Vulnerability Assessment for Hood County, TX

One year after the Tornado of 2013, Hood County is now among the recovery and mitigation stages of the four-stage disaster cycle. In the Fall of 2014, fourteen Master’s of Urban Planning students at Texas A&M University created this assessment report as part of the graduate course “Disaster Recovery and Hazard Mitigation” instructed by Yu Xiao, Ph.D., AICP. The purpose of this assessment is to understand the potential threats for Hood County that will support the County to improve post-disaster mitigation and planning.Looking forward, we mapped the 100-year and 500-year floodplains in the County. A 100-year floodplain indicates areas that have a 1% chance each year of flooding. The majority of the floodplain follows the Brazos River, as would be expected, and its small tributaries and creeks. This floodplain does flow through the historic area of downtown Granbury and along the Lake. We also mapped potential sources of technological disaster or spills including known Superfund sites (areas the EPA has identified in need of hazardous waste clean-up) and areas that host tanks or can have spills of toxic substances. There are two Superfund sites, one in downtown Granbury along the River and one to the north-east of town.Texas Target Communitie

Nolanville Comprehensive Plan 2015-2030

Comprehensive plans are “the central organizing umbrella under which other plans, regulations, and initiatives exist.” They typically have long-range planning horizons between 20 and 30 years. These public documents, along with relevant zoning maps, can be used to guide, support, and justify city land use and decision-making in the future. A comprehensive plan should include the overall vision for the community, as well as a plan for the physical growth, development, and preservation of the land. Furthermore, an inclusive comprehensive plan should envision future growth in the various fields of transportation, community facilities and infrastructure, economy, parks and open spaces, natural and cultural resources, and housing.In the fall 2014, the City of Nolanville and Texas Target Communities partnered to create a planning task force to represent the community. The task force was integral to the planning process, contributing the thoughts, desires, and opinions of community members—as well as their enthusiasm about Nolanville’s future. This fourteen-month planning process ended in September 2015. All the material included in the plan is the result of work accomplished in four different graduate level classes spanning two semesters at Texas A&M University as part of the Master of Urban Planning program.The result of this collaboration is the City of Nolanville Comprehensive Plan 2015 - 2030, which is the official policy guide for the community’s growth over the next twenty years.Texas Target Communitie