Tag: river bridge ranch

Hours 0:00 – 1:44, 8/5/26

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

One speaker, but he hits a lot of topics:

  • We need more tax from businesses, we could put them south of town. 
  • Promote river tourism. 
  • Provide services for elderly.
  • Support Chief Standridge and law enforcement. 
  • THBC issues liquor licenses: why does San Marcos require a CUP?  It’s redundant. 
  • We should position ourselves as a major player on I35.

Onto the meeting!

…

Item 7: Riverbridge Ranch PID

River Bridge Ranch is a development going in way east of I35.

This is where River Bridge Ranch will be:

Map showing River Bridge Ranch location

It’s one of MANY that are going in around Redwood:

Map showing River Bridge Ranch and five other developments going in around Redwood. Riley's point, River bend ranch, Sedona North, and Sedona South

Those are just the ones that have come up in the past year or two. There are way more that are already being built.

In general, I’m not a fan of any of these! This is sprawl. There is no commerce planned. There is not significant density being planned. This will require lots of driving for all residents. It costs the city more support to sprawl than the city gains in new property taxes.

(Note: back in 2023 the plan was for plenty of stores and dense housing:

Map showing where they were going to put apartments and commerce in the 2023 version of River Bridge Ranch

The 2023 Council agreed to let the developer kill all that, in favor of more single family housing. It still would have been far away from town, but at least it would have had some redeeming features.

I was pretty cranky about council rolling over like that!)

…

We’ve talked about this development several times over the past year: December 2025, January 2026, July 7th.

A lot of that – especially July 7th – is me complaining about how PIDs are a shell game. I guess I’ll spare everyone yet another rambly rant on the same topic, but feel free to click through if you’re curious.

…

Since January, the city negotiated for some extra perks: an amenity center that is open to the public, some shade trees, various financial details. Those are fine.

River Bridge Ranch Project Land Plan, showing phases of development and amenities and estimated starting sales price $260K-$390K

Still all sprawl!

Still, the 2026 Council is very enthusiastic about how much better this deal is than what was proposed in January.

The vote:

Screenshot of the vote, unanimous 7-0

Oh well! It’s coming!

….

Items 9-10: Water and wastewater impact fees

Here’s the scenario: when these developments get built far away from town, the city has to run utility lines and SMPD and EMS service out to them.

This is cheaper when it’s close, and more expensive when it’s far away. Makes sense!

Today we’re focusing on water and wastewater. Think about all the people who will live in all these developments:

Same map as earlier, showing 6 developments down by Redwood

They all need plumbing that connects them to water. None of them will be on septic, so the developers are all arranging ways for wastewater plumbing to leave their house and take it to a wastewater treatment plant.

These costs are set. There’s no reducing it, because we already approved the sprawl.

…

Side bar: why do people hate sprawl?

In a nutshell:

Gentle density – think 1940s mainstreet, not New York City – solves a lot of problems.

  • The city brings in enough tax money from each block to cover the costs of infrastructure.
  • Cars are really expensive to own – about $11K per year. But you can’t have functional public transportation until people are living more closely together. Shops, schools, and jobs are easier to walk or bike to. Etc. Gentle density allows people to get by without owning a car.
  • Saving greenspace and wildlife habitats, and not pouring out our clean drinking water to water people’s lawns, etc. Win-win.

Sprawl is bad! Gentle density is good. Go tell it on the mountain.

….

But the developments are coming. Who should pay for the infrastructure?

So who is going to pay to run drinking water out to all these houses, and run their wastewater over to a treatment plant?

There are two sources of money:

  1. Raise rates on everyone’s water and wastewater bill. Everyone in the city pays a little bit, and the infrastructure gets built.
  2. Charge the developers an impact fee, which covers the cost of the new infrastructure. This raises the cost of the houses in those developments.

Which is more fair?

They both seem unfair!

  • Raising everyone’s rates seems unfair, because the regular residents didn’t ask for ridiculous faraway sprawl.
  • Putting it all on the home buyers who buy new homes also seems unfair – we know the population is growing. It’s much harder for millenials to afford a home than it was for boomers. Communities should support younger generations.

