San Marcos sets sights on future development

Much of the discussion at the event was centered on how San Marcos can maintain its identity. Some panelists echoed former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros' two-decade-old view that San Marcos would eventually be swallowed up by San Antonio and Austin.

Jim Gaines, research economist at the Texas A&M University Real Estate Center, said in order for San Marcos to maintain its identity as those two cities expand their borders, it must develop good east-west mobility.

"Look at a map," Gaines said. "Austin—they have a big problem with that. Everything flows north-south. Develop some east-west. Don't be too parochial in that view. See how it all fits together. You're a piece in a jigsaw puzzle and you're an integral piece."

Feeding off Gaines' comments, Doug Farr, a Chicago-based urbanist and author of "Sustainable Urbanism" said the city should seriously consider a streetcar system.

"San Marcos may not think of itself as wearing big boy pants yetbut you're there," Farr said. "Street car is a technology that those of us of a certain age actually remember but it's also come back. It is half a transportation mode and half an economic development tool."

Farr cited tech companies and high-growth and high-income jobs as generally favoring streetcars.

SMTXTalks was the first of what Matthew Lewis, director of planning and development services for the city of San Marcos, said he hoped would be many events aimed at engaging people during the process of rewriting the city's land development code.

"The Land Development Code is going to change the development patterns in the city," Lewis said. "The Comprehensive Master Plan identified compact, dense neighborhoods connected with walking trails and biking trails and in order to implement and achieve that, it's going to be done through the Land Development rewrite.

"It's going to be my job to help mediate the conversation to get realistic expectations and results to achieve [the rewrite]. I need the community's help to do that."