The San Antonio Planning Fee will maintain a public listening to subsequent month on the Guajolote Ranch housing growth, which opponents warn would hurt the Edwards Aquifer whereas growing taxes.
The fee agreed to rearrange the listening to after members of the Scenic Loop-Helotes Creek Alliance protested a closed assembly it held Wednesday to debate proposed financing for the event in far Northwest Bexar County, members of the alliance advised the Present.
Initially, some 20 members of the Scenic Loop-Helotes Creek Alliance descended on the Cliff Morton Improvement and Enterprise Middle to protest the assembly, which didn’t embody an agenda merchandise that allowed opponents of the venture to talk.
Nonetheless, as a result of quantity of individuals concerned with talking, metropolis employees agreed to holds a particular public listening to at 9 a.m. Jan. 16 to debate the financing mechanism.
The financing mechanism in query is a Municipal Utility District (MUD), which is able to assist finance infrastructure, together with a wastewater therapy plant, for a 2,600-home venture being developed by Florida-based Lennar.
A MUD is a particular government-like entity created to offer important providers in creating areas exterior metropolis limits the place cities can’t prolong providers. They’re used to finance infrastructure by means of bonds repaid by property taxes.
Members of the Scenic Loop-Helotes Creek Alliance advised the Present a MUD wouldn’t solely improve taxes for these residing inside the event but in addition for close by residents.
“Cities have been strained to offer added police safety or added roads [for these developments], and so they received to recoup these prices in some way,” alliance consultant Steve Lee stated. “So, in flip, MUD’s have resulted in increased taxes, even for individuals residing exterior the event.”
The battle over the MUD is simply the most recent twist within the battle over Guajolote Ranch.
In October, the Texas Fee on Environmental High quality (TCEQ) permitted a allow for Lennar to assemble a plant to discharge handled wastewater into Helotes Creek. That approval got here regardless of a 2020 research by Southwest Analysis Institute elevating issues the discharge may “considerably degrade the watershed and the standard of water recharging the Edwards Aquifer.”
Lee stated the Scenic Loop-Helotes Creek Alliance has since filed a movement for TCEQ rehearing. If the fee doesn’t reply to that movement by the Dec. 22 deadline, then Lee and his group plan to file an enchantment in Travis County District Courtroom.
“We really feel fairly good about that,” Lee stated in regards to the potential lawsuit.
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