The Aubrey City Council introduced a commission to oversee historical structures during its final meeting of the year.
The Historical Preservation Commission is designed to help fill some gaps left by recent legislation regarding aesthetic control for current and future buildings in the city.
“We’re in the middle now of our 2045 comprehensive plan, and we have concerns for the future of downtown and maintaining our heritage so we can maintain that Aubrey feel and look,” City Manager Charles Kreidler said. “It’s been planned for a while. We had some ordinances in place a few years ago that are no longer enforceable because of changes in state law.”
Inaugural commissioners include Darlene Wilson, Louise Brumfield, Melba Baxter, Randy Tarlton and Vinita Tribble.
“All the commissioners live in the city and are lifelong residents,” Kreidler said. “We reached out to a number of people looking for the right folks who would be interested in doing it, and I think we’ve got a pretty good crew there.”
The council also approved a petition that will see just over 53 acres removed from the city’s ETJ.
“They’ve not met with me or anyone at the city to tell us why they filed the petition,” Kreidler said. “We would much prefer developers annex into the city limits because it allows us to use the ad valorum tax to provide services. We would much rather do [that] than have a contract with charges for services. It’s much easier for us to plan for the future and make that part of our comprehensive and capital improvement plans.”
The petition did not specify intended future use for the property.
Aubrey Fire Department Chief Eric Schlotter was busy early in the meeting hiring on a bevy of nine new staff for Station No. 3 and later giving an update on the two ongoing fire station projects. The city additionally approved its annual interlocal agreement for fire and EMS with the county which saw some new changes.
“There were some changes this year but nothing of great consequence,” Schlotter said. “Our number did go down, but it was because we’ve stopped serving the Paloma Creek districts. We planned for it, so we’ve seen a reduction in call volume but that’s not a bad thing. We still have plenty of demand for our two stations and have adequate volume to handle
them.”
Both new stations are well underway, he said, with Station No. 3 wrapping up.
“Fire Station No. 3 is in that 70-80% range,” Schlotter said. “Station No. 2, we had some delays with the weather. They were finally able to pour the slab and now we’re going vertical, so you have some steel and the beginning of the masonry. It’ll really speed up now.”
