Vision SMTX Comprehensive Plan Adopted 2024

PREFERRED GROWTH SCENARIO

COMMUNITY PRIORITIES AND OVERLAYS Residents expressed a strong desire to minimize the impacts of new development on established neighborhoods, historic, cultural, and environmental assets. As a result, the data from the previous Comprehensive Plan’s land use suitability map was updated and reorganized to better understand and more explicitly illustrate the various assets and constraints that must be considered when planning for future growth and development. Prior to drafting any detailed growth scenarios, it was important to identify those areas with historical, cultural, and environmental assets. The result was three distinct overlays that influenced the allocation of employment and housing, as well as the composition and assignment of various high level land uses and land use intensities (described in the next sections).

Historic Resource Overlay: The My Historic SMTX Resources Survey was utilized to help shape the overlay. A contiguous area was created that included all properties ranked medium and high priority in the Historic Resource Survey. For the scenario mapping and modeling exercise, jobs and housing were only allocated to vacant parcels within the Historic Resources Overlay. In addition, the assignment of high-level land uses and land use intensities largely reflected what already exists today. Cultural Resource Overlay: To help inform the boundaries for the Cultural Resource Overlay, the Cultural Resource data layers from the prior Land Use Suitability map were used. These did not include Historic Districts as those were included in the Historic Resource Overlay. Items that were included in the overlay were city parks, fish hatcheries, and cemeteries. As such, no housing or jobs were allocated to any area mapped within the Cultural Resource Overlay.

Historic Resource Overlay map (top) Cultural Resource Overlay map (bottom)

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SAN MARCOS COMPREHENSIVE PLAN 2024