Planning & Zoning Meeting Tonight

The Whitehouse Planning & Zoning Commission will hear an overview of the Zoning Ordinance Update (including the proposed Town Center District) this evening during the regular 6:30 meeting. This meeting is open to the public; however, it will not include a public hearing.

The intent of the meeting is to familiarize the Commission with the proposed ordinance in anticipation of formal public hearings to be held in February. A similar review of the code will be presented to the City Council at the January 27th regular meeting.

A tentative schedule for the code adoption is as follows:

January 12th Planning & Zoning Commission

• Review and Comments on Tables and Map

January 27th City Council

• Review and Comments on Tables and Map

January 29th Project Website/Blog

• Public release of deliverables online
• tables
• maps
• graphics
• code language

February 9th Planning & Zoning Commission

• Public Hearing for Updated Zoning Ordinance
• Possible Recommendation for Adoption

February 24th City Council (if recommended by P&Z)

• Public Hearing for Updated Zoning Ordinance
• Possible Adoption by City Council

All dates are tentative and subject to approval and actions by both the City Council and Planning & Zoning Commission. Firm dates will be posted to this blog as they become available. The City Secretary will post official agendas and announcements online and at City Hall.

Also of interest to blog readers, January 29th is the target date when all code related materials will be posted online for public review. The consultants and City staff hope that each interested citizen and stakeholder will take this opportunity to become familiar with the proposed code. The Team also wishes to encourage such parties to attend and participate in the upcoming public hearings in February.

Second Town Hall Workshop covering the City-Wide Zoning Ordinance Update (Zoning Update Advisory Committee Meeting #2)

Once again, the City of Whitehouse and its planning consultants wish to invite any and all interested parties to attend a town hall style workshop. The meeting will be held on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 6:30 pm, in the Whitehouse Council Chambers/Municipal Court. Any citizen, stakeholder, or community member is welcome and encouraged to attend and participate.

The workshop will consist of two parts:

1. A brief review of the zoning district definitions established at last month's workshop,
2. and an opportunity for participants to guide the creation of the City's new zoning map (utilizing the new zoning districts).

The Planning Team envisions this as the final Advisory Committee/Town Hall meeting. However, the final determination will only be made once City and consultant staff are satisfied with that all opinions have been heard and considered.

Following that determination, the consultant will present the Whitehouse Planning & Zoning Commission with the proposed map and district definitions, along with the proposed Town Center ordinance for review. This meeting will include a presentation by the consultant, a public hearing seeking input from citizens, and Commission discussion. If approved by the Commission, the documents will be forwarded for consideration by the City Council. The Council will hold a similar public meeting and consider adoption of the updated code.

These meetings by the Planning & Zoning Commission and Whitehouse City Council will be held in January of 2009. Once again, the Planning Team encourages all interested parties to attend and participate in these public hearings.

Following the final Advisory Committee meeting, the Planning Team will begin using this blog much more heavily to distribute draft code language, maps, and visuals. If not already subscribed, all interested parties should subscribe to the RSS feed to have this material delivered directly to a reader of choice.

Zoning Ordinance Update Town Hall Workshop

As advertised in the local newspapers and at previous meetings, the City and Consultant staff would like to remind any interested party about this evening's Town Hall style workshop. During the meeting, staff and stakeholders will shift focus from the Town Center to the overall zoning ordinance update. The meeting will be informal but directed toward specific goals. Any interested parties are strongly encouraged to attend and express opinions on how to best implement the land use component of the Vision 2020 Comprehensive Plan.

This workshop will be the first of two or three to focus on the City-wide zoning ordinance. Once complete, the updated zoning code (along with the complete Town Center code) will be delivered to the City for adoption though public hearings.

The workshop will begin at 6:30 pm on Thursday, October 16, 2008. It will be held in the Whitehouse City Council Chambers/Municipal Court. If you are unable to attend but would like a recording of the meeting please contact the consultant staff. Future meeting times and dates will be announced on this website, at tonight's meeting, and through local media.

Town Center Meeting Tonight

As advertised in the Tri-County Leader and Tyler Paper, the City of Whitehouse will be holding a Town Center Advisory Committee Meeting this evening at 6:30 in the Council Chambers. As discussed in the newspaper articles, the purpose of this meeting is to bring the discussions for a Town Center Zoning code to a close. Due to hurricane impacts on consultant time the meeting agenda will be scaled back somewhat. But consultant and city staff members still invite interested stakeholders to attend and participate.

