College Station is falling short of its own benchmark for ambulance response times and is losing land at its edges faster than it can plan for it, according to the city's annual review of how its comprehensive plan is being carried out.
The FY2026 Comprehensive Plan and Unified Development Ordinance Annual Review tracks 111 action items as of Sept. 30. City planners presented it to the Planning and Zoning Commission on Thursday, Nov. 5, with a staff recommendation that the commission accept it.
The scorecard
Of the 111 items, the report lists 81 as on track and 13 as achieved, five of them during the past year. Thirteen have not started, three are at risk and one is off track. The plan grew by 14 items this year when the city folded in strategies from the Economic Development Master Plan adopted in February.
The one item marked off track is providing public safety facilities that keep service and response times adequate. The report says total response times for emergency medical calls do not meet fire department benchmarks. It notes that construction of Fire Station No. 7 is finished and says the station should improve response times once it is fully operating.
Shrinking reach outside city limits
One of the at-risk items is managing growth in the extraterritorial jurisdiction, the band of unincorporated land around the city where it has some development authority. Since Senate Bill 2038, passed by the 88th Legislature, took effect, 50 properties covering more than 1,600 acres have been released from College Station's ETJ, according to the report.
The city still uses development agreements with landowners in the ETJ, but staff wrote that the law has made the long-term future of that tool uncertain and that the city's ability to use it will keep shrinking as more land leaves.
