Tag: eminent domain

Items 9-11: Eminent Domain

We need this long skinny strip:

for some water and wastewater lines.

We need this:

for the Linda Drive project, which you can read about here.

We need this:

for the River Ridge Drainage Improvements Project, which you can read about at that same link as the Linda Drive project.

We aren’t just going in with guns blazing and taking the land. The plan is to go talk to the land owners and try to buy it. The key phrase for eminent domain is “To the extent that negotiations are unsuccessful.”

So, we’ll try. Otherwise we’ll take.

…

Item 19: That wild storm back on May 9th. (I hope everyone is okay.)

We’re pulling $750,000 out of the general fund to cover the associated costs, like all the extra curbside brush pickup and tree removal.

Here’s the thing: Hays County is requesting a disaster declaration. If we get it, then we can get reimbursed for this expense. Which is good, since our budget is kinda tanking at the moment. (See here)

To get the disaster declaration, we have to report at least $1.1 million in damages. And the more we report, the more federal money we can receive. You get reimbursed in proportion to the damages you report.

So really, the community needs to report whatever happened:

• Volunteer hours. Did you and some neighbors spend a few hours using a chainsaw on your neighbor’s fallen tree? Report it.
• Did you have to pay for tree removal? Report it.
• Did your car or your house get damaged? that really sucks and I’m sorry. But also, report it.

Go here and scroll down to “Reporting Damages” and “Reporting Volunteer Hours”.

There, that’s your good deed for the day.

…

Item 21: Project Snapdragon

Ah, such intrigue.

Council approved this with zero discussion and no presentation, so I’m basically winging it here. (There are slides in the packet, but staff didn’t present them during the meeting.)

Let’s see how I do!

A speculative industrial building. So in other words, they don’t know who exactly will lease it yet, but they’ve got a good feeling in their belly.

It’s going to be here:

In other words, if you’re going southbound on the frontage road, it’s behind these buidlings here:

right behind Floor King, Life Storage, and Classic Collision.

Side note: Do we all think “Floorking, I don’t even know how to floork” when we see that place, or just me? (You will now! Sorry!)

What will it look like?

haha, no it won’t. Renderings are just pretty pictures. They’re not promises. They’ll build whatever they want (as long as it fits city code).

How much money are we giving them?

Ok, so we’re giving them $235K. How much do we think we’ll get?

So someone is projecting that we’ll bring in $97K yearly, once it’s up and running.

Side note: You know what would be nice? To go back 5-10 years at old Chapter 380 agreements, and see how they panned out. In 2014, who did we give tax breaks to? What kind of revenue did they pinky swear to generate? How much money are we actually collecting from them?

Anyway, Chapter 380 agreements now take two readings, so if you hate this, you can tell us all about it at the next meeting.

…

Item 22: 5 year lease with Green Guy Recycling

We went over all the details here, in a workshop back in March. So now it’s official. 💍

….

Item 26: Tiny Homes

Mayor Hughson brought this item up. I think what Jane is saying is that you should be able to build Tiny Homes on weird, tiny lots.

We started allowing Tiny Homes under the land development code in 2021. Right now, there are a few ways to have one:

• In a single family zoning, you can put one on a lot, just like a non-tiny home.
• If you want to put several of them on a lot, it needs to be zoned for mobile homes. So in most neighborhoods, you can’t do this.
• If you had a big lot, you could apply for a zoning change to a zone where you could subdivide it into several small lots. This would go to P&Z and Council, where they’d look at it on a case-by-case basis.

Matthew Mendoza says that he doesn’t want someone subdividing a larger lot into several small lots to put tiny homes on them.

Mark Gleason: As long as we’re not doing what Austin did!

What he’s talking about is this: Austin passed a new ordinance that changes the minimum lot size for houses from 5,750 square feet to 1,800 square feet.

Let’s talk about this, because I think it’s really important. Here’s a 6,000 square foot lot:

That’s a listing from San Marcos. If you set Zillow to lot sizes of 5000-75000 square feet, the vast majority of San Marcos options are in the $300K range.

You can have much bigger lots, but you can’t go smaller than that in a traditional Single Family 6 neighborhood. What this means is that your neighborhoods are sprawling and your prices stay high. It’s bad for traffic, bad for the environment, and bad for creating affordable housing. It’s good for keeping poor people away from middle and upper class people.

So last week, the Austin City Council approved a minimum lot size of 1800 square feet for single family neighborhoods. You can still have bigger lots! But you’re allowed to have small lots, in traditional neighborhoods. This is what is blowing San Marcos City Council’s collective minds.

There were also a bunch of reforms passed last December:

The arguments against these things are usually about “preserving the character of a neighborhood”. But we’re not talking about bulldozing twenty houses and replacing them with a giant apartment complex. We’re talking about gently increasing the affordability and number of people in a neighborhood. I promise it won’t hurt.

These changes really do bring down housing costs, and higher density really does cut down on traffic, sprawl, and the environmental impact.