JOINT MEETING TO HEAR SMALL AREA PLAN

  

The Brenham City Council, The Brenham Planning and Zoning Commission, The Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone Number 1 Board and the Small Area Plan Working Group held a joint session at Morris Hall at the Simon Theater Monday afternoon.  They all came together to hear and discuss the Small Area Plan around the Brenham Family Park.  Gary Mitchell and Greg Flisram with the consultant group Kendig Keast Collaborative lead the meeting. 

The object of the meeting is the 663-acre site surrounding the New Brenham Family Park and is, in the view of city planners, the next site to be developed in Brenham.  The site is 12 times as big as the current downtown area. The final plan has a mixture of commercial and residential development.  The key feature of the plan is different size lots for residential housing.  The total property has fewer than 10 owners, something that Greg Flisram says is highly unusual.  All aspects of the property were discussed along with the traffic flow through the area.  The plan is that the City Council will control the development of the area through thoroughfare and zoning laws.

The property is roughly the area west of the Brenham Business Center, south of Highway 290, north of the Brenham State Supported Living Center and east of Highway 36. The plan is highly flexible, and can be changed due to developer’s concerns.  While the Brenham Family Park covers approximately 110 acres of the site, the small area plan does not include any potential commercial or residential development within the park itself, as it will be a passive family park.  The city hopes to use the plan to provide a consensus as to how the non-park acreage could be used when potential developers begin looking into land within the plan area.