The Retail Committee met on 5/16 to discuss staff proposals for ordinance changes related to two separate retail areas.

The first was loosening restrictions on food trucks and food trailers. Specifically, we discussed empowering our Health Director to make certain exceptions to the existing rules for special events, and discussed allowing food trucks that were pulled by a variety of different engine/vehicle types. The ordinance, once drafted and commented on by the committee, will go to the full council for a vote.

The second was aligning sign ordinances between the CORE/Main Street district and the Innovation Quarter. We discussed areas of reasonable overlap and made comments. This will be part of a series of ordinance updates that is scheduled to go to full council later this year or early next year after the Retail Committee comments on it.

For further details, please shoot me an email or give me a call at 210-260-8331

The Retail Committee met today! We decided during our last meeting that we wanted to review ordinances throughout the city to really open up the potential for public art in the form of murals and to align our various sign ordinances to allow for enhanced brand management and wayfinding in specific districts around Richardson.

I had pleasure of visiting Lufkin, Texas, a few weeks ago, and noticed that they had several multi-story public murals that emphasized the role lumber plays in their livelihood. Many other small towns throughout Texas have wonderful artwork on their buildings that celebrate something special about the city or a major town event. The ordinances governing signs throughout Richardson were developed in chunks over decades, and urban planning and public sentiment has evolved since many of them were put into place. I'm excited to remove some barriers to creativity from our small business owners and let them run with ideas to jazz up parts of Richardson.

We have also decided to look at certain protocols that were relaxed due to COVID-19, mostly dealing with outdoor space and event venues. We will be looking to see what relaxed rules can be codified into law - we want to be business friendly, but we also want to be safe and respectful of all tenants in a building.