Once compete, the code will be finalized and held until it can be presented to the Planning & Zoning Commission and City Council. Those presentations will take place along with discussions of the community wide zoning ordinance update. The update process for the full zoning ordinance will take several months to complete. However, the Team is hopeful to have both codes ready for presentation by the end of the year.

This blog, and the advisory committee will continue to hold monthly meetings to solicit input from stakeholders and community members on the city-wide code. Once complete, the consultant staff will present graphics and information showing what both codes may "look like" as commercial and residential development occurs.

Stakeholders and community members may also wish to attend and comment during public hearings before the P&Z and City Council. All input will continue to be welcome and encouraged as the Team shifts its focus to the city as a whole.

Lastly, this blog will become more active as the process moves forward. Draft documents, visuals, and other content will be added to prepare for the upcoming public hearings and eventual adoption of both codes. Schedule information will be posted here when it becomes available. Those interested should also continue to follow the local newspapers for announcements and information.

Reminder: Town Center Meeting Tonight

Just a reminder, the Town Center Advisory Committee will be meeting this evening at 6:30 PM to further discuss and finalize the new zoning ordinance for lands planned for Town Center in the Vision 2020 Plan. The meeting will be held in the Whitehouse Council Chambers in the Municipal Court building (Old City Hall). Further details can be found in this week's Tri County Leader. Any Whitehouse community member is welcome and encouraged to attend.

Second Town Center Advisory Committee meeting tonight at 6:30, episode 3 of the project podcast uploaded last Friday

This post is just a reminder to anyone interested in attending tonight's Advisory Committee meeting. The Committee and interested stakeholders will begin looking at details of the new Town Center zoning code. This analysis will form the basis for the full code, which will be presented to the Committee and Planning and Zoning Commission in the coming months. It is very important that anyone with an opinion of how the Town Center should develop attend and participate in this and upcoming meetings. Each opinion will be heard and counted, so please make plans to attend and help guide the committee's decision making process.

Also, those of you with a free subscription to the project podcast should have noticed Episode 3 available for download on Friday. This episode is the second half of the June 2nd Advisory Committee meeting. The main focus of this recording was a discussion of the visual preference exercise results. Be sure to check out the results music video which was also published as a podcast and embedded in this blog. Future episodes of the podcast will be published in the coming weeks, so please subscribe or check here for updates. As always, if you would prefer to not use iTunes or other podcast software, you can download the episodes manually by right clicking here, and choosing "save as."

Visual Preference Exercise results music video is ready to watch (Episode 2 of the project Podcast)

Part 2 of the June 2nd Advisory Committee meeting will be posted Friday morning. The majority of this recording is a discussion of the Visual Preference Exercise results. To refresh the memories of those in attendance, and to give other interested parties a feel for the results, the consultant team has prepared a video slide show. This video (also available in the podcast feed) should be an entertaining presentation of the top rated 15 and bottom rated 5 examples. Keep in mind that the ratings were for the pictures themselves, not the cities as a whole. Participates were rating for how well they felt the examples represented their vision for the Whitehouse Town Center. You can watch the video below or in the podcast feed.

Episode 1 of the project Podcast is now online.

Anyone interested in hearing a recording of the June 2nd Advisory Committee Meeting can do so now. The consultant team will be producing similar audio and video shows throughout the process. Meeting recordings will typically be edited for length to reduce listening time requirements. Episode 2 will include the second half of the June 2nd meeting, and will be posted later in the week.

The show can be downloaded in two ways. The easiest is as a podcast. Podcasts are free subscriptions to audio and video shows which are automatically downloaded and added to portable music players like iPods or Zunes. The show can be found in the iTunes store (a free download for any Mac or Windows users). If you have installed iTunes:

• Click on the "iTunes Store" link on the left to activate the store.
• Once this has opened, type "Whitehouse Town Center" into the store's search box (located at the top right of the screen) and press ENTER.
• You should now see a podcast with the name "Whitehouse Town Center and Comprehensive Zoning Update." Click the subscribe button.
• Now click on the "Podcasts" link on the left to see the podcasts.
• You should see the show here. Click the little triangle to the left of its name to show all available episodes.
• ITunes defaults to only download the latest episode, but you can click the "get" button to download any others that are listed as well. The program will automatically add new shows to this list as they are uploaded by the consultant team.
• Once downloaded you can listen to each episode from your computer, on an mp3 player (including but exclusive to iPods), or burn them to CD.
• If you want to subscribe to the feed with software other than iTunes, the URL is here.
  

If you would prefer to not use iTunes or other podcast software, you can download the episodes manually by right clicking here, and choosing "save as."

Feel free to get in touch with the consultants at whitehouseplan@gmail.com if you need further assistance.