In an effort to make the city more attractive to new businesses, Leander City Council has adopted a temporary rewrite of the city’s access-management policy, which was seen by some as restrictive to development.
Mayor Troy Hill said the citizens of the city want commercial growth.
“Leander is open for business and will work hard to provide a company with the ability to locate here and be wildly successful,” Hill said.
In November, Leander City Council voted to modify the city’s access-management regulations. Jurisdictions adopt access-management policies to control how drivers can enter and exit roadways.
“There are many studies that show the fewer [the] conflict points (i.e. driveways) along a road, the less dangerous the road will be for commuters,” City Council Member Jeff Seiler said. “The more driveways, the more opportunities for accidents.”
According to the Texas Department of Transportation’s Access Management Manual, data suggests that when the number of access points is doubled from 10 to 20 per mile of roadway, crash rates increase by 30 percent. Access-management techniques do not only include limiting access points; however, they can also include managing the spacing of turns, medians and intersections, according to documents from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
Leander’s previous access-management policy, which was adopted in March 2017, stated that lots abutting an arterial street could not have an access point onto the arterial—roads such as US 183 or Crystal Falls Parkway, according to Leander interim Planning Director Robin Griffin. Instead land developers needed to provide drivers with access to a lower-class street or a backage road, which is a road running along an arterial street, according to Leander’s code of ordinances.
In the case a lower-class street could not be built, lots with at least 600 feet of frontage onto the arterial could have a driveway on the arterial, Griffin said.
