Remarks by Jonathan Coffman
119 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 3 of 5
- Play at 27:34
“My last thing on this one, I'm curious to hear your all's take on why we're keeping the manufactured home zone, which is really just written for mobile home parks of 20, 30 years ago, versus a modern manufactured home really just looks like a home. It's not what people have in mind from the 70s and 80s. So I'm curious about us not allowing that in some other zones or not at least updating that one. Because again, it's sort of that's setting a particular housing type off to the side. And I just don't like that fundamentally, because like we've been saying, multiple housing types in the same…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 37:04
“So similarly, in that same vein for something like the NMU, have you all built in an incentive structure to your point, Director Bailey, around if, hey, if that's one that we really want to see neighborhoods that have neighborhood scale commercial in them, how do we make sure that the code not only makes that easy, but also gives them density credits or something that can also make that easier to pencil and to work for these types of developers? That would be something I'd be interested to hear if you all considered it or if it's something we should talk further about.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 37:50
“I mean, I guess I was mentioning specifically the mixed-use neighborhoods, which theoretically does have neighborhood scale commercial or retail in it, which we don't see a whole lot of today, right? for a variety of reasons, I'm sure, but it would be awful nice to have neighborhoods that have that type.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 46:44
“Could be some of the, like, five or ten acre parcels, right? Yeah. You could do something cool with it. Right.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 48:03
“Or just small. Yeah, I don't necessarily see it as a blighted thing.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 48:37
“Well, I think, you know, part of my part of what I want to bring up on that, too, is Sure, we can change this stuff periodically, but if you're thinking about five, ten years from now, there will be more of those properties, not blighted. But there will be homes in older neighborhoods that there probably will start to be people wanting to do redevelopment in.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 49:19
“You're just reducing the number, the accessibility of... doing that, right? An individual with a builder and an architect isn't probably going to have the money to go through a full on land use map update and a zoning update.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 50:12
“Yeah, and that's where I think it's the total cost of development is where things get, it ends up quick, right? I mean, I think even today, the last time I did the math on a single family home and a new development in Pflugerville, it's over $60,000 that is like all in to set up your development, to do the build per house, somewhere along there. And so I'm just mindful that, yeah, the fee may be $1,000, but it's 20 grand with their consultants and lawyers to get through and an extra six months because you got to do public hearing, EPNZ, and then it's got to come to us, and maybe we say no.…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 51:21
“I was just throwing out a number. You're fine.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 53:09
“Is this where I start poking at parking?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 53:31
“Yeah, and I think that's where I appreciate that you all add in added in the maximum. But quite frankly, I'm on the complete opposite end and say we just get rid of them all together. Even if we don't, let me tell you a different thing that I was thinking about that I think maybe mentioned in your report or in the code to I think to get an exception to reduce your parking minimum still required like a traffic study. I feel like, OK, if you're if someone voluntarily wants to build less parking we should let them do that and not make them go spend money on studies that will prove that they…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 57:59
“And that may be okay. Maybe we're in the lowest quartile of our competitive cities. Even if we don't get rid of them completely, if we're at the lowest minimums of our neighbors.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:00:37
“That's another area just to point out where I would love to see some way that we're incentivizing people not to use turf. And it looks like you all reduced turf requirements, or maybe you got rid of them, something like that. But I do think if there's an innovative way of enticing more people to not put in grass. That would be fantastic. Okay. When you said turf, I was like, wait.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:01:43
“I think that's another one where we need to think about what you're asking the public because they're just gonna say they don't want one. And I do think there's probably some more optimization in what you all wrote. I think in my opinion, there's a big difference between a five megawatt data center and a 20 or 50, whatever the actual tier was. size scale right yeah well no people won't but yeah it'll matter when one gets built i know and the other thing was for like practical purposes i don't think we have the contiguous land for a hyperscaler anyway um i mean because you're looking at…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:04:26
“I think to that point, one of the ideas that I've been looking at was whether there's a mechanism that we can get like an annual report or something out of these, right? So how do we get a continuous feedback of how much power, water, et cetera, they're using? Because to your point, over the long term, that could pretty significantly shift and we would never know. I don't know if there's a way to do that type of thing, but that would be... Well, apparently the governor's office is having the same problem. That's why you have to do it proactively.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:09:19
“Yeah, I think I was I heard from some folks on the Committee as well that were pretty uncomfortable with that And I am I don't love the idea that we're gonna go in and charge fees to existing homeowners and require new tree permits and mitigation I have a hard time thinking of someone who has a house and is clearing all the trees off and not doing something else. I mean, I'm sure it happens, but people value trees. And I just, I'm not super comfortable with us expanding our own enforcement abilities to”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:22:12
“Well, and to your point, right, like neighborhoods, people don't know what a cottage court is, right? I only barely do. Now, if you show somebody a picture... and say, you know, rank this picture. You know, there's probably ways to do it without just getting people angry about apartment buildings and data centers.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:30:12
“I'm fine with that. I don't think any of us had anything that was too contentious or that we absolutely disliked.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:30:27
“I mean, it obviously would be nice to see your next draft when it's ready, of course, right? So we can see what you all changed.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 1:30:53
“And when the development community and builders see this, they're going to have a stack of feedback for us to consider.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:13:10
“Yeah. I think you were asking about the no new revenue.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:16:48
“I mean, I would argue that our quality of life has also dramatically increased in the last 14 years that I've been here or whatever, right?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:34:41
“Well, that was Councilman Rogers' motion in our last budget meeting. Right. You were asking about $3,000, $1,000,000. The answer was $1,000,000. Somebody's got to find $1,000,000.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:41:05
“It's a beautiful slide, Tracy. Tracy just wanted to see us do the math on the desk.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:58:36
“I get it. But at the same time, we all have sat here many times over many hours talking about how we don't get restaurants and small businesses because of these impediments. And I do want to give staff credit for architecting a solution that's going to make a business, a small business, locally owned business, be able to expand and fully grow, hire new people, and solve for that problem. They're being given an opportunity to succeed in Excel. I hope that we can extend that same courtesy to OTHER COMPANIES AND THROUGH ADDITIONAL SUPPORTS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES. AND SO I THINK IT'S A GREAT…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026