BRYAN, Texas — After more than a year of work and outreach, the City of Bryan has released its plans for the Midtown Area Plan.
The city noticed the Midtown area had a lot of development potential, but that it brought the pressure of different types of housing.
"Are the rules in place right now, appropriate for what people want to be doing in the area?" said Lindsay Hackett, the Midtown Project Manager.
Midtown's location is what the city of Bryan said will have long term appeal to a wide variety of demographics.
"The fastest proportional growing age groups were the 35 to 44 age group and the 65 and over (age group)," Hackett said.
Midtown is near places like Texas A&M University, Blinn College and the Travis Bryan Midtown Park.
"We saw that there'd be a lot of development pressure and people would want to do things along that park avenue," Hackett said.
The city said it needs a more efficient development process. To tackle these challenges the city of Bryan created the Midtown Project Plan.
"It is a guiding plan for about a two-square-mile area of Bryan," Hackett said. "It encompasses things for businesses, for residents, it is a guidebook for the city."
A few things in the plan are recommendations for five experience districts.
"What we did for each experience district we created what we are calling aligning principles," Hackett said. "It is a guideline of what do we look to when we're creating recommendations for these areas."
There are districts centered toward food or ones that meant to improve the quality of life in neighborhoods.
"They're not necessarily going to be strict districts when this is all said and done," Hackett said.
The plan also includes a pattern book where people can choose from a set of pre-approved buildings. The city said the guidelines will result in faster permitting, better design, and lower costs.
The city wants to stress the fact that the plan is a voluntary option.
"We want people to understand that a lot of the things that we're bringing in it is just going to be an added option in addition to what they can do right now," Hackett said.
The plan still has to go through a final approval process. Specific details of the plan will be available in the next few weeks.
Click HERE to check out the plan.
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