Marble Falls council delays approval of comprehensive plan
The Marble Falls City Council delayed approval of the city’s comprehensive plan during its regular meeting on April 16.
Councilors unanimously voted to push approval to their May 7 meeting to give themselves more time to look over the 193-page document.
“I made the comment that I had a baby last week, so I hadn’t had a good chance to review it yet,” Councilor Bryan Walker told DailyTrib.com.
Walker made the motion to delay a vote on accepting the plan.
“That document is 193 pages,” he said. “Before we passed it, I asked we just move it to the next (meeting). That way, we have a good couple of weeks to review it instead of just one week.”
The plan, when approved, will be used as a “decision-making guide” for future city councils, Walker said.
He is pleased with the parts of the plan that he has already reviewed.
“I think it’s very well done,” he said. “I think it’s a good plan.”
The councilor especially likes its focus on adding city parks.
“The thing that I’m most proud of is to see people wanting us to expand the park space,” Walker said. “I think that we’re really getting the community feedback that we wanted to see. People are actually voicing, ‘Hey look, we need things closer to our homes park-wise instead of the big trio (Lakeside, Westside, and Johnson parks) down in the center of town.’”
He was also happy to see the plan include goals to increase commercial offerings.
“I’m big on getting more businesses and restaurants,” Walker said. “I think we have a really awesome opportunity to in-fill more of the commercial space.”
Marble Falls’ current comprehensive plan was last updated in 2016.
“We pride ourselves on doing just about everything that was in the (2016) comprehensive plan,” Walker said. “I think we’re on track to do the same thing here.”
City staff began work on a new comprehensive plan in the fall of 2022 alongside Halff, an Austin-based planning consulting firm.
The city held several public meetings and multiple surveys over the past 17 months to allow residents to voice their opinions.
“It was nice to have such good, heavy involvement by the citizens,” Walker said. “I think we had over 700 respondents (in the surveys), which is really good turnout.”
The Marble Falls City Council will consider approval of the comprehensive plan during its next regular meeting at 6 p.m. May 7 inside Council Chambers at City Hall, 800 Third St.
“That’s the plan for right now,” Walker said.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated the city hired planning consulting firm Hatch for its comprehensive plan. The firm is actually Halff. DailyTrib.com apologizes for the error.