The city of Bastrop is positioned for new development after amending its Comprehensive Plan to feature an updated Future Land Use Map.

The previous FLUM was adopted in 2016, but in the years since, the city of Bastrop has experienced significant changes in both regulatory frameworks and physical development, according to a staff report.

The overview

The process of developing the updated FLUM began in November and featured several public engagement opportunities and joint work sessions.

A FLUM accomplishes several objectives, according to the Comprehensive Plan.
  • Helps direct growth to the appropriate places
  • Aligns growth with community vision
  • Balances economic development and livability standards
  • Maximizes infrastructure investments
“This is not a current plan,” Bastrop City Manager Sylvia Carillo-Trevino said during a Bastrop City Council meeting in late May. “This is what we want to see in the future.”


The approach

Under the newly adopted FLUM, there are nine new designations:
  • Parks and Open Space
  • Residential Conservation and Estate
  • Neighborhood Residential
  • Residential Mixed Density
  • Neighborhood Commercial
  • Mixed-Use Corridor Commercial
  • Corridor Commercial
  • Downtown Commercial
  • Industrial
Halff & Associates, the firm hired to develop the new FLUM, highlighted key modifications Bastrop City Council approved during the meeting. These alterations included changing the designation behind Buc-ee’s from Neighborhood Residential to Conservation Rural and Estate to protect the rural character and limit development on difficult terrain, changing areas within the Downtown Bastrop designation to Downtown Commercial to support a concentration of mixed-use development, and changing areas within the Downtown Bastrop designation to Neighborhood Commercial to better reflect existing land uses.

Sorting out the details

During the meeting, council member Cynthia Meyer suggested a last-minute change to the proposed FLUM. She wanted the Neighborhood Commercial designation on land that bordered Eden East Farm to be changed to Neighborhood Residential to better protect the site from unintended consequences of future commercial development.


“Because [Neighborhood Commercial] doesn’t conform to the future that we envision for that area—what we’ve been talking about forever and what the neighbors have been talking about forever,” Meyer said.



Council member Kevin Plunkett was in favor of the change, so long as the land that Eden East Farm sits on also wasn’t changed to Neighborhood Residential.

“I think what we’re trying to communicate is that a small amount of Neighborhood Commercial is acceptable up there and even desired,” he said. “If we just keep erasing [Neighborhood Commercial], then we’ve made a whole homogeneous neighborhood that has to cross the river every time they want to buy something.”