For more details contact the Community Development Department at:
281.275.2218
Contact Community Development
- Email Us
- TEL: 281.275.2218
- FAX: 281.275.2771
- 2700 Town Center Blvd. N.
Suite 361
Sugar Land, Tx 77479 - P.O. Box 110
Sugar Land, Tx 77487-0110
Vision 2025
The goal of every journey is to arrive at a destination. Sugar Land’s Strategic Planning process is no different. The City’s Comprehensive Plan, and all other long range planning documents, will serve as reference guides over the next 15 years, steering the City on the correct path to reach one uniform destination. That destination is known as Vision 2025.
Vision 2025 represents an ideal, but realistic view of what Sugar Land can look like in 15 years. Embedded in the Vision statement are 11 value-based principles that highlight key areas of importance for the City’s future. As a supplement to Vision 2025, each guiding principle is listed separately with means statements that specifically describe the intent of each principle.
The Vision 2025 and Guiding Principles document was first drafted at a March 2009 Council work session. The Sugar Land City Council then received remarks and modifications to these principles at a Community Summit in June 2009. (For more information on this process, see the “Community Summit” and “Round 2” tabs.) Results from the Summit were then used to help refine the vision at an August 2009 council work session, before the document’s formal adoption on September 15, 2009.
Click here to view the finalized Vision 2025 and Guiding Principles.
Community Summit 2009 - Executive Summary
Background
At the March 2009 City Council retreat, the City Council revised the Vision 2025 and Guiding Principles and directed that the document serve as the framework for a future amendment to the Comprehensive Plan. Before proceeding, the City Council identified the benefit of receiving public input on the Guiding Principles via a community summit.
Accordingly, the Community Summit was held on June 18, 2009, at the Sugar Creek Country Club. Approximately 70 residents participated in three rounds of activities designed to gather input on the draft Vision 2025 document. Round I – “Visualizing Sugar Land’s Future for 2025” – was a photo exercise for residents to share pictures of things to both encourage and discourage. Round II gave participants a chance to review and modify the Guiding Principles, and during Round III, the groups recommended their top five priorities, or “Key to Success,” to successfully realize the vision for 2025.
Results: Analysis & Summary
Overall, the draft vision prepared by the City Council was affirmed by the community. There was no substantial rejection of any Guiding Principles. The greatest amount of input from the community came in the form of prioritizing principles and providing further clarification and direction on “means” statements. However one new principle was suggested.
Top Priority Principles
When analyzing all three rounds of activities, the top three priority principles of the community are “Regional Business Center of Excellence,” “Superior Mobility,” and “Balanced Development & Redevelopment.” Whether it was through pictures showing a desire for more performing and cultural arts and inter-city transportation, or pictures showing that residents do not want to see continued traffic problems, it was clear that these priorities were the top three.
Participants also seemed to hone in on the importance of two additional principles as key to achieving Vision 2025: “Outstanding Cultural Arts, Educational and Recreational Opportunities” and “Destination Activity Centers.” During the first part of Round I, quality education (from pre-K through the post-graduate level) was the single most reoccurring item that participants wanted to see in their future, though some groups noted this was not necessarily the role of the City Council. In later rounds, groups increasingly identified the Entertainment District and further commercial development within the City as key to becoming a regional destination and realizing Vision 2025.
"Hot Topics"
Lastly, several additional “hot topic” items were observed and discussed.
- “Safe Community” was demonstrated as an important Guiding Principle, yet it did not receive much attention in Round I, possibly because the concept is difficult to capture in photographs.
- “Beautiful Community” was also identified as an important principle. Attendees showed clear concern about anything which may negatively impact the aesthetics of the community, such as visual pollution from power lines and billboards, or blighted commercial centers.
- “Environmentally Responsible Community:” Of the groups who discussed this principle, many mentioned incentivizing environmentally responsible behavior -- whether by encouraging residents to recycle or offering economic development incentives for LEED buildings.
- Imperial Site: Many participants expressed a great deal of concern regarding Imperial. As expected, there is a clear desire to preserve this landmark and the historical identity of the City, but also a growing feat that it is being neglected.
- Quality & Diverse Housing Options: Many tables had discussions on various housing options, and how prevalent apartments should be in that mix. While many concerns exist over large and concentrated apartment complexes, there was some willingness among most groups to consider high quality multi-family housing.
New Principle Suggested
Only one group suggested a new principle – “Fiscally Responsible Government.” Despite being suggested by only one table, it should be noted that of all the “Keys to Success” listed in Round III, those that could not be categorized into an existing principle could easily align with the idea of responsible City government. These items include not only being fiscally responsible, but also ensuring a continued culture of high quality elected officials and staff.
The “Good”
Prior to the Summit, attendees were provided disposable cameras and instructed to photograph images they would like to see in Sugar Land’s future, as well as those that should be avoided. The “Good” photos were first shared amongst each group, followed by the “Bad” photos. Collectively, this round, entitled “Visualizing Sugar Land’s Future” -- was the first of three group exercises at the Community Summit.
After the Summit, these photos representing reoccurring themes were placed into categories. Next, staff grouped the thematic categories with the Vision 2025 Guiding Principle that most closely aligned with the message of the photos included in each category. The five most prevalent categories and principles are listed for both parts of the exercise. Please note because there is repetition among the principles, many photos portraying the same message are shown in multiple principle groupings. A brief summary of both the “Good” photos and “Bad” photos is also offered.
