Scott Jones

What we talked about

Why developers are choosing Manor over Austin

Manor sits about twelve miles east of Austin on U.S. Highway 290, with State Highway 130 running past it. Scott Jones describes a city in what he calls an explosive growth mode, and he is specific about why the growth is landing there rather than in the suburbs closer in: lower cost land, an easier development process, and a shorter timeline to get something built.

That last point is the one economic developers argue about most and it is the one he leads with. Speed and predictability, not incentives, are what he names first as Manor’s competitive position against Austin and the surrounding suburbs. The visible evidence, in his telling, is the construction along 290 and the cranes on the skyline, which he says represent more growth than the city has seen even during the last decade of expansion.

His own focus is deliberately not residential. He is recruiting commercial: retail, manufacturing, and professional services, and specifically what he calls above median county wage businesses, so that people moving to Manor have somewhere in Manor to work.

How commercial tax base changes what residents pay

The most useful stretch of the conversation is the clearest explanation of municipal tax base we have recorded, and it is worth reading even if you never watch the video.

Jones lays out the arithmetic. On the same square footage, residential property might carry $150 to $200 per square foot of investment, while a commercial building runs $400 to $500. The ad valorem taxable value on the commercial side is therefore roughly double or more, and commercial retail generates sales tax revenue on top of that. Residential property, meanwhile, consumes utility and police services without producing the same return.

The conclusion is the part most residents never hear stated plainly: attracting commercial development has the effect of driving down what residential property owners pay, because commercial absorbs a larger share of the overall tax base. He puts a target on it, saying a city wants that weighted average somewhere in the 15 to 20 percent range on the commercial side rather than leaning heavily residential, because a heavily residential city means residents paying a higher property tax rate.

Manor’s first city library, and a new city hall with it

Manor is planning its first municipal library. Travis County operated a small library in Manor years ago that closed over environmental concerns, but the city has never had one of its own.

The library will be 35,000 square feet, which Jones notes is large for a city Manor’s size, and it shares a building with a roughly 30,000 square foot city hall for a combined facility of about 65,000 square feet. It sits inside the Manor Town Center development on U.S. 290, with an event lawn behind it. Voters approved the bond for the library and city hall in November 2023, and the years since have gone into acquiring property rights, siting the building, and working through the master development with a development partner. At the time of the interview the project was in interior design, and Jones expected the building to be open in the first or second quarter of 2028.

Keeping a small-town feel while the city grows

Asked the question every growing Texas city gets, Jones answers with programming rather than policy. Manor is expanding its slate of community events, including Manor Palooza, a Juneteenth event, and a Fourth of July event, held partly on a large city-owned tract along U.S. 290. The new city hall and library are meant to become the physical center of that, a gathering place rather than just a building.

The city also runs a weekly video series, Meet Manor Mondays, and staffs City of Manor booths at community events specifically to collect resident feedback on what the city is getting right and wrong. Jones frames both as the same job: keeping residents informed about what is being built and giving them a channel to respond.

He also answers the question about whether he lives there, and the answer is yes. He and his wife leased near Manor for a couple of years before buying in the city, and he is direct that it was a choice rather than a requirement of the job.