS or Walgreens, and I always do that. CVS, thank you. And so the chamber is working with us to donate that building that can be a hub for Rio, which will be tremendous. It's right on the highway. Location.

And it'll really provide us with some opportunities for growth of our transit as well. Collaborating with governmental partners. So you can see several different things here highlighted. Of course, coordinate with all of our regional partners for the State Highway 46 expansion. The Guadalupe River Crossing Planning Study, which I know is tremendously important to the City Council.

So, we're collaborating with governmental partners on that. And then also the Comal County Railroad Crossing Study, which is tremendously important as well. Pedestrian connectivity and ADA accessibility. We, various different methods, internships, relationships with different universities, we've inventoried over two sixty miles of sidewalk. We are also completing the ADA transition plan this fiscal year, and we've been utilizing park development funds to address ADA improvements across our park system as we go in and address different items that through both the ADA transition plan and parks and recreation open space master plan.

Informing residents. So this is something that we talked a lot about during the strategic planning process, is making sure that we're getting information out there, that we're telling our story better. So particularly, we wanted to make providing information to the public about transportation options. So, you can see here newsletters are important to us. Social media, you can see some of the different things highlighted here.

Dubruncles.gov I don't know ride the Rio is the website for our micro transit system. It has a tremendous amount of information, easy for people to get in contact with our staff, and again, has been popular. For our milestones, assess vehicle, pedestrian, and bicycle networks. So our bicycle and pedestrian network plan is currently underway. Baseline traffic congestion we worked with the Alamo Area MPO and completed the update to the congestion management plan.

And then the sidewalk inventory is ongoing. Complete the ADA transition plan, as I mentioned, that will be brought forward to the city council for consideration this fiscal year. That will also identify priorities and establish a funding plan citywide. The ADA right of way assessment is beginning this year as well and is funded by a grant. And then, we are working on the development of an interactive trail and shared use path map.

This will be a result of the bicycle and pedestrian network action plan in addition to the sidewalk inventory and the efforts of our parks and recreation department as well. We are currently working on setting the baseline for existing bikeway, trail, and sidewalk miles, as well as the number of linear feet of gaps within our community. So again, a reminder on this, on the side, on the far right side, that is how we rank with similar communities. You can see that we did have some increases with the overall quality of the transportation system. I do expect for that to continue.

We are making significant capital investments throughout the community. We're making major commitments to improved walkability, side sidewalks, trails, citywide, and then of course, the launch of the Rio as well. Ease of travel by bicycle has continued it continues to go down. That is an area of focus for us. We do have the Komal Fast bikeway project moving forward this summer as well.

So that continues to be a priority for us. Increased bikeways, trails, and sidewalk miles. So wanted to highlight really quickly a couple of new important trail additions. So Willard Canyon open, which is right here behind City Hall. Tremendous trail working with a local resident here.

The Alligator Creek West, again funded by the New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation, and then the addition of a new trail with our partners at Comal Trail Alliance for Panther Canyon. We also completed several pedestrian projects, Garden Street, Common Street, and Union Street, and we are moving forward citywide pedestrian improvements, which is Alamo Area MPO and New Braunfels Economic Development Corporation funded, as well as the Comal Faust bike project, as I mentioned. Those will both move forward this summer. Our third strategic priority is community identity. All 16 of the objectives within community identity are currently in progress.

The first objective is to update Envision New Braunfels. We're currently working on this. The land use fiscal analysis was sort of the first portion of that. That has been adopted, and we are combining that, working on public input, continuing that process. We are planning to have an update on the land use fiscal analysis for the city council at their summer retreat.

We're also moving forward the land development ordinance. We are working with focus group currently. We're moving that process through very strategically. Once we get through the focus group, we will again go through a public and then bring that incrementally to the city council for adoption. As I mentioned previously in this presentation, you have as we've moved forward, we've brought incremental changes for you to approve as well.

We've also you recently approved updates to our traffic impact analysis requirements that were very important. Develop a comprehensive brand identity. So we have worked on a brand manifesto and messaging. This is another item that will be on your agenda for your summer retreat, and so we're looking forward to bringing that forward. This evening, you approved your arts and culture master plan, so we're really excited to move forward some of the initiatives in that.

