San Benito unveils comprehensive plan for city

SAN BENITO, Texas (ValleyCentral) — San Benito has released a comprehensive plan of goals and objectives that the city wants to undertake.

Now they're asking the community to share what priorities they'd like the city to focus on.

San Benito Assistant City Manager Diana Garza said the city's last comprehensive plan occurred around 2014.

“It was done and sat on a shelf. So, here we are today,” Garza said.

The city received a $250,000 grant from the General Land Office last year to develop the plan.

San Benito officials started with a workshop and community survey to learn what improvements residents want.

Garza said the city used methods to spread the word about the plan as it was being put together.

Social media posts, attendance at community events to engage in public education efforts and word of mouth from workshop attendees helped spread the message.

The city said that, between the workshop and the community survey, over 200 people participated.

“The old plan didn’t reflect the current needs and wants of our constituents, so we wanted to hear from them," Garza said.

The new plan focuses on four main goals, with several actions within each one, that the city can implement to achieve them.

They include revitalizing the downtown commercial corridors, mitigating flood risk, increasing housing options and making San Benito a live music destination.

"San Benito has a rich history. From Freddie Fender to Charlie Crockett, and our conjunto museum and all of the music comes from San Benito," Garza said, "And we wanted to make sure we listened to our constituents, and they wanted to see something like that.”

Garza said efforts to mitigate flooding in the city are an ongoing process and that downtown revitalization is an issue the city's been trying to address for years.

She said the problems stem from "deferred maintenance" on downtown properties, however, the city can use local ordinances to make sure those structures and grounds are kept up.

The city has discussed taking a more active role in filling empty storefronts while being respectful to their historic nature.

Garza said the city wouldn't look to hold onto any properties long-term but only play the role of landlord temporarily.

She said it's a strategy that's been tried in other cities with positive results.

San Benito can also work with business owners alongside the Economic Development Corporation and other entities in the city's revitalization efforts.

The comprehensive plan can be found on the city's website.

San Benito encourages residents to complete a survey to get as many "data points" as possible on what issues the community is most interested in addressing.