Fortunately, you can do a little of each.

The real answer is:

  • Charge big impact fees for sprawl that doesn’t serve the next generation
  • Split the cost with rate payers to cover the costs of infill, affordable housing, and environmental housing that make San Marcos better for everyone.

Let’s dive in and see what we decided.

…

Today’s topic: Should we raise water and wastewater impact fees?

First off, we already have impact fees. This isn’t a brand new idea. We last updated them in 2018.

Here’s the 2018 rates and what’s being proposed for 2026:

Chart of San Marcos compared to about 20 other cities water and wastewater fees. It has both 2018 San Marcos and 2026 San Marcos fees.

(The resolution is crappy because these weren’t in the packet. I had to screenshot them from the video.)

Let me point out a few things:

  • These are the fees on a typical house. It would scale up for an apartment or a large business, etc, according to how much water you use.
  • Going from $6,485 to $25,680 is a huge jump!
  • It puts us right in the middle of all these other towns that have increased their fees since the post-covid inflation price spike

This is why it’s better to do smaller rate hikes more frequently – less sticker shock.

What does this chart mean in terms of the two sources of money?

If we adopt the proposed fees, what’s the split between rate-payers and people buying new homes? Is it 50-50? Is it 60-30? What’s the split?

Answer: the rate chart above puts 100% of the new infrastructure costs on developers and people who buy new homes.

…

What does the public say during public comment?

It’s mostly developers and real estate folks:

  • Don’t charge the same fee for infill as for sprawl! [Note: I totally agree]
  • Can the city double-check it’s math? Are you sure you’re going to build that much infrastructure in ten years
    [Answer: yes, they are]
  • This will have a major impact on new-build home prices. They’ll go up by $20K. [I think this is correct.]

…

What does council say?

Jane: when would these new rates kick in?
Answer: All homes that are platted by October 1st would get 2018 fees. Anything that gets platted after that would get charged the new rates.

Amanda: can we lower these impact fees for good kinds of development? Infill, green development, affordable housing, etc?
Answer: Yes. The best way to do that is through credits and rebates. You’d set these rates now as the upper bound for bad sprawl, and then create incentives.

Informal poll: who wants a future discussion of credits/rebates for good development? (ie affordable housing, environmental sustainability, and infill housing)

Yes: Alyssa, Amanda, Jane, Lorenzo, Josh

No: Shane, Matthew

(Shane and Matthew are so weird. “Hell no! We hate affordable housing, environmental sustainability, and infill!” Ok punks.)

Anyway: great. Credits/rebates for good development will come back in a future meeting.

Josh: Hey developers, what would help you all with these impact fees?
Kissing Tree Developer: There’s a number of things you could do:

  • Divide the city into districts, and charge Kissing Tree less than you charge developers east side of I35
  • At Kissing Tree, we purchase reclaimed water. You could give us a rebate for that.
  • You could roll this out slowly, let us get more building in under the old rates.
  • You could double-check your math and really make sure you’re going to build this much infrastructure.

City staff:

  • The costs are the costs. This was audited by an independent 3rd party. If you take the heat off developers, you are passing it on to everyone else.
  • Our treatment facilities take pressure off each other. We’re not big enough to justify districts.
  • Giving rebates for reclaimed water is exactly the kind of thing that Council can do.

Matthew: I’m a no. These costs are too high! I’m thinking of my friends without college educations. This isn’t family-friendly!
Jane: So you want rate-payers to pay?
Matthew: That’s the hard part. But we need to listen to developers – their livelihoods depend on it!

The vote: should we adopt the fees in the chart?

The vote on impact fees, 6-1 with Matthew Mendoza voting no.

So there you have it.

Note: Like I said, these rates put the infrastructure costs 100% on developers and people who buy new homes. We are trusting Council to bring this back and offer credits/rebates for good development.

(Good development = affordable housing, environmentally sustainable, and infill.)

…

That’s basically the whole meeting! There’s some formalities around Whisper and Trace developments, and some committee appointments, and allocating money for airport construction. But basically it was a very short meeting.

