In a bid to promote quality development, city staff proposed a style guide for developers to follow when they build new homes in the city at Tuesday's planning and zoning meeting.

The guide addresses issues the city has seen with construction in one- and two-family detached structures, Director of Planning Howard Koontz said, including design, sustainability, amenities and parking.

Kyle installed the city’s first traffic light in 2007— since then, more than 600 homes have been built in the city per year, with no end in sight, Koontz said. The quick growth of the area has led developers to compete with each other by offering homes at lower price points; but when this happens, the quality of the structure is the first thing to be compromised, he said.

“Real estate is not philanthropy,” Koontz said.

Compared to other cities Koontz has worked in, Kyle has low regulation when it comes to building homes, he said. A form-based style guide would serve as an example for developers to follow, rather than a set of regulations to try and get around, Koontz said.

The first draft of the residential style guide had harsh words for the city's recent housing development projects.

"Kyle is falling into a building pattern resulting in a bedroom community, removed and detached from the emergent ‘Kyle’ brand, completely dependent on the automobile, without any particular identity or sense of place," according to the guide's introduction.

Ideas to improve future subdivisions outlined in the guide include offering off-street parking for guests when possible, avoiding cul-de-sacs, creating dual-purpose amenities (such as stormwater management features doubling as sports fields) and incorporating the natural environment of a site in the structure's design.

However, some commissioners butted heads when it came to guide specifics; Seat 2 Commissioner Pete Oppel said he hoped to see more developments in Kyle that were pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly, while Seat 3 Commissioner Bradley Growt was concerned about balancing quality developments with maintaining affordability. The merits of cul-de-sacs were also discussed.

As the meeting was a work session, the board took no action on the residential style guide, but it will appear as an action item during the meeting scheduled for July 11. A week later, on July 18, it will go before Kyle City Council as a policy decision.