Bee Cave receives highest honor in Scenic Texas certification

Bee Cave is the latest Texas town to improve its "scenic city" certification status by a statewide nonprofit, earning the highest platinum-level status. It is one of 13 Texas cities to earn that status level.

Houston-based Scenic Texas promotes enhanced design standards for public projects, sign regulation, freeway landscaping and scenic byway development.

Lindsey Oskoui, Bee Cave's director for planning development, said the city applied for scenic city status in 2016 and was recognized as a gold-level member, the second-highest status.

The level statuses are based on a points system. Cities earn points by meeting threshold standards for landscaping, tree planting and sign regulation. Each city is provided feedback from Scenic Texas on how to score more points to move up to another level.

“We could see where we were lacking in points," Oskoui said, "and in some areas it was mostly because our explanation wasn’t clear enough.”

The status is good for five years but there is a period in which cities can improve their rank, she said. This year, Bee Cave applied during the "rank up" period, receiving 304 points, the minimum amount of points needed to receive a platinum level status.

Since applying in 2016, Oskoui said, the city was able to receive additional points for the burial of electrical lines along Bee Cave Parkway, the purchase of the Lamar Brown tract west of Great Divide Drive and south of Texas 71 as green space, and for the construction of the city’s multi-use pedestrian trails.

“The city has worked hard, independent of the program, to obtain this designation,” Oskoui said. “Our ordinances and city policies align with the program’s and it’s nice to have that recognition.”

She said the city will maintain the status over the next five years. As part of the new budget, the city is dedicating money to a city code update. Oskoui said it will be important when updating the code that Bee Cave keeps in mind the objectives that earned points and make sure to maintain that.

“Scenic City isn’t focused on ranking which cities are the most scenic in appearance, it's which cities are most successful in setting up the framework to be scenic,” Oskoui said. “As we embark on updating our code, we will need to keep that mind.”

West Lake Hills is also a certified scenic city, holding a recognized level status.

West Lake Hills was recognized in 2015 and the city’s new coordinator of building and development services, Anjali Naini, said the city will look at ways to update the city code and hopefully improve its rank in the next round of applications.

“We are reapplying for it this year, but we really wanted to try and rank up,” Naini said. “We are going to look at the criteria and maybe make small tweaks to see if there are ways to earn more points.”

Naini said the scenic city program is helpful for a city because it provides it with a chance to improve ordinances and practice good development standards.

West Lake Hills plans to apply in March for a chance to improve its rank.

About 75 Texas cities are certified as scenic by the nonprofit. Among other Austin-area cities, Cedar Park also holds a platinum status. Buda, Drippings Springs, Georgetown, Hutto, Lakeway and Pflugerville are also certified.