Hours 0:00 – 3:44, 7/7/26

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

9 speakers. Main topics:

1. Human Service Advisory Board funding: speakers from three nonprofits – Hays Helping Hands, Southside, and BR3T. (I’ll save their comments for Items 31-32.)

2. Accessibility and San Marcos: one speaker, he’s available to support the city as they start to implement accessibility measures.

3. Subdivision coming on 123 and FM 1978: three speakers.
Two neighbors who are concerned about changes coming, and one representative from Redwood who is interested in the wastewater treatment plant. (I’ll save their comments for Item 22.)

4. Thank you for the ban on data centers. Don’t let developers build student housing and flip it to university. Hold the university accountable for supporting the city. (1 speaker)

5. We need to bring more businesses to San Marcos, to grow the budget. We need Texas State to help staff police downtown. They should be responsible for their students. (1 speaker)

On to the meeting!

…

Consent Agenda

The consent agenda is about 10-20 items that get voted on as a group, without discussion.

One item of note – SMPD officers in schools:

This is not new, of course. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

There was no discussion, but Alyssa and Amanda both voted “no” on this item.

….

Item 21: HOT and STR fees

“HOT” stands for Hotel Occupancy Tax, and “STR” stands for Short Term Rentals. We charge a tax on hotels, and use the money to promote tourism.

Sometimes the hotels and short term rentals pay the city using a credit card. Credit cards come with a 3% surcharge. So the city has been paying 3% to the credit card companies every time the hotels pay by credit card.

This adds up to about $40K/year.

Today: Should we make the hotels and short term rentals pay the credit card fees?

The vote: Yes, we should. It’s unanimous – pass the cost on.

……

Item 22: Sedona South

There is a huge tract of land southeast of San Marcos which has gotten kicked around for years:

Map of four tracts of land - Riverbend Ranch, Riley's Point, Riley's point industrial, and River Bridge Ranch, all southeast of San Marcos. They are north and northwest of Redwood.

Someday, this is mostly going to be a massive amount of single family housing sprawl. (Why not include 4-plexes and townhomes and stores throughout these developments?)

Now we’re adding in this one:

Same map as before, but with the addition of a 5th tract, Sedona South, which is between Redwood and 123

And if I’m reading things correctly, this one is also coming soon:

Same map as before, but with Sedona North, a little triangle development between Sedona South and 123.

But for right now, we’re talking about Sedona South.

We’re going to talk about the reasons I don’t like it, and the reasons I do like it.

Here’s the main reason I don’t like it:

Concept plat of Sedona South

All that pink is going to be single family housing. The brown on the left is going to be half apartments, and half commercial.

This is not walkable at all. This is not a 15-minute neighborhood. This would not fly under the Comprehensive Plan. But it doesn’t have to, because they’re not asking to be annexed into the city.

Here’s the main reason I do like it:

Concept plat with the wastewater treatment plant circled.

We’ve discussed this wastewater treatment plant before, in March 2025, July 2025, and in June 2026

This new wastewater treatment plant is very important, because of this:

Map showing Sedona south next to Redwood

That wastewater treatment plant is crucial for the people living in Redwood.

Some backstory

Back in 2019, a researcher from UT Austin came to Redwood, and started testing people, and found that a lot of people there had the parasite strongyloides. This was living in the soil because the septic systems were failing, mostly because the soil there is incompatible with septic systems and causes them to break and leak. So even if there was money for everyone to fix their septic systems, they would break and leak all over again.

The only solution is to get on a wastewater system.

So Redwood and Rancho Vista organized. They connected with a group called Water Finance Exchange. They formed a nonprofit, the Redwood-Rancho Vista Water Supply Corporation, and they applied for the Closing America’s Wastewater Access Gap grant. They were selected to receive assistance, and they’re now working with some engineers to find a solution.

The solution: connect to a wastewater treatment plant.

OMG look!

IT’S RIGHT THERE. How could we not?

Confidential to Council: You hold the power! From your lips to God’s ears!

….

What else?

