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Fernando Costa is a familiar sight at Fort Worth City Council meetings, giving presentations on one aspect or another of the city’s past, present, or future. As city planning director, he is the hub where many spokes on the city’s wheel connect. Whether the issue is zoning, road planning, or making commercial developments work, Costa is in the middle. On issues from Trinity River Vision to big ranches being subdivided for housing on Fort Worth’s ever-expanding edges to revitalizing older neighborhoods in Cowtown’s heart, his voice is perhaps the most influential in the city — Fort Worth’s “secret weapon,” as the mayor called him.
But the reality is that Costa actually avoids the limelight as often as he stands in it, usually letting lower-level staffers make the presentations. It’s not that he’s shy or trying to avoid any controversy, it’s just that he knows how the political game works. A veteran of the urban planning game — 13 years in Atlanta and nine more in Fort Worth — Costa knows that elected politicians look down on any city staffer who gets too big. Stay in the background, he has learned, and more work gets done.
Nonetheless, Costa was front and center at a recent meeting, on two apparently unrelated issues. One was a zoning fuss in Arlington Heights, just west of downtown. The other was a report from Vision North Texas, which Costa chairs. The regional planning board encourages government bodies across 13 Metroplex counties to work together on — you name it — road construction, housing growth, and where the jobs are going to be located.
For Costa, the two agenda items indeed were related. In fact, the reason he’s gotten so heavily involved in the long-term planning committee is that he sees everything as related.
Development on the outskirts of a city creates sprawl that is costly to everyone, he told the council, because it means infrastructure can never keep up with the needs. He champions urban infill, “urban villages” as he calls them — developments featuring the high-density and mixed-use buildings that used to make Fort Worth leaders cringe.
“What does what happens in Parker and Johnson counties have to do with Ryan Place?” Costa asked the council. “Everything. These issues are all interrelated.”
And then he gave them the big, scary numbers that explain why regional planning in North Texas is so vital. In the next quarter-century, he said, the numbers of households and jobs in the area will almost double from what they were in 2000. And if the cities don’t do something to limit urban sprawl, then the bill for the new roads needed to serve those ever-growing areas will be $45 billion. “Business as usual will not be successful or sustainable,” he warned.
But the reality is that Costa actually avoids the limelight as often as he stands in it, usually letting lower-level staffers make the presentations. It’s not that he’s shy or trying to avoid any controversy, it’s just that he knows how the political game works. A veteran of the urban planning game — 13 years in Atlanta and nine more in Fort Worth — Costa knows that elected politicians look down on any city staffer who gets too big. Stay in the background, he has learned, and more work gets done.
Nonetheless, Costa was front and center at a recent meeting, on two apparently unrelated issues. One was a zoning fuss in Arlington Heights, just west of downtown. The other was a report from Vision North Texas, which Costa chairs. The regional planning board encourages government bodies across 13 Metroplex counties to work together on — you name it — road construction, housing growth, and where the jobs are going to be located.
For Costa, the two agenda items indeed were related. In fact, the reason he’s gotten so heavily involved in the long-term planning committee is that he sees everything as related.
Development on the outskirts of a city creates sprawl that is costly to everyone, he told the council, because it means infrastructure can never keep up with the needs. He champions urban infill, “urban villages” as he calls them — developments featuring the high-density and mixed-use buildings that used to make Fort Worth leaders cringe.
“What does what happens in Parker and Johnson counties have to do with Ryan Place?” Costa asked the council. “Everything. These issues are all interrelated.”
And then he gave them the big, scary numbers that explain why regional planning in North Texas is so vital. In the next quarter-century, he said, the numbers of households and jobs in the area will almost double from what they were in 2000. And if the cities don’t do something to limit urban sprawl, then the bill for the new roads needed to serve those ever-growing areas will be $45 billion. “Business as usual will not be successful or sustainable,” he warned.
It's a good article, very germane to the ongoing discussions that go on here. I'm glad to know we have someone as informed and capable as Costa working at City Hall.
