Lubbock Compact is a public policy think tank and community advocacy organization in Lubbock, Texas. Our mission is to empower the Lubbock community through citizen education, civic engagement, and public policy research and advocacy. We envision a fair, equitable, and civically engaged Lubbock community.
The Lubbock Compact is built around our organizational values: preservation, equity, and transparency in government. We advocate for public policies that ensure new neighborhoods in our growing city are planned through transparent processes and built in a fair and sustainable manner. We also advocate for environmental justice in planning and zoning policies in historic and minority Lubbock neighborhoods. Through our public policy research and advocacy efforts, we hope to achieve the adoption by the city of Lubbock of responsible land-use strategies that encourage the growth of new housing development within Loop 289 and saves and improves our neighborhood schools.
Currently, our research and advocacy efforts are focused on achieving these five policy objectives:
- Sustainable Development: New sub-divisions outside Loop 289 must carry their own weight and prove their development will be budget neutral to the rest of Lubbock in the long term. This requires maximum impact fees across the board for New Lubbock sub-divisions and none for Old Lubbock ones. The City should also pass an Act of the Council stating the policy orientation of the city will be fully aligned to prevent new sub-division development in the South and Southwest, every possible avenue for denial utilized.
- Environmental Justice: Lubbock must begin the environmental purification of Old Lubbock, starting with areas that contain low economic-value industry activity, so that North and East Lubbock communities can breathe clean air and the Canyon Lakes area’s economic potential be fully realized. For the great city we aspire to be, there’s no room in our economy for cement pulverizing and simple batch plant activity within our city limits. We don’t need them and they are actively destroying lives and land values across an enormous amount of undeveloped acreage in North and East Lubbock.
- Responsible Land Use: Lubbock must pursue modern land-use strategies to accommodate all of the Lubbock 2040 plan’s recommendation for new housing inside Loop 289. These strategies must include the immediate deregulation of restrictions on mixed-use zoning across Lubbock to bring more activity into neighborhoods and allow for the creation of accessory dwelling units anywhere inside Loop 289.
- Neighborhood Schools: Because of our antiquated land-use policies, neighborhood schools are the only asset some communities have to attract families and retain the value of their homes. Lubbock should adopt responsible land-use policies that encourage smart growth and save our neighborhood schools.
- Government Transparency: Our city should adopt best practices in financial impact analysis to ensure an accurate accounting of resources is available to the public and that citizen input is must be included in all development conversations. The city must accelerate the Neighborhood Action Planning process to allow for self-determination and honor the prioritization commitments to North and East Lubbock neighborhoods as stated in the city’s 2040 Plan.