Two neighbors spoke – they’re not exactly thrilled that this massive development is going in across the street, but they said the city staff has been super helpful in talking with them. (The third speaker talked about the water treatment tie-in stuff with Redwood, from above.)

Council mildly made comments fiddling with the details:

  • Can we ban car washes, to conserve water?
  • Can we ban waste services?

Answer: Maybe! Sure!

The vote: unanimous. Everyone is in favor.

Note: I couldn’t find anything on how much money the city gets from this agreement. Seems like an important detail, though.

….

Items 23-24: Riverstone Apartments

Riverstone Apartments are located here:

Location of Riverstone apartments on Wonderworld, near 123

It opened in 2024.

Riverstone Apartments is a LIHTC complex, which stands for “Low Income Housing Tax Credit”.

Their LIHTC project works like this:

  • They get a tax break from the state.
  • They still pay full taxes to San Marcos.
  • They had to make all 336 units “affordable”.

“Affordable” means it’s priced for families earning $67K – $80K, or individuals earning $47K – $56K. These rates are based on what people earn in Austin, because San Marcos is in the Austin metro area.

That might be poor for Austin, but that’s pretty mid for San Marcos. It excludes a lot of poor San Marcos residents who need affordable housing.

Here’s the problem: the LIHTC deal was made in 2019. Then Covid and inflation happened.

They thought they’d be paying about $100K in property taxes, but their project ended up getting appraised three times higher than they estimated. So their property taxes are actually closer to $300K. Now they can’t afford their local taxes.

Today’s question: Are we willing to cut a deal with them and waive their local taxes?

They’re offering to set aside 51 of the 336 units for extremely poor families with income under $40K, or individuals earning less than $28K. In exchange, they wouldn’t pay county taxes or SMCISD taxes, and only $100K/year to the city.

The argument against it:

  • The city really can’t afford this – this would eat almost 1/3 of the entire Social Services grant budget.
  • This would cost SMCISD about $400K in taxes. And they don’t have a say in this deal.
  • The county would also lose money. (I don’t know how much)

The argument in favor:

  • We really do need more affordable housing, and this is at least a little bit.
  • There are also residents living there currently. If this complex gets sold, their rent will go up.

What does Council say?

Everyone is pretty grim. It’s just too much money, compared to how other nonprofits could stretch that money.

The vote

Yes, give them the tax break: nobody

No, sorry: all seven council members

So the apartment complex will probably get foreclosed and they will have to sell it off.

……

Items 25-27: Back down by Redwood again:

This time we’re focused on region 4, River Bridge Ranch:

Map of Riverbend Ranch, Riley's Point, Riley's point industrial, River Bridge Ranch, Sedona south, and sedona north, with River Bridge Ranch highlighted. It is northwest of Redwood.

(We’ve talked about this before: November 2024, Marcos 2025, and December 2025.)

River Bridge Ranch is a different kind of development than Sedona South. First, it’s inside the city limits. Second, it’s a PID, which stands for “Public Improvement District”.

What’s a PID?

If you buy a home in River Bridge Ranch, you’re going to pay an extra $1300-$2800 on your tax bill. This extra money will just go to pay for streets and infrastructure in River Bridge Branch.

My $0.02: I do not like PIDs! (In fact, I just complained about the La Cima PID in May.)

The developer gets to artificially lower the price of the homes, and hides the extra cost in yearly taxes. Residents feel extra burdened by taxes. They blame the city, and pressure the city to lower taxes. If the city lowers property taxes, it hurts vulnerable people. So we’re helping the developer out, at the expense of people who depend on city services.

Is it the worst crime in the world? No, of course not. But it still makes me cranky.

Back to River Bridge Ranch

It will be all single family sprawl:

River Bridge Ranch concept plan. Just single family housing, a fitness center, and a little green space.

SIGH. Can’t we put some 4-plexes and townhomes throughout this? Can’t we ever have some stores?

So what brings us here today?

Before, the PID was for $10 million.

  • The developer gets to knock about $7K off the price of each house,
  • Instead, each resident would pay a yearly PID fee of ~ $250 every year, rolled into the tax bill.

