Fiscally Informed Planning - with the City of Taylor, Texas
Kevin sits down with Mayor Brandt Rydell and Assistant City Manager Tom Yantis from Taylor, Texas to discuss how and why a fiscally-informed comprehensive planning process can align varying interests in a community and provide a roadmap for growth and development that is financially resilient. The group also explores how education focused engagement efforts can benefit any planning process.
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Show Notes
Does your community say it values fiscal responsibility but continue to make development decisions that increase infrastructure and service liabilities without a plan to pay for them in the future? If so, a fiscally-informed comprehensive plan process like the one Verdunity helped Taylor, Texas prepare might be beneficial. Taylor is a small town in Central Texas who’s heyday came and went in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Originally a major hub for commerce in Williamson County, Taylor stagnated due to a number of factors including having I-35 routed significantly west of town bypassing the community entirely. Now in the early part of the 21st century Taylor is poised for major growth as more people move outside of Austin. Major employers have taken notice – Samsung has just inked a deal for the single largest silicon chip manufacturing facility in the US to be built at the edge of Taylor. Having just completed the first major rewrite of their comprehensive plan in 20 years Mayor Brandt Rydell and Assistant City Manager Tom Yantis discuss why the city wanted financial resilience to be at the center of their planning process, the role Verdunity’s fiscal analysis played in informing decisions and building alignment in the community, and why it’s important to have these conversations in your community before you jump into investing valuable time and dollars into code updates or capital improvement projects.
Envision Taylor Comprehensive Plan (PDF)
Envision Taylor Comp Plan Promotional Video (5 big ideas)
Samsung to Choose Taylor, Texas, for $17 Billion Chip-Making Factory - WSJ