Dripping Springs presents its ’State of the City’ for 2023

Mayor Bill Foulds, Jr., and a number of the Dripping Springs city staffers gave a presentation on the “State of the City” to local business owners last week.

The presentation took place at the Dripping Springs Chamber of Commerce’s monthly luncheon on Wednesday, Jan.

25, to well over 100 attendees. Staffers reviewed last year’s goings-on and gave a brief glimpse of what residents can expect for this year, largely focusing on planning and development, finances, employment and parks and community goingson. In doing so, they also covered a few hot-button topics, such as the city’s contested wastewater permit, its finalized transportation master plan and its potential landscape ordinance.

The presentation itself began with an overview of the city of Dripping Springs as it is today: small city limits with a large extraterritorial jurisdiction extending into Driftwood, Austin, Buda and even as far as Kyle.

City Attorney Laura Mueller explained the structure of Dripping Springs as a general law city, including which positions are overseen by which. This year, new positions include a deputy city secretary, a city inspector and a municipal court clerk, bringing the number of city employees to 55 — 11 more than reported in the 2022 State of the City presentation. These positions are in addition to 30 seasonal employees, the mayor, the city council and 100 volunteers serving on 11 boards, commissions and committees, according to Mayor Foulds.

Foulds reminisced on how big Dripping Springs has grown.

“I remember the times when chamber luncheons would be Michelle, Todd and Ginger, and that was kind of it,” he recalled. “It would be a ten-minute report, and that was all that was going on with the city of Dripping Springs.”

The presentation, which lasted nearly an hour, looked at a number of recent and future developments. Businesswise, these included the recently opened Freebirds, Mighty Fine and P. Terry’s and the yet-tobe- opened Courtyard by Marriott. With regard to housing, these included the Anarene development, Wild Ridge, New Growth, Cannon Ranch, Cannon East and Village Grove.

Additional development projects included the Dripping Springs Comprehensive Plan — an initiative which was started in April 2022, according to city Planning Director Tory Carpenter.

“It’s really the ultimate vision for Dripping Springs,” he explained. “We’re looking at 30 years in the future, looking at where we want to direct growth, what kinds of growth. It’s really the mindset of growth is coming… and how are we going to handle it.”

This process, which began with a series of public workshops, is now in the stage of meeting with smaller stakeholder groups and consultants, according to Carpenter. Once that process has been completed, the city aims to follow it with a code rewrite to update rules and regulations for implementation of the Comprehensive Plan.

In a brief wastewater permit update, Public Works Director Aaron Reed clarified that the city’s most recent wastewater permit was still tied up in litigation. The permit, which was originally granted on May 6, 2019, has gone through two appeals processes. The city is currently waiting on a motion for rehearing, according to Reed.

Director Andrew Binz also gave a brief overview of his Parks & Community Services department, highlighting the upcoming Founders Day celebration and the momentous solar eclipses late this year and next year. Binz also announced the release of the new spring activities guide from his department, which can be found online at drippingsprings. com.