The City of Round Rock in early 2009 began work on improving its land development processes. This effort is part of the City’s overall philosophy of continuous improvement, and builds on previous efforts to streamline the land development process.

The project began with the development and deployment of a confidential online survey, conducted by Plante Moran on behalf of the City and Round Rock Chamber of Commerce from Jan. 20 to Feb. 16, 2009, regarding our development process. More than 460 individual logins were created with approximately 230 completing one or more sections of the survey.

The survey responses were analyzed by an internal City work group and the results (PDF) were presented to the Round Rock City Council at its regular meeting on June 11, 2009. City staff recommended creating a Development Philosophy document to serve as a basis for future policy development. In August 2009, the Round Rock City Council discussed the development process as one of the summer retreat agenda items.

A Development Philosophy statement is being crafted which is intended to communicate a high level of the City’s philosophy when it comes to development in Round Rock. Once a final document is approved by Council, it will serve as the guiding philosophy from which the staff will propose policies and make process changes to ensure alignment with the Council’s vision.  This should serve us well in many areas including helping make sure expectations are clear before a development project begins in Round Rock.

You can read the draft Development Philosophy statement here (PDF). We'd like to hear your opinion of this statement, on this blog, or comments can also be emailed to Assistant City Manager Cindy Demers at cdemers@round-rock.tx.us.