What is a day in the life like for City Manager and Director of Development Services Tom Yantis? How has it been to help Samsung Austin Semiconductor come to Taylor? What can I do if I need to build a fence that is higher than the local ordinance allows? These were just a few of the questions Yantis answered in last Monday’s livestream of “Taylor Talk with Jason Hennington,” the publisher of Taylor Press.
“My chief function is really to manage the city’s development related processes,” said Yantis, a Texas native who holds a master’s degree in Community and Regional
Planning from the University of Texas at Austin. “So that includes planning, building permitting, inspections, code enforcement, the Main Street program, which is our downtown revitalization program. In addition to that, I have one internal department which is Internal Services, which handles information technology, fleet services and building maintenance.”
Yantis, who has been in his position since 2018 and has more than 15 years of cumulative experience as assistant city manager for the cities of Georgetown and Leander, said negotiating the development agreement for the Samsung deal has been a unique experience.
“It’s been it’s been a huge project to work on,” he said. “I’ve never worked on anything like it in my career in terms of the size, scale and the long-term impact that it’s going to have on the community.”
“It’s almost like having a second job, honestly,” Yantis said. “The amount of time that we have dedicated to working with Samsung over the past year and a half has really just been unprecedented.”
Yantis said due to the scale of the endeavor, nearly every department in the city played a role — from teams of people working on utility infrastructure, economic development incentives, public safety, etc., he said.
For his part, Yantis said his role was primarily focused on the negotiation of the development agreement prior to construction.
“So, the property that Samsung purchased was outside of the city limits when they bought it, and so in Texas, cities have the ability with on land that’s in their extraterritorial jurisdiction to negotiate development agreements,” he said. “What that basically does is it’s a contract between the owner of the property and the city that lays out exactly how the property is going to get developed. It’s different than if your property is inside the city limits and already has zoning applied to it, but when you’re outside, you have a little bit more flexibility before you get annexed, so you can work out all these regulations and requirements prior to the city annexing the property.”
Yantis said another major focus for his department has been working closely with The Taylor Economic Development Corporation.
“I like to think of Development Services as the partner of economic development because economic development is out seeking to bring businesses or industries to town, and development services is facilitating where they go within the community,” he said. “So, we implement the city’s comprehensive plan, which we recently redid last year, and that kind of sets the community’s vision for where development occurs within the city, so when we have an economic development prospect that is looking at Taylor, we work with the EDC to say, ‘Here are the places within the community which are a good fit for that business and that type of industry.’” As far as what a typical day in the life of Tom Yantis looks like?
“What I really want to do is show you my calendar,” he said with a laugh. “It’s usually I have a meeting every hour of every day.”