Now the developer now wants to make the PID worth $60 million:

  • Now the developer gets to knock $40K off the sale price of every house.
  • Each resident will pay a yearly PID fee of ~$1480 every year, rolled into the tax bill.

The reason is because construction costs have gone up so much since 2020. Sure, that’s understandable. But I still resent the PID.

The vote: unanimous and in favor. Oh well.

….

Item 9: Berry Aviation

We lease part of the airport to a company called Berry Aviation.

If you’ll recall, Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis got into a little pissing match back in 2022 and 2023. They were both trying to be the most ostentatiously cruel to immigrants, for shits and giggles.

Importantly, DeSantis used Berry Aviation for some of this.

So at today’s meeting, Amanda asked them, “Are you involved in any immigration activity?”

They said no. They do some airplane maintenance and parts sales to DPS, and everything else is international.

Hopefully they’re done with the “abuse immigrants for kicks” business forever.

…

Items 29-30: That water treatment plant again.

Now we’re back here again:

Sedona South with wastewater treatment plant circled

We’re allocating $42 million for the next phase of the water treatment plant, and another $2.5 million for the electrical stuff. Great.

…

Items 31-32: CDBG and HSAB

CDBG and HSAB are the grants to local social services:

  • CDBG stands for “Community Development Block Grants”. This is federal money that comes with a lot of paperwork and restrictions.
  • HSAB stands for “Human Services Advisory Board”. This is city money that is completely flexible.

Each pot of money are about $750K, so there’s a total of about $1.5 million. (Past CDBG allocations, past HSAB allocations)

In the past, we allocated these two pots out separately, which was tricky for the nonprofits. Should they apply to both? Is one a better fit than the other? If they apply to the lesser, does it make it harder for them to get awarded the better fit one? etc.

This year, we’re discussing both pots together at the same time.

Here is what staff is recommending for the CDBG money:

This is the list of all the CDBG allocations. I don't know how to handle the alt text here.

Here is what staff is recommending for the HSAB money:

This is the list of all the HSAB recommendations.

(If you want to read why things did not get funded, I could only find it in the gigantic meeting packet. Go here and read pages 1380-1382.)

Between the two pots of money, the total amount requested is $3.3 million. We only have $1.5 million to give out. So that’s a bummer.

…

The actual answer is to increase state funding.

Good news!

This is a rich state! There is plenty of money to solve a lot of humanitarian problems.

Bad news!

  • Our elected officials are ruthless asshats who will not spend money to solve humanitarian problems.

The problem with San Marcos is Texas, as always.

…

Citizen Comment

At the beginning of the meeting, people from several nonprofits spoke to Council:

Hays Helping Hands (formerly Nosotros Los Gente): why $0 for the one program?  Can you combine our applications and let us shift money around?

Southside:  We knew we would not receive our full amounts, but the ask was real.  The need is beyond our current capacity.  

  • In the past 6 months, we could only provide 20% of eviction prevention aid
  • We provided 16K meals in 2025, but we’re projected to provide 20K meals in 2026, on same budget
  • The waitlist for shelter 250 people long.

All our partners are also underfunded.  Feeding programs have gotten full funding but other parts of funding children and elderly have not.  City leadership needs to put together an action plan to find more funding for nonprofits.   Less than $1 million could fund every request. 

BR3T: BR3T started off using a lot of covid money to provide emergency shelter. 

  • Currently in Hays county, 59% of renters are rent-burdened, which means spending >30% of their income on housing.
  • Eviction rates have doubled since pre-covid.

Our partners are equally underfunded.  The need has outgrown HSAB funding.  HSAB needs more funding.

…..

What does Council say?

Lorenzo: HOME Center applied to both pots of money for the same project. Can we consolidate them to one application?

This does not go anywhere, since he didn’t consult HOME center ahead of time.

Amanda: I’d like to move $5K from Hays Mental Health Court to HOME Center.

The vote on Amanda’s motion:

Yes, give HOME Center the extra $5K: Shane, Amanda, Alyssa, Josh

No, don’t: Lorenzo

Jane abstains because she is on the Mental Health Court board. Matthew is absent.

