San Marcos City Council adopts strategic initiative priorities for 2022-26

San Marcos City Council unanimously adopted strategic initiatives and priorities for the next few years at its April 5 board meeting.

Interim City Manager Stephanie Reyes said the new goals and priorities were discussed as part of the council’s envisioning session held Jan. 13-14. The sessions produced priorities, including workforce housing, sustainability, COVID-19 response, community safety, economic development and two areas of focus—an assessment of community assistance and developing an equity policy.

“In addition to the initiatives, you included the assessment of community assistance as an area of focus, discussed developing an equity policy and clarified that strategic initiatives are for the next three to five years,” Reyes said. “After the visioning session, we had an extensive list of initiatives, including those from previous years that were on the list. In order to organize these initiatives, we reached out to our department directors to provide feedback regarding the amount of time they anticipate it would take to complete if it is a core service and whether it will require additional resources.”

Goals on the city’s draft strategic initiative document are broken down by category and a timeframe in each category of short-term, 12-18 months; intermediate, 18-36 months; and long term, completed in over 36 months.

Under the area of workforce housing, for instance, the document identifies “encouraging mixed-income communities within new development” as a short-term goal; “determine if the city can provide an incentive or assistance, i.e. financing, to get vacant lots utilized” as an intermediate goal; and “draft an ordinance targeting geographic locations and nonprofit homebuilders for appropriate zoning when permanently affordable for-sale housing is constructed” as a long-term goal.

“Once council proceeds, then we will definitely have specific outcomes and timelines. The strategies will then be used to focus council and staff on the priorities that we will want to accomplish and achieve together over the next three to five years,” Reyes said. “And then staff will also provide regular updates to the City Council regarding progress for each initiative and include this information on our city website for our community to also be able to see a status update on these items.”