In early 2009, the Jonestown City Council and City Manager Dan Dodson received a presentation from an urban design class at the University of Texas School of Architecture. They sat in the center of a room, surrounded by conceptual designs, maps and renderings of their city. The materials did not represent what the city of Jonestown is today. Instead, it showed what Jonestown could be.
The materials showcased a city where people could live, work, shop and play without leaving the community. It showed couples walking down a sidewalk parallel to FM 1431, passing by two-story buildings with shops and restaurants. A zoning layout created a series of conservation areas within the city for hike and bike trails.
In essence, it showed the Council a best-case scenario for future city growth.
“We were terribly impressed,” Mayor Deane Armstrong said about the presentation. “The class had groups that presented all kinds of ideas.”
The UT urban design class, under the supervision of Associate Professor Robert Paterson, spent several months working with the city to create the materials and gave a final presentation of the results. City planning and zoning chairman Alan Yost said those results have allowed the city to get a better picture of how certain plans could come to fruition.
“The quality of the work, and the different perspectives and ideas, are excellent and a great starting point,” he said.
The P&Z held a meeting July 21 to look over the materials. Yost said the commission looked at the ideas proposed within the project and are using them as a basis of how the city could grow in the next 10 to 20 years.
Dodson, who helped the class during its project, said all of the plans and ideas within the project materials represent the city’s Master Plan and input from city staff.
“It was a staff effort, though the Council did give some input,” he said. “We had to give some direction to them in terms of our Master Plan and some of the things we felt were appropriate for this community.”
The class looked at several aspects of the city. Two of the biggest focal points were additions to Jones Brothers Park and creating a safer, more pedestrian-friendly FM 1431 in the city. Yost said the class materials helped spur good ideas and decide which ideas the city should pursue.
The P&Z is looking at options to allow pedestrians to cross FM 1431, Yost said. A couple options include putting trails underneath the highway or creating a crosswalk with a flashing light signal. But he added all of these are simply possibilities and have not been put into action by the city.
“The only thing we’re proceeding with is gathering information,” he said.
City Code Enforcement Officer Marilee Pfannstiel said once that information is collected and ready for a presentation, the P&Z will hold a joint public meeting with the parks and recreation board to receive community input. From there, the P&Z will update the city Master Plan with those ideas in mind.
“We had limited public input the last time we updated the Master Plan,” Pfannstiel said. “We want a whole lot more the next time.”
Using the GIS mapping system, Pfannstiel said she is able to create scenarios relating to the Master Plan and the project materials, which will help city staff and the Council better utilize the materials created by the UT project.
“It’s just a wonderful tool to use the data that’s already out there,” she said, adding doing the work in-house will save the city money.
Dodson said the UT project would have normally cost the city at least $50,000, making it a win-win situation for the class and the city.
“You’re talking some high five-digit money,” he said, “Especially with the time they put into it.”
But Dodson said city staff and the Council understand the limitations involved in city growth, and that the materials do not mean growth will come to the area.
“We realize the roadblocks out there before anything like this will happen,” he said.
The national economy leaves many questions unanswered, he added, which leaves the question of what exactly is “normalcy.”
“We’ve been in such an artificial economy for quite some time, so what is our return to normalcy?” Dodson asked.
The materials do help encourage development interest, Dodson said, but, “There are a lot of pieces of the puzzle that would have to come together.”
The project does bring to light the certainty of how a city’s growth—and how that growth occurs—can be integral toward creating a better place to live.
“This city ages every day, and the aging process is a costly process,” he said. “You got to grow or you basically just … get into a bad situation. You deteriorate. It’s just like you get older and don’t take care of yourself.”