Public art has been tremendously important, and we wanna continue to look at opportunities to support the arts and culture groups in our community. Support the community's culture and identity through community events, arts programming, and classes. Couple of things to highlight on this. We worked hand in hand with the McKenna Foundation for the installation of the new Choose Kindness mural at the Westside Community Center. We launched Art House last year.

That was in your last year's update. This year, Art House will be featured at Sangerfest, which will be a very nice addition. We are also collecting information to begin the process of applying for state designated cultural district in downtown. Downtown was recently awarded a place on the National Historic Register, and so that came straight from the arts and culture master plan, and we're looking forward to moving that process forward. Begin the adoption of the land development ordinance.

As I mentioned, we've brought early out amendments to you for approval. Currently working with the LDO focus group. We have moved through articles one, two, and three with the focus group. We're currently working on articles four and five at the staff level right now. We've been in communication with the focus group, and we hope to meet with them again toward the middle to end of next month to move forward the next round.

And then, as I mentioned, that'll move forward to public session again. Adopting the updated Envision New Braunfels, so we're continuing to work on that. I mentioned the land use fiscal analysis update this summer and then working on public input through summer of twenty twenty six and the brand strategy at the summer retreat as well. Allocating resources and recurring funding dedicated to community wide beautification and streetscape enhancement. Lots of really exciting things moving forward.

Of course, our traffic signal box art program has been tremendously successful, and we've received wonderful feedback. We have moved forward with five additional boxes that will be on the East Side Of I-thirty 5. We just released a press release last week for that, and we are very excited about the next round. That's really made a really good impact in our community. We have adopted a fee in lieu of and established a special revenue fund for tree planting, so that allows where development does not allow for significant tree replacement, can pay a fee in lieu of, and then we can use those funds to install new trees at public facilities.

And then previously mentioned that we're working on the street design and utility master plan for downtown. So moving on to output, increasing library items per capita. We sort of have a renewed focus on e resources. Cole and his team have been looking at our electronic resources and are bringing some really good recommendations forward for next budget year to increase our citizens' access to electronic resources. Those are, of course, some of the most popular items that we have.

They also reallocated some funding to to increase the book budget. And then, of course, when we open the Southeast Library Branch, that'll be a significant increase as well. We worked very hard on amendments to the historic preservation ordinance, the tax incentive ordinance, and streamlined that process. Was clunky and difficult, and so we spent some time making some amendments to that. And then as I previously mentioned, I just think this is one of the most tremendous things that has taken place so far in 2026, but our historic downtown is now on the National Historic Register of Places, and that is a tremendous for our community.

Increased public art and place making. We're working on a public art policy per the arts and culture master plan. If you haven't seen our temporary Sangerfest mural in downtown, we worked closely with the artist who did the Choose Kindness mural at the Westside Community Center with the developer of that project and with the contractor, and did a temporary mural there that will be used at Sangerfest this weekend as well in the art house portion. And then we're working with the library to have space for public art, local art in the new branch, and then retrofitting the main as well. And then looking at our outcomes.

So what I kind of want to highlight here is opportunities to attend cultural arts and music activities. We saw a decline. But we saw a slight increase in opportunities to attend special events and festivals. Almost all of our special events, and certainly all of the festivals in our community, are related to culture or arts in some form or fashion. So I think there may just be a branding issue there or a communication issue. We continue to know that festival special events are tremendously important for our community. I know it's gonna be a high of 70 on Saturday for Sangerfest, so will be tremendous, and hopefully everybody will enjoy that. But I do think maybe we need to work on messaging for that. So now I'm gonna turn it over to Jared for the last two strategic priorities.

Thank you, Jordan. Within organizational excellence, as you see, 25 objectives and performance measures, 22 of which are in progress, three of which are completed. Starting with succession planning. We all know, succession planning is something that all organizations attempt to do. It's difficult to follow through with.

I'm very proud of the progress we've made on this in the last two years. As you'll see on the slide, it started with our HR team creating a process where they engage with every single team member to formally gauge their interest, their strengths, goals, and really where they see themselves growing in this organization. That data was then forwarded up to departmental leadership and ultimately the city manager's office where we formalized essentially a department by department succession plan. However though to continue to move that progress forward, we plan on next kind of implementing what we're calling knowledge transfer forms, think but more importantly incorporating the strategic planning effort done to this point into the annual evaluation cycle. So it stays front of mind and again built into our annual process.