What Participants Want to Encourage
| Results by Principle | Results by Individual Categories |
|---|---|
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Summary
- Top Priority was “Outstanding Cultural Arts, Educational & Recreational Opportunities” (H), though it is a very broad principle and includes many key areas of interest to the community.
- Within Principle H, Education related comments were the most prevalent, with the majority of the comments being focused on higher educational opportunities.
- Within the second-ranked “Destination Activity Centers” (Principle E), the focus was primarily on quality parks but also included a distinct recognition that intra-city transportation plays a role in connecting these centers.
- “Superior Mobility” (Principle G) was the third highest, and comments included support for both inter-city and intra-city transportation, though it was clear participants have no desire to join METRO.
- Overall, improved mobility is a key vision for the future - both within Sugar Land and as a part of the larger region that Sugar Land is included in.
- “Regional Business Center of Excellence” (Principle I) is ranked fourth. The community saw a clear link between having quality higher educational opportunities and quality business development / quality jobs with being able to encourage people to live AND work in Sugar Land.
- “Balanced Development and Redevelopment,” the fifth principle, focused heavily on the Imperial site and an overall desire to ensure development is of high quality.
Click here to view the raw data
The “Bad”
What Participants Want to Discourage / Principles Most Concerned with Protecting
| Results by Principle | Results by Individual Categories |
|---|---|
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Summary
- “Beautiful Community” (Principle B) is the principle participants were most concerned about protecting, and the focus of many of the comments were related to aesthetics.
- “Great Neighborhoods” (Principle F) ranked second.
- Many of the items listed were also listed under “Beautiful Community” as well, and the majority of the comments focus on aesthetics, property maintenance and low quality housing.
- In a Tie for number two is “Balanced Development & Redevelopment” (Principle J).
- Many of the potential issues listed as threatening this principle are related to the quality of development / redevelopment and low property standards and maintenance.
- “Regional Business Center of Excellence” (Principle I) is the fifth principle listed among the top five.
- The most mentioned topic was blighted commercial centers, as it seems the community links underutilized or failing commercial centers with the City having an image which would prevent the attraction of quality development and businesses.
Review & Modifications to Principles
In the second exercise of the Community Summit, group members were provided drafts of Sugar Land Vision 2025 with Guiding Principles.
Results Include the Principles MOST Discussed:
Groups selected the top five principles and suggested modifications. In the second part, groups could either select additional principles to review and modify, or make recommendations on additional principles; only one group listed a new principle.
| Results by Principle |
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Summary
- “Safe Community” (Principle A) and “Superior Mobility” (Principle G) were ranked the highest; significant suggested revisions include:
- Principle A: (1) Changing the scope of comparison cities to similar cities nation-wide, and (2) Adding a statement that strong building standards are important to overall safety within the city.
- Principle G: the groups seemed supportive of improving mobility within Sugar Land and establishing connections to the Houston region; clear feedback was provided, however, that the community does not want to be a part of METRO.
- “Outstanding Cultural Arts, Educational & Recreational Opportunities" (Principle H) and "Regional Business Center of Excellence" (Principle I) were ranked the second highest.
- Principle H: Groups focused on several topics: (1) Debating whether or not the City has a role in education, (2) Expressing general support for more higher education options and adult education options, and (3) Confirming the goal of being a destination for the region in terms of performing arts center, sports, and cultural opportunities.
- Principle I: Changes included: (1) Listing R&D as a targeted business type and linking it to UH, (2) Discussing if the airport should include commercial service, though the majority felt it should remain corporate, and (3) Considering the addition of limited service hotels.
- The fifth top principle was “Balanced Development and Redevelopment” (Principle J). The most significant recommended change was to consider a change in our commercial/ residential balance from 70/30 to a ratio allowing more commercial.
Keys to Success
During this last exercise, the groups recommended their top 5 priorities to successfully realize the vision for 2025. After the Summit, City staff categorized each comment into an appropriate guiding principle (again, some comments were placed in more than one principle.) Two new categories emerged: Responsible City Government and High Quality Elected Officials & Staff. The five most prevalent principles are listed, along with the most common priorities that were suggested in multiple groups.
| Results by Principle | Results by Individual Categories |
|---|---|
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Summary
- Top key to success was “Regional Business Center of Excellence” (Principle I). Overall, focus was on the City having a business friendly environment to promote and encourage high quality businesses to locate here, helping to attract a talented workforce and grow a sustainable tax base for the City.
- “Outstanding Cultural Arts, Educational & Recreational Opportunities” (Principle H) was the second key to success, with the Entertainment District and associated venue options mentioned most.
- “Other - Responsible City Government” was the third priority for success, and its focus was on the actions a responsible city government should take.
- “Destination Activity Centers” (Principle E) was identified as the fourth key, and - again - the Entertainment District and associated venue options were mentioned most.
- In a tie for fourth place was the second other category - “High Quality Elected Officials & Staff.”
- In a tie for fifth place were “Superior Mobility” (Principle G) and “Balanced Development & Redevelopment” (Principle J).
