Howdy, Hutto. Big week around town: Hutto ISD is starting the rezoning process for Creekside High School, TxDOT is gathering input on intersection improvements at SH 130 and Gattis School Road, and City Council made headlines by ending Hutto’s use of Flock license plate readers.

We’ve also got new details on Project Orchard, data center questions, City Hall updates, local events, sports, and more below. Thanks, as always, for stopping by and keeping up with Hutto with me.

Quick local updates from around town.

High School Rezoning | Hutto ISD’s initial plan would use Hwy. 79 to divide attendance between Hutto High and the new Creekside High School, with public forums set for Sept. 22 and 23 before trustees consider final boundaries in October.

SH 130 Public Meeting | TxDOT will hold a public meeting Sept. 23 at Cedar Ridge High School to gather input on the SH 130 at Gattis School Road project, with an online option also available.

Project Orchard | Hutto EDC is working on plans for a roughly five-acre shopping center at Ed Schmidt Boulevard and the future Live Oak extension, with a 15,000–20,000-square-foot grocery store proposed as the anchor, though no grocer has been confirmed yet.

School Construction | Hutto ISD is moving forward on several 2023 bond projects, including the $180 million Creekside High conversion, a new elementary school in Flora, middle school expansions, and upgrades at Hutto High.

New Beauty Lounge | Doll House Beauty Lounge is now open at 102 Taylor St., bringing lash extensions, spray tanning, and medical aesthetics together under one roof.

Things to do around town from Tuesday through Sunday.

Fiber Friends
The Story Emporium & Bookshop
Tuesday, September 22 • 5:30–6:30 PM
Bring a knitting, crochet, embroidery, or other portable fiber project for a free, relaxed evening of crafting, conversation, and optional coffee, tea, or wine.

Hutto Farmers Market
350 Ed Schmidt Blvd.
Wednesday, September 23 • 3:00–7:00 PM
Local farmers, ranchers, artisans, food vendors, coffee, handmade goods, and more.

Music Bingo
Cottonwood Creek Brewery
Wednesday, September 23 • 6:00 PM
Test your music knowledge with Muzingo, a sing-along twist on bingo that’s built for a casual night out with friends and a beer.

General Knowledge Trivia
Cottonwood Creek Brewery
Wednesday, September 23 • 7:00 PM
Put your random knowledge to the test with Cottonwood Creek Brewery’s weekly general trivia night.

Bookish Autumn Craft: Pumpkin of Pages
The Story Emporium & Bookshop
Thursday, September 24 • 5:30–6:30 PM
Turn old book pages into a fall pumpkin decoration during this guided craft workshop, with all materials provided; tickets are $10 and the activity is recommended for ages 15 and up.

Hippo Social Club Wellness Mixer
Sand & Sip Social
Thursday, September 24 • 6:00–8:00 PM
A free community wellness mixer featuring sand volleyball, local food and wellness vendors, and plenty of time to connect with other Hutto-area residents and businesses.

ATX Art Nights: Pressed Flower Art
Cottonwood Creek Brewery
Thursday, September 24 • 6:30–8:30 PM
Create stained-glass-style wall art with pressed flowers, leaves, foil, ribbon, lace, and other decorative materials in this hands-on class for ages 16 and up.

Thursday Karaoke
The Downtown Hall of Fame
Thursday, September 24 • 8:00–10:00 PM
Grab the mic for karaoke with DJ Erin at Downtown Hall of Fame, with Hutto ISD staff receiving 10% off.

Sip & Paint Class: Bat Bouquet
The Curious Hippo
Friday, September 25 • 8:00–10:00 PM
Paint an original “Bat Bouquet” design with step-by-step instruction from James Talon Art, with all supplies provided and beverages available for purchase downstairs.

Meet the Winemaker: Emy Blakeney
Hutto Wine Bar
Friday, September 25 • 5:30–6:30 PM
Meet Dolce Estivo Winery winemaker Emy Blakeney and sample her Tempranillo during a casual evening tasting at Hutto Wine Bar.

Craftin for Mental Health with Liv — Adults
Cumberland Road Art Studio
Friday, September 25 • 6:30–8:30 PM
Adults can spend the evening making charm crafts in a supportive, low-pressure setting focused on creativity, connection, and mental wellness; tickets are $35.

6th Annual Holes 4 Hunger Golf Tournament
The Golf Club at Star Ranch
Saturday, September 26 • 8:00 AM
Support the Hutto Resource Center with a morning of golf, contests, raffles, prizes, awards, and lunch, with proceeds helping fund food assistance, financial support, and other local services.

