AUSTIN, Texas — City leaders in Bastrop hope changes to their development code and infrastructure can help with the area's exponential growth.
Looking at traffic, you might think Bastrop is a packed city, despite its population.
"Right now, we're just under 12,000," Bastrop Mayor Lyle Nelson said.
But looking at the bulldozers, it won't be long before that changes.
"In several years, we're going to be approaching 20,000," Nelson said. "Before we know, we're going to be at 40,000, and we had to be prepared for that. The growth in the Central Texas area is moving to the east of Austin, and we're dead in the middle of it."
Nelson said keeping up with growth takes a lot of juggling. He said right now, there are six housing developments in the works. One is Adleton, which Nelson said will have 3,700 homes once it's done.
They also have many more in the pipeline.
"We have right now about 6,000 rooftops planned in the next several years in and about our community," Nelson said. "Some of it's in our extraterritorial jurisdiction, but the rooftops to increase our housing inventory here that's going to be advantageous to people."
On top of adding more planned communities, developers are about to build a massive film studio on 600 acres. Crews have already started working on the Pearl River development that will have retail space, office space and housing when it's all done.
At the same time, Nelson said they're trying to address infrastructure.
"We're expanding our wastewater treatment plant," Nelson said. "We're addressing our water treatment plants and ensuring we have enough wells and water to support our growing population."
Those are all ways to make Bastrop more attractive to developers. Leaders are even reworking the city's land development code.
"So, we're rewriting, reworking, reforming our development code to ensure that we create that atmosphere of sustainability attractiveness as well as protecting our existing citizens," Nelson said.
They'll also be updating the roads and drainage so all of it continues to flow as the population grows.
Boomtown is KVUE's series covering the explosive growth in Central Texas. For more Boomtown stories, head to KVUE.com/Boomtown.