Continue to utilize cross departmental teams. This was put into the strategic plan really for us to continue to place a high importance on making sure that we always have the right people at the table and we're making decisions or trying to solve through problems. And so really I won't go through the list at all other than just to mention this is just an example or a sample or a list of kind of a variety of initiatives that we either have worked on, are currently working on, or plan to work on where we will have a variety of different department representatives that are, again, working towards solving an issue or making improvements or creating efficiencies across the organization. Review and present customer satisfaction results. As a reminder, our customer satisfaction results are available on NB stat, which you access to at all times.

I'll go into a little bit more data into that later. And again, while we're pleased with the results here, as I'll get into one later, we still think we have some work to do as it relates to getting better engagement online through customer satisfaction, but I'll get into that here in a

couple of

slides. Again, similarly continued presenting those results. You can see from fiscal year twenty twenty two to fiscal year twenty twenty five relative consistency across the different categories of customer satisfaction survey questions. The next objective, continuing to hold stakeholder workshops and focus groups. Again, just a list there that provides a sample of some of the various groups that we've worked with lately.

A couple that I'll highlight, of course, is the floating vegetation working group that includes several of our council members, subject matter experts and citizens, working with the development community on some of the departmental reorganizational roles. That's something that you've heard an update from Jordan and her team on recently. Next, developing a comprehensive recruitment strategy. Again, you can see all the efforts on the slide. One of the ones that I want to highlight is the city job fair that we've implemented the last three fiscal years.

Last year and the one that was held this year both had over 200 participants. When you also drill down in the data and look at the number of applications that we received during the month that we hold the job fair, that spikes as far as intake. So again, we think that's certainly working as a pipeline. Again, we continue to improve the intern program that's been very successful for the city of New Braunfels. We added funding to that last fiscal year, and our team also is looking at ways to kind of standardize that across the organization as well.

Redefining department performance measures. Holistically our budget team works with every single department annually. Our city manager's office, we also press during the budget process to make sure that the performance measures that get reflected either on NV STAT or in the adopted budget book are relevant and current. You heard specifically from Jordan and Gary about refining the development services performance measures. Moving on to alternative funding strategies to support technology and heavy equipment replacement.

As you may remember, at your winter retreat, we talked specifically about the 2027 bond and potentially that 2027 bond serving as an alternative funding source specifically for safety equipment and vehicles. And then of course, for fiscal year twenty seven, we currently have a $4,000,000 tax note that's met as a continuation of our rolling tax note program to make sure that we have the funding available for light vehicle replacement, whether that be police vehicles, whether that be public works vehicles. Again, as we've talked about over the past five or maybe even ten years, we do not have the capacity in our general fund to support the replacement of fire trucks, ambulances, excavators, bulldozers. And so we've had to get creative through a variety of financing means, and you've got two of them on the slide there that are continuing to provide some potential for that moving forward. Again, develop staffing and resource allocation strategies driven primarily by data and performance indicators.

You've got a whole host of examples where our teams are drilling into that at the department or division level. I will say holistically, we make it very clear to every department during the budget process that when they are submitting resource requests, especially position requests, there needs to be a variety of metrics and data that support that need. As we know, the competition for recurring funding is difficult every fiscal year and so we've got to have a data driven approach when making those decisions. Diversifying revenue streams for long term fiscal sustainability. Similar to the previous slide here on the list, you've got a couple projects that are currently in progress where our teams are looking at several opportunities adjust fees that maybe haven't been adjusted in recent history.

However though, as you know, during the past three budget cycles, we've really taken the next step to making sure that we formalize the process, encourage the process during the budget season to submit fees that need to be adjusted either because our teams have done a benchmark analysis, whether it's for cost recovery or whether it's market driven, and look for those opportunities. When you see here on the slide, we've adjusted 123 fees since fiscal year twenty three. I have a lot of confidence that if you were to look at the ten years previous to that, I'm not even sure if we'd get to 123 adjustments. So we've been very aggressive in that, and we appreciate the City Council support. And as you'll see later in the slides, this action right here directly supports one of our other objectives where we're trying to reduce our reliance on our primary revenues of property taxes, sales taxes, and franchise fees.