Texas vs. Tennessee Watch Party
Cottonwood Creek Brewery
Saturday, September 26 • 11:00 AM
Longhorn fans can catch Texas on the road against Tennessee live with sound at Cottonwood Creek Brewery.

Craftin for Mental Health with Liv — Kids
Cumberland Road Art Studio
Saturday, September 26 • 12:00–2:00 PM
Kids can spend the afternoon making cute charm crafts with Liv, with all supplies provided; tickets are $35.

Crochet for Beginners
The Story Emporium & Bookshop
Saturday, September 26 • 12:00–1:00 PM
Learn the basics of crochet in a hands-on beginner-friendly class with materials included; tickets are $20, and first-time students receive a crochet kit to take home.

Pints & Planters
Cottonwood Creek Brewery
Saturday, September 26 • 1:00–3:00 PM
Paint your own planter, pot a succulent to take home, and enjoy a house beer while you craft, with all supplies included.

Feathered Friends
Cumberland Road Art Studio
Saturday, September 26 • 3:00–7:00 PM
Create a stained-glass bird in your own color palette and finish it as either a garden stake or hanging suncatcher; the four-hour class is $100.

Mixology Class
Grapes & Rye
Saturday, September 26 • 7:00 PM
Learn how to shake, stir, and muddle cocktails with guidance from an expert mixologist while making and tasting several drinks; tickets are $60 per person and prepaid.

Movie in the Park: The Sheep Detectives
Fritz Park
Saturday, September 26 • 7:30–10:30 PM
Bring a blanket for a free outdoor movie night under the stars, with the film starting around dusk and plenty of time to settle in with family and neighbors.

Mahjong at the Wine Bar
Hutto Wine Bar
Sunday, September 27 • 1:00–3:00 PM
Join Y’all Jong for either a beginner mahjong lesson or guided social play, with your first drink and a raffle entry included; tickets are $55 for the lesson or $25 for guided play.

Autumn Fairy Apple Cider Picnic
The Story Emporium & Bookshop
Sunday, September 27 • 1:00–2:00 PM
Kids ages 3–10 can enjoy apple cider, seasonal treats, an autumn story, imaginative play, and a make-your-own fairy home craft; tickets are $13 per child, and adults attend free.

Pokémon Bingo Party
Treasure Trove Hobby Store
Sunday, September 27 • 3:00 PM
A free Pokémon-themed bingo party with prizes for winners, plus free pizza and cake for participants; adults and kids are welcome to play.

A recap of what Hutto City Council covered last week.

There was a lot packed into Hutto City Council’s Sept. 17 meeting, so this week we’re giving City Hall a little more room than usual. The biggest decision involved Hutto’s Flock license plate readers, but council also dug into data centers, the Hutto Gateway project, fire-service negotiations, tourism spending, and a few other issues that could have a lasting impact around town.

Hutto Ends Its Flock License Plate Reader Program | Hutto City Council voted to discontinue the Police Department’s use of Flock Safety’s automated license plate readers after HPD conducted its own review of the system.

The important part here is why. According to the City, HPD became concerned that other agencies accessing information through the broader Flock network were not necessarily bound by the same rules Hutto places on its own officers. Police leadership also raised questions about newer artificial-intelligence capabilities being introduced into the technology. HPD had already taken Hutto’s plate readers down before the council vote, and the Sept. 17 decision means they will stay down.

That doesn’t mean police considered the cameras useless. The City specifically acknowledged that the readers had assisted HPD with criminal investigations. The tradeoff discussed at the meeting was whether that investigative benefit outweighed concerns about who else could access information generated by Hutto cameras and how much control the City actually had once that information entered a larger network.

There’s also an important distinction between license plate readers and every camera in town with the Flock name on it. Staff explained that Hutto has also purchased more traditional Flock-branded security cameras, including cameras used in parks, that are intended to operate more like a closed security system. Council’s motion called for ending the agreements involving the automated license plate readers, along with any other Flock cameras staff determines can be accessed by parties outside Hutto. Staff said it will verify how those other cameras operate before deciding whether any need to be replaced.

So, what changes for police? Without the automated system alerting officers to certain vehicles moving through town, HPD will lean more heavily on traditional patrol work, citizen reports, investigators, and other available technology. In other words, the cameras were a tool — not the entire investigative system — but Chief Jeffrey Yarbrough acknowledged that losing them removes a capability officers cannot simply recreate by having patrol cars watch traffic.

The broader takeaway is that this wasn’t a decision based on the cameras never helping police. City leadership said they did help. The issue was whether Hutto could maintain the level of control over its residents’ data that HPD and council were comfortable with as the technology and the larger sharing network evolved. Hutto now joins other Central Texas communities that have recently reconsidered their use of Flock’s networked plate-reading technology.

