City of College Station Blog

By Colin Killian, Public Communications Director

In this week’s episode of “What’s Up, College Station?” Marketing Coordinator Grace Hallowell and Long Range Planning Administrator Christine Leal discuss the Northgate Small Area Plan and the opportunity to celebrate and preserve Northgate’s unique character while enhancing the area for students, residents, and visitors.

The “What’s Up, College Station?” podcast is available weekly via Podbean, iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Amazon/Audible. Please subscribe, rate, and recommend!

If you have a suggestion for a future topic or interview, email me at ckillian@cstx.gov. 

TRANSCRIPT

Grace Hallowell:

What’s up, College Station? I’m Grace Hallowell, and today I am joined by Christine Leal, our long-range planning administrator from our Planning and Development Services Department. We are here to talk today about the Northgate Small Area Plan.

Christine Leal:

Yeah, so a small area plan is really our opportunity to take a really deep dive, look at a certain area of town. We look at the existing conditions in that area, any unique features, the character of the area, things that we want to preserve, maintain. If there are things that need updated about the area, capital projects potentially get recommended from these planning efforts. So it’s a great opportunity to take a look at really important parts of town and see how we can plan for future growth there.

Grace Hallowell:

So with the Northgate Small Area Plan, what does that entail?

Christine Leal:

So what we’re focusing on in this planning effort is how we can support the local businesses in the area. Also, things like how we can enhance the pedestrian-friendly spaces, pedestrian connections, and really celebrate the unique character of Northgate.

Grace Hallowell:

So what efforts are being done to kind of start this plan and get it in action?

Christine Leal:

Absolutely. So Tuesday, we had our kickoff meeting, and it was a fantastic event. The community really showed up for this. We had over 100 people in attendance, and we had about another 20 online. So there was an energy there that was just so wonderful. People felt inspired, they said it was fun, but really, we were just listening to their thoughts and input about what they think. What’s their vision for Northgate? What do they want it to look like? What do they want it to feel like when you’re in Northgate? We talked about things that people like about the area, things that they want to keep. A lot of it had to do with the character of the area, maintaining the character of Northgate. We talked about things that people found challenging about the area.

And then, again, with those challenges, it left us the ability to talk about the opportunity. So what are the opportunities for improvement, for partnerships, for making those better connections, and making it a great space for everyone, students, families, family was brought up a lot. So everyone was super energized. It was a great meeting, and we’re really looking forward to carrying that forward as we continue this planning effort.

So that was just the kickoff. What we have coming up, so we’ve got a stakeholder committee group that is going to be meeting starting February 4th. They’ll meet every other week through April. And so that committee will really be helping hone in some of the feedback we got and help develop this plan, the specifics of the plan.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes. So with the kickoff meeting, that wasn’t just a one-time meeting. We have several different events going on until April that we encourage people to be involved with. So what are the next steps in the process?

Christine Leal:

Part of the kickoff meeting was to help us form a stakeholder committee group, and that group is going to meet, starting February 4th, they’ll meet every two weeks until April. And that group is really going to help us fine-tune the details of the plan. And so when they meet, they’ll deep dive into specific topics. It could be mobility, connectivity. It could be land use, development regulations. So they’ll be providing some real fine-tuned input on those areas. Anybody that wants to join that stakeholder group is more than welcome to. If you want to sign up for it, you can go to cstx.gov/northgate, and there’s a sign-up sheet there. And also it has the timeline of events, so all the meeting times, where we’ll be meeting, what time, and any of the details.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes, cstx.gov/northgate will be the blueprint of sorts for this project. Anything you need to know will be on there. And there are different ways to get involved. If you can’t make a meeting, there’s online opportunities, correct?

Christine Leal:

There are. So anyone that’s not able to join the in-person meetings, we do have a survey map online. It’s really cool. Our GIS team put it together, but you can go into this map online and put in specific comments at specific locations, things that you like and want to keep, things that need to stay in the plan, things that maybe we need to look at changing or enhancing, and also just general ideas that people have for Northgate. We heard a lot of really exciting, cool ideas from the community last night, so we’re really excited to see what everyone comes up with.

Grace Hallowell:

So yes, February 4th is the next meeting opportunity. Is there anything else you’d like to share with us about the plan?

Christine Leal:

Yeah, we’re just really, really excited for this planning process, and again, try to reach as many people as we can to hear their input and feedback into this plan so that we can ensure that this plan really, for Northgate, really reflects people’s vision and aspirations for this area.

Grace Hallowell:

Thank you so much for joining me today.

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