Then the overall vote on CDBG funding:

The vote on all staff CDBG recommendations:

Yes: Jane Shane, Amanda, Alyssa, Josh

No: Lorenzo

I have no idea why Lorenzo is being ornery.

Note: HSAB funding will be rolled into the budget in September, so we don’t vote on that now.

….

Since Texas is not going to step up…

Could San Marcos afford to spend more money on social services?

Sort of! We do not have much extra money laying around. But we could have made different decisions in the past.

Have you ever heard this Jar of Life rocks-and-sand thing? Here’s a typical explanation:

Screenshot of text from the link: How the Jar of Life Works 1. Big Rocks: These are your most important priorities—family, health, personal growth, meaningful relationships, and core goals. They represent the things that truly give your life purpose and fulfillment. 2. Pebbles: These are secondary priorities—work, hobbies, social activities, or material things. They’re important but not life-defining. 3. Sand: These are the small, day-to-day distractions like social media, trivial tasks, or mindless entertainment. If you start with the sand or pebbles, there will be no room for the big rocks. But if you place the big rocks first, the pebbles and sand will naturally fill the remaining spaces.
Illustration of three jars. One has big rocks, one has middle rocks, one has sand.
Faig? Facks? Hamily? What in the AI slop is this garbage.

The City Budget Is a Jar

Our city budget works like this, too:

Big rocks: things that tie up millions of dollars for 30 years

  • Bonds for construction projects. (Like the $44 million for the wastewater treatment plant that we approved a few minutes ago.)
  • Development agreements for things like Embassy Suites/Conference Center, or Amazon, or Buccee’s
  • Developments like Kissing Tree, which gets $1.8 million per year. (They have a deal known as a TIRZ, Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone.)

These guys are all set for 30 years! No yearly proposals. No justifying their pennies. No unexpected cuts when budgets are lean. Once they get approved, they’re golden.

Medium rocks: Departmental funding

  • Salaries and benefits for city employees
  • Basic maintenance and supplies

These departments do have to grovel every year, but there’s an expectation that budgets won’t be drastically slashed without warning. It gets incrementally squeezed, little by little.

Sand in the crevices:

  • All the social services.
  • Anyone’s pet project

Imagine if social services was a big rock! Imagine if they were guaranteed $1.8 million a year, for the next 30 years, like Kissing Tree. Imagine if we took out a bond to fund social services.

Note: I am not recommending this. Funding should come from Texas and the US federal government. We are not a rich town!

My point is how choices have been automatically baked into the budget, for decades. No one has to consciously choose an unfair thing for it to perpetuate itself. (This is called an accountability sink.)

….

Item 33: Hays Central Appraisal District

If you’re a home owner, your home gets appraised every year, and then you get taxed on that value.

The magic happens up in Kyle:

Location of the Hays County Central Appraisal District on I35 in Kyle

Apparently they’ve outgrown their building.

The main problem is that they need to be able to handle protests. To quote the packet:

Since 2019, the number of protests filed has increased from 22,000 to more than 55,000. To address this growth, the Board of Directors expanded the number of members of the ARB, but the District office does not have the capacity to house more than three panels per day. Even with these efforts, the increasing volume of protests continues to place significant demands on District facilities and resources.


The current District office does not adequately support our public visitors, staffing levels, operational needs, or future growth. Parking shortages create ongoing logistical and safety concerns for staff and visitors alike. We must be better positioned to serve the public, support the ARB process, and produce timely appraisal rolls for all taxing units.

Here’s what it looks like:

Bird's eye view of the appraisal building.

In order for the new building to get going, the county has to get permission from all the cities. Council was fine with this.

This means that our payments will go up in the future. But not today.

….

Item 37: Homelessness Committee and Criminal Justice Reform Committee

These two committees are getting merged to one Safety Committee.

Seems fine. There are a lot of solutions that affect both of these.

Hours 0:00 – 2:35, 1/20/26

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

Citizen Comment:

Only six speakers! (Contrast that with P&Z – about 100 speakers. We’ll get to that!)