And so this is kind of one of our primary motivations in making sure that our fees align with the market and recover costs where appropriate. Again, some of the shifting over to performance measures now. The established funding options for all heavy equipment assets, we talked about that with the rolling tax note program that we put in place a couple of years ago and then again another reference to again that 2027 bond opportunity. Incorporating the fee schedule into the adopted budget. Every fee that has modified in the past four years, have consolidated to appendix D.

We're getting very close to having a comprehensive fee schedule that encompasses every single fee that's charged across the entire organization. What we still have left to do is to migrate those fees to this appendix within that ordinance that we have not adjusted. And then once we do that, we will have accomplished this performance measure. And the last one there, presenting departmental KPIs biannually to City Council. We kind of feel like we went above and beyond on this one.

As you know, MBstat was rolled out about eighteen months ago. The City Council has access to that in near time at any time you need it. Those metrics are updated monthly. And so we kind of feel like we've gone above and beyond on that. I referenced this earlier about our team really needing to go back to the drawing board on getting increased online customer service participation.

As you can see there, our numbers for fiscal year twenty five were certainly at a low. We think maybe some of the spike and I hate to even call it that, but some of the higher numbers in previous years were kind of part of the newness of our online customer satisfaction surveys, which are linked at the bottom of all of our email signatures. And so what we're going to do moving forward is really work with our team and find some more creative ways to get these surveys out in front of folks, whether it's at every customer service counter in the organization. We've some other ideas we want to consider, but we recognize this is not good enough. And we need to come up with some different strategies to get better engagement, more data so that we can rely upon the results more effectively.

70% of our positions were sufficient data for the last market study. As you know, we've developed quite the cadence with doing our own internal comprehensive market compensation studies every two years. And it's important that we have roughly two zero four job titles across the city in New Braunfels. And so we do a very comprehensive data collection. 77% of those positions, we had enough records to feel confident that we could use that for the compensation study.

Some great progress on this as far as the reduction in the percentage of employees that separate specifically for the reason compensation are advancement opportunities. If we were to look at this, the data going back maybe even to fiscal year twenty twenty, this was a number that really we had difficulty moving the needle on. It was always somewhere between 5560% of the folks that left us. 55% to 60% was always in that compensation advancement category. You can see we made a dramatic improvement in that in fiscal year twenty twenty five coming down to 39%.

So we'll certainly be looking to at least maintain that moving forward. Several updates here. I'll start again kind of in the similar subject with maintaining an annual full time turnover rate of 15% or lower. You can see fiscal year twenty twenty three and 2024 roughly around 13% that went down in fiscal year twenty twenty five, 12.1%. So again, trending in the right direction.

I referred to this earlier when we were talking about fee adjustments, again, where we have the performance measure for us to reduce the reliance on general fund primary revenue sources, which is getting harder and harder to do. And you can see there from fiscal year twenty twenty three to fiscal year twenty twenty six budget, we went from 76.5 to 74.4%. Again, I think that reduction, one of the main drivers in that are those adjustments of fees that you as the City Council have approved over the past four years. Again, on organizational excellence, this is some data from the National Citizen Survey. Again, how our citizens are digesting information.

Some interesting takeaways on this that you can't ignore is the fact that Facebook grew as a major source of information from 24% to 26%, 37% to 47%. Same thing with Instagram, nearly a 10% increase. Our communications team is already aggressive in making sure that we have content and information out there on Facebook, but it's certainly what points out when you're looking at this data in the National Citizen Survey for where folks are expecting to get their information. On to our last strategic priority of community well-being. Again, you can see there 18 objectives, 17 in progress, one of which is complete.

The first are very successful, an award winning mobile integrated health program. A couple of the metrics there that are quite impressive that since the program has begun, we've seen a 76% reduction in calls for service from what we categorize as our MIH patients, our super users of EMS before. So that's a significant reduction. That significant reduction creates real savings. And so you can see we saved over $500,000 indirectly by reducing that unnecessary emergency and hospital use.

