Travis County is currently working on a draft for their Land, Water and Transportation Plan, preparing for a day when SH 130 south of Pflugerville might have more on it than farmland and a healthy amount of automobile traffic.

While much of the plan is dedicated to the preservation of farmland, watersheds and nature preserves, other parts focus on encouraging building more dense, urban-like centers in the county's unincorporated and undeveloped areas.

According to demographics cited in the plan, the county is projected to grow to roughly 1.5 million people in the next 20 years, with many of those people residing in unincorporated areas. As the county's population increases, so will the demand for county services. Travis County staffers said they are hoping their plan will provide the blueprint needed to put the region's resources and infrastructure ahead of the game.

SH 130 Corridor

Charlie Watts, Travis County Transportation and Natural Resources Planner, said SH 130 is the main corridor in which the county hopes to encourage a new type of development it is calling activity centers. Originally defined in the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization 2035 plan, the activity center concept features prominently in the Travis County LWTP. These centers would be dense developments featuring multifamily housing, retail and office space.

"[Activity centers are] denser than the typical single-family development in the Pflugerville area," Watts said. "They are areas where people live, work, play and commute."

The county cannot zone new developments in the same way cities such as Pflugerville can. However, Travis County has tools to encourage developers to design their communities along preferred corridors, Watts said.

He said the county can leverage infrastructure and investments with developers through public/private partnerships and developer agreements.

"We can incentivize employers locating in these areas and also, possibly, provide tax abatements if that's determined necessary," he said.

Watts said it is not the county developing these projects, but encouraging them through infrastructure.

"These are developers coming to us saying, 'We have these concepts,' and we're saying, 'Yeah this is the way we should be going, let's encourage that type of growth,'" he said.

Watts said although single-family developments would not go away along the SH 130 corridor, these activity centers would give those living in the county's unincorporated areas additional housing options.

Some examples of the county's plans for activity centers along the SH 130 corridor are already underway, Watts said. Whisper Valley, Wild Horse and Indian Hills are new residential subdivisions near the SH 130 corridor with large mixed-use centers, said Travis County Transportation and Natural Resources Executive Steven Manilla. These communities have development agreements and many have roadway partnerships that will provide connectivity to an activity center, he said.

According to the LWTP, a comprehensive bike and pedestrian trail system—connecting transportation and conservation corridors—can be developed along the SH 130 corridor to provide further connections.

Fitting Pflugerville

The county is not the only entity with plans for the SH 130 corridor. Pflugerville Assistant City Manager Trey Fletcher said the city started planning uses for SH 130 before it opened in 2006. Fletcher said where the city could not maximize uses for I-35, which is surrounded by land controlled by the City of Austin, it could do so with SH 130.

However, unlike the county, the city of Pflugerville can zone along the tollway to ensure the types of businesses and developments it desires come to the area.

Fletcher said the city implemented specific zoning to promote SH 130 as a mixed-use corridor that would become the geographic center of the community.

"The intent of our approach on the corridor is to say we want to focus development efforts, especially those that are intensive and of density, to be along those [SH] 45 and [SH] 130 corridors," he said. "We want people to know when they're in Pflugerville they're looking at quality development that's enriching the community."

Floyd Akers, executive director of the Pflugerville Community Development Corp., said Pflugerville is already on its way toward being an activity center. He pointed to the Stonehill Town Center retail development and the proposed Sunshine Village, a multi-use development including office space, retail and apartments, as examples of Pflugerville becoming a bustling hub along SH 130.

"Sunshine Village is pretty much everything the county's looking for on the SH 130 corridor," he said.

Precinct 2 County Commissioner Bruce Todd said the LWTP is about facilitating what cities and the county is planning.

"The worst mistake [the county] can make is roll in and say, 'We're big Travis county–let's do X and Y,'" Todd said. "That's not our role, our role is to listen to [cities] and to help them."

Todd said a discussion period is important when drafting plans to make sure the county's vision aligns with the cities in the region.

Conservation areas

While roughly half the plan is dedicated to how the county wants to move forward with developments in unincorporated areas, much of it looks toward preserving the county's natural resources as well.

The conservation portion of the LWTP is based on two previous county plans—the Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan which refers to acquiring property for endangered species habitat, and the Travis County Parks and Natural Areas Master Plan regarding parkland acquisition.

"The purpose of the [LWTP] is to provide a framework for balancing conservation and development," TNR Project Manager Wendy Scaperotta said.

Priorities for the LWTP include protecting farmland, floodplains, forested post oak savannah areas, endangered species habitat and natural springs, she said.

"Our intent is to conserve resources as large contiguous tracts of land or as corridors along waterways," Scaperotta said.

She said the LWTP's top priorities for conservation are the Pedernales River in southwest Travis County, a section of the Colorado River in eastern Travis County that runs to the Bastrop County line and three of the river's tributary creeks.