Data Center Rules Are Getting a Closer Look | With more data-center development headed toward this part of Hutto, council spent considerable time discussing what the city should require from future projects.

The conversation covered things residents are likely to care about directly: noise, water and energy use, cooling systems, setbacks from neighborhoods, landscaping, screening, utility infrastructure, and environmental impacts. The city has also commissioned a sound study to examine whether Hutto’s existing development rules adequately address modern data centers and different cooling technologies.

Council also discussed a bigger question: beyond property-tax revenue, should large data-center projects be expected to provide some additional community benefit? Ideas discussed included environmental improvements, parks, or similar investments that could help offset impacts from particularly large developments. No new fee, requirement, or ordinance was adopted Sept. 17; staff and legal counsel were asked to come back with options on what Hutto can legally require and how those requirements might work.

This is worth watching because it could shape how Hutto handles a whole new category of development, not just one project. The City currently has a public hearing scheduled for Oct. 1 on a proposed Hutto Data Center Campus East planned-unit development on CR 3349, so these conversations aren’t happening in the abstract.

Hutto Gateway Is Moving Forward, But It’s Not Approved Yet | Council opened the required public hearing for the proposed Hutto Gateway Public Improvement District, or PID, but continued that hearing until Nov. 19.

Here’s the plain-English version: a PID is a financing tool that can be used to pay for infrastructure or improvements within a defined development area, typically with costs ultimately tied back to property inside that district. Before Hutto creates this one, several procedural pieces still have to happen.

Three county roads are involved in the proposed Gateway area, which means Williamson County must receive 61 days of notice. The city is also still working through the development agreement and zoning connected to the project.

Later in the meeting, council directed staff to begin the notification process for annexing those county roads. City officials said the long-term intent is for Hutto to take over maintenance of them. That moves another piece of the project forward, but we should not read it as final approval of the Gateway PID itself — that decision is still pending.

Big Development-Code Hearing Moves to Oct. 15 | Hutto’s major rewrite of its Unified Development Code has a new hearing date: Thursday, Oct. 15 at 7 PM.

The hearing had originally been planned for Sept. 17, but the required newspaper notice did not run correctly, so council formally reset it.

“Unified Development Code” sounds like something only planners need to care about, but it’s basically Hutto’s rulebook for how property gets developed. It helps govern things like zoning, site design, development standards, and how new growth fits into the city around it. Hutto has been rewriting the code to better align those rules with its SOAR 2040 comprehensive plan.

So if you’re the kind of person who asks, “Why can they build that there?” or “What rules does a developer have to follow?” — this is one of the processes behind those answers.

Fire Service Talks Are Still Unresolved | Council members serving on Hutto’s fire-safety subcommittee said negotiations with Williamson County Emergency Services District No. 3 remain unsettled.

Their update described disagreements over several pieces of a possible agreement, including contract-termination language, how certain revenue would be used when property is annexed into Hutto, and what role the ESD would have while economic-development projects are being negotiated. Those comments represent the city subcommittee members’ description of the negotiations; no new fire-services agreement was approved Sept. 17.

One change residents will see is more access to those conversations. Council voted 7–0 to have audio from ESD subcommittee meetings posted on the City’s website after personally identifiable information is removed. That should make it much easier to follow the negotiations without sitting through every meeting in person.

Tourism Spending Gets a Bigger Discussion | Before the regular council meeting, council held a work session devoted almost entirely to how Hutto spends Hotel Occupancy Tax, or HOT, dollars.

That’s money generated through hotel stays and restricted by state law to eligible tourism-related purposes. This year’s requests included funding connected to the Chamber’s visitor center, Olde Tyme Days, Holidays in Hutto, Trail of Lights, and the proposed Live at the Co-op concert series.

What was more interesting than any one event was the bigger conversation about Hutto’s approach going forward. Several council members questioned whether long-established events should continue receiving the same kind of annual city support indefinitely or whether ticket sales, sponsorships, and partnerships should gradually shoulder more of the cost.

Council also voted 7–0 to have the city attorney prepare a request for a Texas Attorney General opinion on whether HOT funds can legally be used for improvements to the amphitheater at Adam Orgain Park. The idea is essentially to answer whether tourism dollars could help improve a permanent city venue that hosts events, rather than putting those dollars only toward individual annual events. The request still has to come back to council before being sent.

Hutto’s 150th Birthday Plans Are Growing | The group planning Hutto’s sesquicentennial celebration told council it has raised roughly $26,000–$27,000, clearing the $20,000 fundraising threshold the City previously agreed to match dollar-for-dollar.