And again, we're even seeing improved response times from this program indirectly. Completing the Parks Master Plan, which is projected to be completed by the end of the year. The Northwest Park Master Plan, which is kind of being done alongside that and will be incorporated in the Parks master plan, is also expected to be completed in 2026 as well. But you can kind of see some of the I use Jordan's term, kind of early out kind of things that we know that are already within the strategic plan that our teams are working on, whether it's updating some of our programming efforts or working to identify parcels that will allow us to, again, make those additional trail connections. Develop investments that improve safety, reduce heat islands and encourage transportation modes that support healthier lifestyles such as biking, walking, and running.

Again, see a little bit of redundancy in some of these initiatives with the enhanced connectivity strategic priority, but some that are worth mentioning is the ARPA funded projects, whether it be the Comal And Faust Bikeway project, the Landa Park To Kentucky pedestrian path that's also scheduled for this year, and the Alma area NPO funded project to put a 10 foot shared use path along Himmun Island and Liberty Drive. Those are all three projects that are going to be done in 2026, alternative funding sources not impacting our general fund or reallocation of capital funds. So those are big wins for us. Again, some redundancy here as well on the objective of looking for opportunities to reconnect the community by mitigating barriers. Again, we've already talked about the work being done and the study being done on looking at opportunities for a Guadalupe River crossing.

Gary and his team presented a really cool project of that waterway lane elevated rail crossing. Again, submitting that for funding through Texark's railroad grant program. Highlight. Formalizing the partnership with the police, fire, and city's nonprofit social sector. You'll remember that one of the objectives or performance measures was to reestablish the chief's advisory Council.

Kudos to our Police and Fire Department for working that together and really making that a Fire and Police Chiefs Advisory Council. They're going to begin meeting quarterly by the end of fiscal year 'twenty six, and they're both as a team kind of evaluating kind of new representation and new members for that council. As you can see there on the slide in the picture, recently launched was the New Braunfels Community Organizations Active in Disaster, our co ad group. Continuing with this partnership, Chief Flores came and presented on this earlier this year. You can already see some of the success from the partnership with Hill Country Community MHMR to add a mental health professional dispatch.

You can see some of the metrics out of that just since February 9, that person has been able to have 91 engagements. And 20 of those calls were actually transferred to the MHDD clinician. And so already providing some benefits there. Evaluating public frontline equipment to make sure they meet demand and call type. We talked about the significant cost increases that we've seen in this type of equipment.

And so to kind of make sure we're strategically making those investments, the fire department has actually created apparatus specification committee for upcoming engine and apparatus I'm sorry, an aerial purchases. The police service assistant vehicles are actually going to have the opportunity to provide relief and capacity for sworn officers in a number of different ways as well. Continue to develop alternative public safety deployment strategies. Chief Lozano came and spoke I think at your last City Council meeting, and we've now gone live with the Right Sight Telehealth program, again, which will provide an alternative solution to nine eleven calls and provide indirect relief to our EMS teams across the organization. Of course, we've talked a lot about the police service assistant program that Chief Flores is working on completing the job descriptions and getting ready to roll that out by the end of the fiscal year as well, which will provide indirect relief to our entire police department team members.

As we said earlier, completion of the Parks and Recreation Master Plan is scheduled to be completed and adopted in late summer twenty twenty six. The next performance measure implementation of the top three priorities from the New Braunfels Street Safety Action Plan. Those top three priorities are safer speeds, multimodal streets, and safe street behaviors. And so you can see there on the screen a variety of initiatives that align to supporting those priorities. Again, talked about the fact that the Fire and Police Community Task Force has already been assembled.

Coming up here in the end, y'all. Seeking opportunities for continual improvement of response times. Again, the implementation of citywide vehicle preemption is expected for late twenty twenty six. And working with police and fire is listening to them talk to us about this automated vehicle locator program and all NBFD vehicles. It's live now.

This allows our dispatch team to dispatch either an engine or a medic unit that is closest to the call, which may be en route or going from one destination to the other that could respond quicker as opposed to maybe what district that area is in. So a good interesting augmentation to our response times. And then of course that last one there, a specific about maintaining average response times of five minutes or less for structure fires inside the city limits. And you can see the data there that we're clearly meeting that performance measure. Lastly, again, two last references to the National Citizen Survey for overall satisfaction for health and wellness opportunities.

