As city officials prepare to gather community feedback on downtown zoning districts, Planning and Development Services Director Bradley Dushkin said the focus is to ”keep Round Rock residents in Round Rock.”
What is it
The variety of zoning designations available in Round Rock have defining stipulations for building heights, amount of parking space and design standards. The existing downtown mix-used districts, adopted in 2013, include one-to-three story commercial buildings; a variety of building types for combinations of commercial, office and residential; and residential buildings with limited commercial and office use.
“It's been a decade since then. Are we getting what we wanted to out of the original downtown mixed-use zoning districts? Are we getting the results?" Dushkin asked.
The context
Dushkin said the Planning and Development Services department has already had roundtable meetings with developers and engineers who have done work in Downtown Round Rock. The department has also reached out to owners and renters in the area, including the Heart of Round Rock neighborhood association.
The goal is to put out feelers to assess what these interest groups want from the downtown area, and what changes could make that possible.
“For the longest time, [downtown] was really just that two block area of the historic district,” Dushkin said. “We wanted to help expand the footprint of the commercial uses and bring in more people—really providing more types of businesses into downtown.”
What’s next?
The city’s mission for the downtown area is to have more restaurants, shops and amenities to serve residents. However, Dushkin said that in order to attract developers, there needs to be more density.
“There are concerns about how increasing density and taller buildings could theoretically or potentially hinder the character, the charm [and] the small-town feel of downtown Round Rock,” Dushkin said.
The department is still gathering feedback, and the next step is a communitywide open house Oct. 29. Dushkin said city staff will take the input they’ve received to make formal recommendations to City Council in the next couple of months. The estimated timeline to start adopting any new zoning districts is next spring.