And the anniversary is shaping up to be more than one big party. Organizers are working on historical banners, a student essay contest, a Hutto history coloring book, living-history programming, and permanent historical markers around town.

The plan is to install the first four historical markers ahead of the November celebration, with roughly 20 potential sites identified for the longer-term project. The committee also said it is still fundraising and has scaled back some pieces of the original celebration plan to stay within available resources.

One More Date to Know | Hutto’s next regularly scheduled City Council meeting is Oct. 15, which is also the night of the rescheduled joint hearing on the Unified Development Code. The City’s meeting calendar then shows regular meetings on Nov. 19 and Dec. 17.

That means several of the items above — especially the development code, data-center rules, Hutto Gateway, and fire-service discussions — aren’t finished stories yet. We’ll keep tracking what turns into actual policy and what remains a conversation.

A reader asked us a good question last week about the planned $280 million Colovore data center on Innovation Boulevard: How will it be cooled, how much water will it use, and what happens to that water afterward?

Here’s what we can confirm so far: Colovore says its planned 40-megawatt Hutto facility will use liquid cooling and advertises a Water Usage Effectiveness, or WUE, of 0 — an industry metric indicating a design intended to avoid consumptive operational water use as measured by WUE.

That’s encouraging information if you’re wondering about evaporative cooling, but there are still some blanks. Public documents we found do not yet spell out the Hutto facility’s exact cooling loop, gallons of water required for initial filling or other uses, whether any cooling water will routinely be discharged, or the number and type of backup generators planned for the site. Hutto’s 2024 approval for the project does say no electrical substation will be built with the data center.

The timing of the question is also interesting: City Council is now working on data-center-specific development standards, and water use, energy use, and cooling systems are explicitly on the list of issues being considered. Hutto also has an industrial wastewater program regulating what businesses can discharge into the city sewer system. Those new data-center standards are still being developed, though, so there isn’t a new numerical water-use limit on the books yet.

Bottom line: We know considerably more about Colovore’s planned cooling approach than we did last week, but not enough yet to put a reliable gallons-per-day number on it. We’ll keep digging as the engineering and permitting process moves forward.

Sports news and updates from Hippo Nation.

Homecoming Statement | Hutto football gave the home crowd plenty to celebrate Friday night, rolling past Temple 53-14 and improving to 3-1 on the season.

The Hippos came out flying, building a 28-0 lead in the first quarter behind scores from Jaiden Fields, Carson Fields, and two touchdowns from Dylan Owens. Ethan Carlson added another score in the second quarter, and Hutto never let Temple get close enough to make it interesting.

Now the schedule shifts into district play.

Up Next: Hutto @ East View
Friday, September 25 • 7:00 PM
East View High School

The Hippos head to Georgetown to face the East View Patriots in their district opener. After a strong non-district start, this is where the games begin counting toward the district standings and postseason picture.

Championship Hardware | Hutto High School’s Unified Basketball team officially received its 2026 state championship rings following the Homecoming Pep Rally, adding some well-earned hardware to a run that went from third at state in 2023, to runner-up in 2024, to state champions on Feb. 27, 2026.

Get schedules, scores, and more at huttoathletics.com

A running list of businesses, restaurants, and developments headed our way.

Food & Drink | Buffalo Wild Wings • 7 Brew Coffee • El Pollo Rico • Antioch Pizza Shop • HTeaO • Munch Munch Waffles & More • Jason’s Deli • LongHorn Steakhouse • Pepper Lunch • Olive Garden

Shops & Services | Petco • Dollar Tree • Bitewise Orthodontics • Glam Nails & Head Spa • Toyota of Hutto • Sprouts Farmers Market

Fitness & Hotels | Crunch Fitness • Everhome Suites • Residence Inn by Marriott

Major Projects & Employers | Colovore • Blue Origin (proposed) • TSTC Manufacturing Technologies Center • Cottonwood Marketplace • The Gateway at Hutto (proposed) • Hutto Area Chamber Headquarters

Mostly accurate forecast until Texas decides otherwise.

Fall may be on the calendar, but Hutto isn’t quite ready for it yet. Expect highs in the mid-to-upper 90s all week, comfortable-ish mornings in the low-to-mid 70s, and mostly dry skies through the weekend.

☀️ Tuesday: Mostly sunny and hot • 74°–97°
🌤️ Wednesday–Thursday: Partly cloudy with very little rain expected • 72°–97°
🌤️ Friday–Saturday: Still hot with some clouds around • 71°–96°
🌤️ Sunday: Partly cloudy with a slight rain chance • 74°–95°

👉 TL;DR: Hot and mostly dry

That’s it for this week, neighbor.
See you next Tuesday.

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