You can see essentially flat from the 2024 study and similar with the national benchmark, similar with the overall feeling of safety, similar with the 2024 study, and again similar to the national benchmark. Again, concludes our presentation. As we said at the beginning, Jordan and I only plan to highlight a couple of things on each slide. This information will be available on the website for anyone that wants to drill down into it further. And as discussed, we plan to bring this back to you at your summer retreat primarily for considerations of modifications or edits to the plan as we continue to move forward.

Any questions for Mr. Werner or Mrs. Mattney? Yes, I do.

I have three.

I'll first.

What's anticipated date for the LDO rollout finally?

Finished? Complete That's and a great question. It's a difficult one to answer though. So we are trying to be very strategic about it. As I mentioned, staff has reviewed Articles four and five, and then our next step will be to review that with the LDO focus group.

Those are the two most substantial Article IV's development standards, Article V's subdivision standards. So those will be individually sent to the LDO focus group as two separate articles. Once those are through, the last several articles will move pretty quickly. So our hope is to move forward with the next round of public input this summer, and then start the adoption process.

Did we, I guess Gary back in the back, did we get anything submitted for the MTP with Ampo? Okay, we did because there was third thing that wasn't in these or that kind of thing in the mobility issue is, is there a possibility that we can make it a priority to take a look at a river crossing? And we talk about it this, that, and the other. But with the two accidents that we've had on the interstate, and the one in particular that shut the town down and really caused havoc on posts and everywhere. Something like that happened again, it's really hard to get anybody from the Southwest Quadrant to a hospital because they can't get from point A to point B.

And it's something we've bannered around for twenty years. And today at AMPO, they gave us critical heat list of problems. And if we take a look at it with what we're looking at by 2050, we got a whole lot of red congested in the 2050 number. And as we know, it takes twenty years for

us to get something fixed. You're speaking specifically of

the Guadalupe River Crossing? Specifically the Guadalupe River Crossing?

Well, that's one of the areas where what's happening is is that there's only so much we can take on the loop. 306 has got hot spots, 1863 has will have hot spots. We've got 46 which obviously TxDOT's working on to deal that. But even with them dealing with it, it's showing it bright red at 2,050. And part of that's because if you look at what they put out today and Gary's got it, the upper third of San Antonio by 2,050 is solid red.

I mean, not any relief even with everything they're building. Right. So it tells us we really have to look at, because that'll impact us, people move, people shift, whatever, just because they want less traffic.

Yeah, think specific to the Guadalupe River Crossing, there's been lots conversations about that. I think there's buy in across the board. The city manager and myself are meeting with the new judge elect in Guadalupe County. The judge Hoyt in Comal County is supportive, and so we're continuing to have those conversations. But I think more importantly, the funding that we have committed to major roadway expansion projects through various different funding sources, but specifically to the 2023 bond, there are four major roadway expansions that are the the common street project which will be tremendous for relieving congestion when there's issues on I-thirty 5. So there's major commitments in projects over the next

If five to 10 you just take about whether or not we come across it, Union Wine or Altwine and Welt ner, which then connects straightens out 758, which then connects to 123 to 120. And when I looked at the heat map today, 123 lights up red from Seguin to San Marcos by 2,050. So you can tell we've got to get the alternatives in our queue in this mobility or and I know we have to get them in now. So it's just a point. That's it, that's all I got.

In addition to what Jordan shared with regards to the Guadalupe River Crossing, we also have a meeting next month, I believe it's next month with the district engineer for TxDOT to talk about various projects including this project as well. Council member Capizi has certainly been a champion of this discussion as well for since the whole time I think you've been on the council and we'll be including him in those upcoming meetings as well. As we discussed not only those projects but then as you also know, we're one of several entities, us Comal County, Guadalupe County, City Of Seguin working closely with TxDOT on the winding of '46 from I-thirty five to I-ten which is over a billion dollar project but certainly that planning is well underway to identify right of way acquisition and then to go on to the next phase of that project as well.

We need to look at FM eleven oh one, FM eleven oh two and all the textile roads too. If they're not on that plan, they need to be. But thank you very much for the presentation. Really lengthy and a lot of good be then we're get

next

haven't done that since when?

We haven't done it since we established.

Yes, I think it's due time that we should put that on our this is just me talking about our balance.

