Under the SA Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan, the City of San Antonio will be asking residents to help define the land use and zoning in their neighborhoods and communities. To help neighborhood residents prepare to participate, this hands-on workshop was created by Chrissy Q McCain, Director of Land Use and Neighborhood Planning for City Council District 1. “We want to empower people with as much information as possible,” explained District 1 Councilman Roberto Treviño. “We’ll be working with you, not around you."

Leaders of the Westside Neighborhood Associations Coalition told the mayor, city council members and state representatives that they are being disrespected and treated like “guinea pigs” in the SA Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan process.

More than 250 people packed the San Antonio Garden Center on June 21 to give their input on latest Alamo plan proposal. The boisterous crowd included many women representing the Fiesta Battle of Flowers Parade who were strongly opposed to a plan provision that would close the street in front of the Alamo and redirect traffic - including the parade - a block away.

By Cynthia Spielman and Cosima Colvin Neighborhood Plans are civic engagement and grassroots democracy at its most local level. They were created by ordinary people who care about their community and were willing to work, to participate and to engage with their neighbors in a real partnership with the city under the 1998 Community Building and Neighborhood Planning Program.   We spent hundreds of hours planning, facilitating and attending meetings. We talked to one another, and sometimes struggled with ideas until we finally came to a consensus.

Residents of the near-downtown Mahncke Park Neighborhood Association were surprised and upset when a city planner told them the SA Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan process would discard their long-standing and detailed Neighborhood Plan, developed at the city’s request.

In direct contradiction of a city ordinance and the promise of the SA Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan, city staffers are systematically eliminating long-standing neighborhood plans designed to protect the character and future of San Antonio’s urban core communities. The news came as an unwelcome surprise to city council members at the Comprehensive Plan Committee’s April 19 meeting where they were being briefed on the $1.05 million SA Tomorrow Year Two consulting contract that is up for approval in May.

Community leaders in the Tier One Neighborhood Coalition met on Nov. 4, 2017 at the Westfall Library to learn how the San Antonio Comprehensive Plan and the Corridor Plans will affect residential areas and the broader community.