Weslaco City Commission Unanimously Approves New Comprehensive Plan

Proposed Streetscape Improvements for the City of Weslaco’s Texas Boulevard.

Proposed Retrofits to the City of Weslaco’s Existing Park Network.

The Weslaco City Commission unanimously approved UTSA’s 2022 update to the City’s Comprehensive Plan. The new document, which establishes a framework for community decision-making through the year 2045, represents sixteen months of collaboration between Weslaco city leaders, UTSA’s Center for Urban and Regional Planning Research (CURPR), and Gabriel Díaz Montemayor, Founding Partner of LABor Studio. Weslaco’s 2022 Comprehensive Plan redefines the City of Weslaco’s growth calculus, expanding the community motto, “City on the Grow,” to include infill, redevelopment, and retrofit strategies.

The City of Weslaco is a rapidly expanding community of 42,000 located in the Rio Grande Valley. Once part of a Spanish land grant known as Llano Grande, Weslaco was incorporated in 1921 and today exists as part of the Reynosa-McAllen metropolitan area, a transnational conurbation along the U.S.-Mexico border. This region, which lies adjacent to the Mexican State of Tamaulipas, is one of the fastest growing urban areas in the United States.

UTSA researchers worked with Weslaco residents and City officials to address the effects of rapid urban growth, specifically as it relates to issues of downtown revitalization, housing, parks, flood control, transportation, economic sustainability, and environmental resilience. The process began in 2021 with three public forums that allowed residents to express their aspirations, concerns, and evaluate how well alternative growth scenarios aligned with community values.

American Planning Association Honors Vision Plan for Comfort, Texas

Image: American Planning Association Texas

Comfort residents discuss the future of their community in one of four public forums. Image: CURPR

The Texas Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA) has awarded Comfort Vision 2050 with a Grassroots Initiative Award at the Gold Level, “[h]onoring an initiative that illustrates how a neighborhood, community group or other local non-governmental entity utilized the planning process to address a specific need or issue within the community.” A jury of leading planners from the APA-Colorado and APA-Texas Chapters made the selections. UTSA’s Center for Urban and Regional Planning Research, led by Ian Caine, facilitated the vision plan in collaboration with the Comfort Area Foundation (CAF) and National Association for Community Asset Builders (NALCAB), with financial support from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Comfort Vision 2050 addresses the political realities of life in an unincorporated community, establishing a novel approach to urban planning that is decentralized, non-governmental, incremental, actionable, coordinated, measurable, and transparent. The plan specifically provides a list of 75 Strategic Initiatives that are small-scale, diverse, and achievable without the benefit of municipal government. 

Thank you to the CAF and NALCAB for initiating the process and to the UTSA team, which included William Dupont, Professor of Architecture; Corey Sparks, Associate Professor of Demography; Bill Barker, FAICP; Matthew Jackson and Thomas Tunstall of UTSA’s Institute for Economic Development; and student researchers Elizabeth Striedel, Ivan Ventura and Diego Sanchez. Most importantly, congratulations to the residents of Comfort for making such an important investment in your community’s future!