They were first adopted in 2006 and then they were actually updated I believe it was 2018. 2018, thank you. In 2018 when they were increased as

well. Okay, it's you to been tested take a look to at that because all these park people love parks. That's always score really high across the board. I think we need to take another look at the park impact fee. I think we raised all the other impact fees but not the park impact fee.

Our park development manager is looking at park development fee ordinance as part of the LDO update. So we are looking at that. But yes, I agree. All of those fees.

And I know we have an issue with Guadalupe County with the park

Outside the city limits.

Right, so when you'll have the conversation with Judge Carpenter. You're right, you might want to mention that that we would like to include them on our park fee for their residents that live in our city. Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation. It's fantastic. But you mentioned about the Westside Community Center to looking at insurance space. What did y'all mean by that? Looking at

Oh, think what was meant was recreational opportunities like DOS Rec for example where we are able to then build insurance companies for retired folks. We could then build like SilverSneakers for the use of recreational opportunities within our facilities.

Yeah, we're trying to expand the opportunities at the Westside Community Center and we recently transitioned it from the library to the Parks and Recreation Department to provide more programming, more opportunities for the community. One of the things that we can do there is work with those insurance companies for different fitness opportunities. Okay, yes.

I don't have any questions at all, but I just wanted to give a big kudos and an attaboy to yourself, to Jared, to all the staff in back here. That's a lot, that's 70 pages of slides with a ton of heavy lifting. I mean, it's not lost on me at all. And so, I know there's a lot of noise a lot of times. A lot of criticism at times, but I think it's worth noting to all of you and to the entire city staff that you're doing an incredible job.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Think Jordan would say tremendous.

Let's give him a hand. Thank you.

Okay, any other questions?

Can we air bomb this through the world of all communication sources to just show people that this isn't a do nothing council, it's not a do nothing city, it's a massive amount of information and things going on. I mean, it's not just a road. It's not just a river. It's not just a thing. It's a whole bunch of stuff.

We can certainly work with our communications team to put this information out in a way that will actually be read because I think that's too long of a document for anyone to sit and actually read it. So we'll have to break it up into pieces and then disseminate that information that way. As we started to do earlier this year, we started to do some of that. We talked about 2025 but broke it up into categories such as public safety, quality of life, infrastructure and those kind of things. We can certainly talk about doing that as well.

Pieces, thank

you. Great job, Okay,

if there are no other questions, we'll open this to public comment. If anybody would like to speak to this item, please step up to the podium, state your name, whether you're a resident, non resident or live in the ETJ.

I may just say something, my name is Edward Rivera. I'm probably from

Mr. Rivera, would somebody move a microphone that way it gets I speak pretty loud. Well, we just want to make sure it gets recorded and people outside

Very outspoken. A lot of your people Mary Ann knows me from high school. Robert knows me. We grew up together. So you hit a good very spot. One of y'all said something about traffic. 35 shuts down, the city shuts down. Well, what happened to 11:01? That takes you all the way to San Marcos. Takes you to 123 and you know That'll relieve some some kind of congestion.

Or you can cut things back on 30091863, bring you all the way to the loop. That'll relieve some congestion in our town. Sometimes people think about it, sometimes they don't. It's about our police officers, our police force knowing we're direct people. But you know what some people forget, some people aren't from here.

Don't know any or the idea of what I'm talking about probably. That's how we used to get away from traffic coming from San Antonio or going to San Antonio on a weekend night. Take Wall Road all the way to 1604. Those are all county roads for us. We used to take them all the time just to get away from 30 5.

It's all innovation. I've seen the cities grow. I've seen a lot of people come and go. I'm very I'm in good contact with Mary Anne. I came here just out of curiosity today.

My first council meeting I've been to, it's interesting to see all the new development that are trying to come in, but you know your predecessors, when I was growing up here, were trying to keep those people from outside come to from coming in. It was nothing but German council back then. I'm I'm showing my age. I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Rivera. Is that everything?

You know what, we've already spoken about this. I'm in this wheelchair because I have three strokes. I'm a disabled veteran, served our country proudly, been in various places, a lot of countries. That's it. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir. Anybody else?

Thank you for your service.

Thank you.

Seeing no one else, we'll close public comment. And with that, we are adjourned.