City Council Meeting

February 8, 2012 The Bastrop City Council met in Special Meeting on Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 6:00 p.m. at the Bastrop City Hall Council Chambers, 1311 Chestnut Street, Bastrop, Texas. Members present were Mayor Terry Orr and Council Members Bill Peterson, Joe Beal, Ken Kesselus and Kay Garcia McAnally. 1. CALL TO ORDER At 6:00 p.m., Mayor Terry Orr called the meeting to order with all members present with the exception of Julie Hart who was absent. 2. PRESENTATION, DISCUSSION, CONSIDERATION AND POSSIBLE ACTION ON FORM-BASED CODE/BLUEPRINT IMPLEMENTATION FOR THE CITY OF BASTROP. Mayor Orr welcomed everyone to the Special Meeting. Mayor Orr stated this meeting will be an exchange of information and ideas and he will lead the recognition of persons wanting to speak on a more informal basis. City Manager, Mike Talbot stated last summer while he was attending the annual Texas City Manager Association Conference he attended a presentation on Form-Based Codes and what that means to the City. Mr. Talbot stated Scott Polikov gave a presentation on this and he was so impressed that he had attached the presentation to his City Manager Evaluation that he had given to Council. Mr. Talbot stated several months after that the City received the SDAT program and Form-Based Code was brought up in the SDAT public hearings. Planning and Development Director, Melissa McCollum addressed the Council. Ms. McCollum stated this is to be an informative meeting and she hopes it will be an introduction into the City of Bastrop implementing Form-Based Code. Ms. McCollum introduced Scott Polikov of Gateway Planning and stated Mr. Polikov has vast experience in Form-Based Code all over the State of Texas and other areas. Scott Polikov introduced Brad Lonberger, Pablo Serna, Robert Parsons and Milosav Selcic. Mr. Polikov gave a PowerPoint presentation on Form-Based Code. Mr. Polikov began the presentation with the following questions: What makes Bastrop important and what creates opportunities. Mr. Polikov stated Mr. Selcic defines Urbanism as places where you can have regular unplanned chance meetings with people you don’t know. Mr. Polikov stated Bastrop already has some of that here and the question is how do you build on that. Mr. Polikov stated the key to Form-Based Code is to focus on form and neighborhoods. Form has to do with the building and such on the parcel and how does it relate to other things. Mr. Polikov showed some case studies of how Form-Based Code has worked in other cities: McKinney, Texas; Owensboro, Kentucky; Duncanville, Texas; Fort Worth Camp Bowie Redevelopment Initiative and Historic Oak Street in Roanoke, Texas. Discussion was held among the Council and Mr. Polikov. Mayor Orr then asked if anyone in the audience had questions. The following persons presented questions to Mr. Polikov for discussion: Joel Valdez, Tommy Hoover, Lisa Patterson, Marilyn Whites, Carol Rice, Dave Quinn and Judi Hoover. Mayor Orr stated that Mr. Polikov had mentioned the most important point, which is that all people of all stations in life are welcome and should have an option to live downtown. Ms. McCollum stated she was hoping that this presentation would lead the City of Bastrop to draft a Form-Based Code for our community and she is sure we can make it work for our community. Joe Beal stated he believed the direction to give to the City Manager from his personal standpoint is: This is the sort of re-development and development of a unique place, this is a special place and we are going to grow, but he personally does not want the City to spend a whole lot of time on this, like the Historic Landmark Commission had spent on the Historic Overlay District proposal only to find that there was not the community zeal to do that. Mr. Beal stated as we look at this opportunity it is extremely important that we create a public input process in the beginning to see what the community has stomach for, not only those that live in the historic downtown area; and then stay on that path. Mr. Talbot stated he could not agree more with Mr. Beal and that is why he thought it was extremely important to have Mr. Polikov do this presentation. Mr. Talbot stated that when the SDAT report is received the Council can see what the community has to say. 3. ADJOURN At 8:01 p.m., Bill Peterson moved to adjourn. Seconded by Kay Garcia McAnally and carried unanimously. APPROVED: ATTEST: _________________________ ___________________________ Terry Orr, Mayor Teresa Valdez, City Secretary