Topics covered:

  • Community Action is stoked about renewing the lease for the senior citizens center
  • Please postpone the Historic Preservation Plan
  • Oppression is violence. Your neglect is violence against us.
  • A list of names of people killed so far by ICE
  • Reappointing the chair of the San Marcos Housing Authority

That was about it!

….

Item 17: River Bridge Ranch PID

River Bridge Ranch is way out here:

It came up in December, here, when it shrunk to the new, smaller size.

They want to put homes out here.   It’s part of this larger cluster of developments that have been in the works for years and years:

I have never liked ANY of these, whatsoever.  They all fail four of the five criteria:

Price Tag to the City: Will it bring in taxes that pay for itself, over the lifespan of the infrastructure and future repair? How much will it cost to extend roads, utilities, on fire and police coverage, on water and wastewater?

Hard fail.  Cities lose money on remote developments.  The developer may cover the initial cost of infrastructure, but the longterm maintenance is on us.  Plus running fire, EMS, and police services way out there.  The property taxes will not cover the cost to the city.

Housing stock: How long will it take to build? How much housing will it provide? What is the forecasted housing deficit at that point? Is it targeting a price-point that serves what San Marcos needs?

It’s claiming to provide affordable starter homes. This is something that people want, yes.  

Environment: Is it on the aquifer? Is it in a flood zone? Will it create run off into the river?Are we looking at sprawl? Is it uniformly single-family homes?

Not on the aquifer. Somewhat close to the river. But it’s textbook sprawl, and sprawl is bad for the environment.  Most likely entirely single-family homes.  

Social: Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing SMCISD schools and amenities?

Not meaningfully mixed income.  Not close to any schools or amenities.  Not walkable. Council gave away potential nearby commerce spots in 2023, in exchange for more sprawl. 

The San Marxist Special: Is it a mixed-income blend of single family houses, four-plexes, and eight-plexes, all mixed together? With schools, shops, restaurants, and public community space sprinkled throughout? Is it walkable?

Ha, no. 

River Bridge Ranch also has a weird backstory.  Here’s what seems to have happened:

2008:  There’s some 563-acre property called The Mayan Tract, and the owner wants to be annexed into San Marcos.  Martindale agreed to this.

2014: New owners buy the property.

2018: The new owners file a lawsuit to challenge the validity of the annexation.  Martindale joins the suit.

2020: The suit gets settled in 2020.  This thing called a PID is formed as part of the settlement.  (We’ll get to what a PID is.)

Max Baker described the settlement as “They strong-armed the city into forming a PID.” He was on council then, so he was there. But he also tends to use inflammatory language to describe things. So that may not be the universal opinion – I have no idea.

2021: Lennar Homes purchased the land and they get the PID. 

In other words, people have been trying to do something with this land for 10-15 years, unsuccessfully.

…

So what is a PID?  

PID stands for “Public Improvement District”.  What this means is that all the home owners will pay a surcharge on top of their property taxes.  That extra money is used to make the neighborhood nicer. 

Here’s how much people might pay:

So that is on top of your regular property taxes, which is 65.15¢.

I don’t love PIDs. They are a little bit of a shell game – you can list houses at a cheaper price, because you didn’t have to include the cost of the neighborhood improvements. Instead of paying extra on their mortgage, the homeowners will pay extra in yearly taxes.

It’s fine as long as all home-buyers are perfectly wise and have access to enough wealth. Late-stage capitalism, eh?

Why is this coming to council?  

Lennar Homes wants to change the terms of the PID.  They want to reduce the size to match the new smaller footprint, and then increase the dollars.  

The new size:

(Also discussed in December.)

The new PID budget:

Like I said earlier, I think this project is terrible sprawl. It will cost the city more to maintain services out there than we’ll bring in, in property tax revenue.  

No vote tonight. The PID changes will get voted on at the next meeting.

….

Item 18. San Marcos Historic Preservation Plan

We’ve seen it before, back in October. We’ve been working on this for awhile:

They tried hard to get community input:

What’s it supposed to do?

Great! What else?

