Taylor’s plan for the future has been amended amid concerns from the public and on the Taylor City Council.
On Thursday, May 12, the council approved 4-1 to approve an ordinance for an amendment to the Envision Taylor Comprehensive Plan. Councilmember Dwayne Ariola, who said he was still onboard with the comprehensive plan as a whole, was the dissenting vote.
“We tasked this group (city staff and consultants) to re-evaluate this plan, and I thought re-evaluate was all the plan, not just the mapping,” said Ariola, “and in my opinion, all we did was just the mapping.”
The Envision Taylor Comprehensive Plan is the primary policy document for the city to guide development, transportation, utilities and other capital improvements. The document guides the municipality with a vision, goals, objectives and actions deemed necessary to direct the city’s long-range growth and development.
“We were all onboard with this plan 2 and some plus years ago for old Taylor and old historic growth. We assumed it was going to pick up, and it has,” said Ariola, “but with Samsung coming onboard just a week after we signed this comprehensive plan, we just saw here in May or April, the appraisals for the city of Taylor go up $1 billion, so it’s kind of unheard of.”
On Nov. 23, 2021, Samsung announced it would invest $17 billion to build a semiconductor manufacturing plant on six million square feet in Taylor. Construction began in southwest Taylor earlier this year.
“For us to say that we’ve taken Samsung into account, I don’t think that’s 100% accurate,” said Ariola, “because it’s just crazy numbers that we’re seeing right now.”
The amendment includes:
• revisions to the growth sectors map near the Samsung site;
• revisions to the future land use plan and map near Samsung;
• creation of a new land use category titled Special Employment District;
• revisions to the transportation plan to reflect relocation, removal and addition of streets and roads near Samsung; and
• a series of cleanup revisions to the Transportation Plan to correct errors, misalignments and more
Several citizens were concerned with the plan’s growth sectors map. The residents come from areas labeled as restricted growth sectors. The plan calls these sectors as “areas that have value as open space or agricultural land and where increased development and additional entitlements are discouraged. This includes large lot homesteads and farmland with limited infrastructure availability. Expansion into this area is not anticipated during the time frame of this plan,” which is 20 to 30 years.
Charlotte Albert and her husband, Bill, recounted how they were receiving substantial commercial offers to sell their property since 2018. Recently, the offers have silenced.
“If the city of Taylor had done their job when we were annexed … over 15 years ago, we – meaning not just me and my husband but others with us in that same boat – would not be here now asking you to revisit this new vision and ordinance.”
Colin Harrison, assistant director of development services, went over some of the backdrop as to why the comprehensive plan came to its organization.
“The community overwhelmingly approved the fiscal approach and that’s central and underpinned in the whole comprehensive plan,” said Harrison. “If another developer wants to come in and provide infrastructure and there’s capacity within the existing system, then it’s maybe a discussion point.”
Council members said they would be open to hearing more from interested parties willing to invest in areas where the city is not able to itself.
“The restricted growth area is restricted due to the fact we don’t have existing infra structure,” said Mayor Brandt Rydell. “That can be rectified as has been addressed here.”
Councilmember Robert Garcia also added that Taylor Economic Development Corporation could be a source for interested entities wanting to build in Taylor.
“In my opinion, we’re trying to do what is right, fiscally responsible because we don’t have millions of dollars to put infrastructure everywhere that it needs to be in Taylor,” said Garcia.
To view the full discussion, which includes citizen communications, visit https:// taylortx.swagit.com/ play/05132022-645/4.
