As College Station continues to grow a diverse economy, the city also needs to figure out how to house all the new visitors and old residents.
During Thursday’s Planning and Zoning Committee meeting, staff reviewed a presentation to rezone 16 acres generally located at 3700 Rock Prairie Road West from rural zoning to townhouse. The location is currently vacant and the intention is to turn the location into a townhouse subdivision and, according to the city, “further support neighborhoods with a mix of housing types.”
The rezoning was unanimously approved and will receive final consideration at the College Station City Council’s May 9 meeting.
College Station has been facing an impending housing supply shortage and many current households are “cost burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of income on housing. Similarly, median home prices in College Station have increased by 75% since 2015 while wages have only increased by 25%.
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In response to these findings, the city of College Station has been working on generating more housing opportunities and created a Housing Action plan.
Gabriel Schrum, city staff planner, gave a presentation during Thursday’s meeting to discuss the rezoning request.
“The land within close proximity to this property includes townhome properties to the north, a large single-family tract to the south and is bordered by a future extension of Towers Parkway,” he said.
The city hopes to create walkable lots and well-connected street patterns through the use of sidewalks, trees and lighting. Due to having a wide variety of housing types surrounding the zoning area, they hope to encourage a diverse community.
“After discussion and review, staff has determined that this request has met the outlined rezoning criteria within the unified development ordinance, such as being consistent with the comprehensive plan,” he said.
The “comprehensive plan” refers to the long-range vision for College Station growth and development, including long-term housing efforts.
Site-specific improvements would be necessary for development, including sewer connections, drainage and further developments to Towers Parkway, although the city predicts “an increase of less than 150 trips in any peak hour,” meaning traffic accommodations are not needed.
Joe Schultz of Schultz Engineering also spoke at the meeting and said the property will connect and extend Towers Parkway and include the extension of Ryan’s Landing, preventing further traffic from Rock Prairie Road West.
“People will be able to go from Rock Prairie to Cane Road on Towers [Parkway] when this development is done,” he said. “We will also have a connection to the property to the east.”
Many surrounding properties also were developed and built by David Scarmardo and the plan for the Rock Prairie development is to also utilize his services, Schultz said.
“We’ll do townhouses just like the adjacent properties and mix in a few single-family detached [properties] also,” he said. “It will be very similar to what surrounds it.”
The townhome specific zoning provides some benefits over middle housing zoning, including concerns over parking, and Schultz said they hope to continue expanding and create more options to accommodate the high demand of housing.
“This is a straight townhome. We don’t want middle housing,” he said. “The way the geometry of this tract is and how we think we’re going to lay it out, it works real well with the townhouses we’ve already built with garages in the adjoining neighborhoods.”