  • If we adopt this plan by mid-February, we qualify for a $5K grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
  • We’re out of money, anyway. We’re using some consultants and we’ve given them just about the whole sum.

HOWMEVER!

The letters have been coming in, and people have a lot of complaints.

Here’s what I gathered: What’s here isn’t bad, but it doesn’t give a clear roadmap of how to proceed.
– What should be prioritized?
– What’s the order of operations?
– How do we implement this big list of lofty ideals, on a shoestring budget?*

Staff protests that they’ve had a TON of outreach, and that these complaints can be addressed, even if we pass the plan first. They seem worried that this will drag out forever.

Bottom line: Staff is going to compile a comprehensive list of all the proposed changes, and try to categorize them as short term or long term, and bring it back.

* Hat tip to Ryan Patrick Perkins for walking me through this.

….

Item 19: Rezoning

This church is right by campus:

It’s used by Christ Chapel and United Campus Ministry currently.

It’s right between campus and mini-Target:

It sounds like it will be a 6-story apartment complex, owned by the church, with church things on the ground floor.

The minister gives his pitch:

  • The church is going to keep owning the property. We won’t sell it.
  • They’ve thought hard and long about this
  • It’ll be great!
  • If we don’t get this rezoning, we’d have to sell it. Who KNOWS what you’ll get!

Will the old church building itself get torn down? No one asks this question. I assume it’s a goner. (Maybe they’ll let the new building eat the church, like Sanctuary Apartments did, a few blocks over?)

What do I think? Let’s check the five criteria!

Price Tag to the City: Will it bring in taxes that pay for itself, over the lifespan of the infrastructure and future repair? How much will it cost to extend roads, utilities, on fire and police coverage, on water and wastewater?

Very low cost to the city – this area is all built up and well-supported already.  I don’t know if it will bring in much tax revenue, because it’s still owned by the church.  But no concerns here.

Housing stock: How long will it take to build? How much housing will it provide? What is the forecasted housing deficit at that point? Is it targeting a price-point that serves what San Marcos needs?

I have no idea on any of this.  It’s a pretty tiny lot.

Environment: Is it on the aquifer? Is it in a flood zone? Will it create run off into the river? Are we looking at sprawl? Is it uniformly single-family homes?

 All of Texas state is uphill of most of San Marcos, and it’s mostly paved over.  The pre-existing situation is terrible for flooding.  This does add more pavement. 

Social: Is it meaningfully mixed income? Is it near existing SMCISD schools and amenities?

Extremely walkable and close to the university.

The San Marxist Special: Is it a mixed-income blend of single family houses, four-plexes, and eight-plexes, all mixed together? With schools, shops, restaurants, and public community space sprinkled throughout? Is it walkable?

Well, no, but you wouldn’t really put a San Marxist Special in the middle of downtown. 

On the whole, I’m fine with this! You want density in your downtown.

The vote: 7-0.

…

Item 12: Hays County Senior Citizens Center

This little Senior Center is run by Community Action:

It’s tucked away in Victory Gardens:

They do a lot of great things!

They lease the building from the city. It’s time to renew, for another ten years. It’s an old building, so they’ll let us know if there are any concerns on the walk through.

Great!

…

Item 20: Bitcoin scams

What’s the opposite of a warm, nurturing senior citizen center? Maybe scamming old people with a bitcoin ATM?

Apparently there are Bitcoin ATMs:

You can buy and sell cryptocurrency on these.

Google tells me they’re all over San Marcos:

As a crotchety old Marxist, I don’t like it. But here we are.

Apparently the scammers are here, too:

We’re going to require stores to put little warning signs by all the BTMs, saying “hey! Here’s some red flags that you might be getting scammed!”

It’s better than nothing, but wouldn’t it be nice if we had a functional federal and state government that cracked down on predatory scams?

[Sidebar: I don’t understand how bitcoins are untraceable. Isn’t the whole point that it’s a block chain that grows a little bit longer with every transaction, recording its whole history of where it’s been so far?]

…

That’s it for the regular meeting! Now comes the spicy stuff.