Updated 2:30 p.m. CST on Feb. 14, 2014

Cedar Park City Council on Feb. 13 approved a new zoning ordinance that removes used and new auto sales uses from properties zoned general retail.

Updated 10:40 a.m. CST on Feb. 4, 2014

On Feb. 3, Cedar Park City Council held a second public hearing regarding an ordinance that would remove new and used auto sales uses from properties zoned general retail.

No one spoke at the hearing. The ordinance moves to a final reading, Mayor Matt Powell said.

If City Council approves the change, existing auto businesses in sites zoned for general retail will continue. No other businesses would be affected, Assistant City Manager Josh Selleck said.

New auto sales would also be permitted in planned development districts, per City Council's approval. Those properties would need to have a minimum of six acres, Selleck said.

A 12-day city moratorium on new auto-sales applications in general retail properties expired on Feb. 2.

Original story posted Jan. 31

Cedar Park City Council on Jan. 30 decided not to approve a 90-day moratorium on new applications for auto dealerships in sites zoned for general retail.

However, City Council also chose to hear a second reading of an ordinance that would delete auto sales from that zoning category earlier than city leaders had planned.

Instead of the original date of Feb. 13, the city will consider the zoning ordinance change during a special-called meeting on Feb. 3, city leaders said, just after a 12-day moratorium approved by City Council on Jan. 21 expires.

At the Jan. 30 meeting, landowners, attorneys and real estate brokers spoke against the three-month moratorium. Some asked for an exception for two particular parcels along northbound Toll 183A, saying that the tracts' sale to an automotive dealership has been in the works for months.

City leaders said the zoning considerations have also been months in discussion. Assistant City Manager Josh Selleck defended the city's recent decisions, saying that city staff had been reviewing permitted uses under general retail for a potential ordinance revision.

"General retail surrounds most of our major commercial corridors," Selleck said.

In past discussions, city leaders explained they want to maintain the city's investments along Toll 183A such as the Cedar Park Center and Scottsdale Crossing. City Council held the first reading for the 90-day moratorium Jan. 21 and began considering the zoning ordinance update on Jan. 23.

At the Jan. 23 meeting, Selleck said the city is wary of encouraging the development of auto lots that tend to cluster along certain corridors. The vehicles bring no sales tax revenue to the city and are aesthetically undesirable, he said.

But on Jan. 30, Jerry Harris, a member of Husch Blackwell's real estate, development and construction team, said City Council misunderstood the dealership project. The buyer has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on engineers and consultants for a auto sales business that will create 150 jobs, he said. It will generate at least $800,000 in city sales taxes annually—not from vehicle sales but from vehicle repairs—Harris said.

"We are very much against clustering," he said.

Harris and others said they believe the city had singled out one prospective auto business.

Evelyn Ward, a real estate broker who represents the potential land buyer, said her group first heard about the city's potential general retail zoning amendment at a Jan. 8 meeting. But at that meeting, city staff said the buyer could submit its application before Feb. 13 and vest its rights, Ward said. Only after the group moved forward did they learn of the moratorium, she said.

"One can only imagine our surprise upon learning for the first time last week that the rules of the game had been changed on us," Ward said.

Selleck said the city had no such intentions. City staff knew about one land buyer's desire to file an application before the ordinance revision but only learned of a second buyer's interest in the Toll 183A property earlier in January, Selleck said. A Dec. 17 email to a city staffer mentioned a real estate client interested in two tracts on Toll 183A, but did not reveal details, he said.

Others who said they were not involved in the dealership debate asked the city to drop the 90-day moratorium, including developer Bob Tesch and land investor Henry Mays.

"When cities began to re-imagine or imagine themselves, I always get concerned because I think I'm going to be the ugly duck, and I'm going to be the guy that gets kicked out," Mays said.

Trey Hensley, member of the city's Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee, said the group has spent eight months mulling changes to all of the city's zoning categories. If anything, city staff had been too open about their zoning intentions, he said. Hensley then said City Council should take its time in deciding how to amend the general retail zoning category.

Mayor Matt Powell said he had received many communications about the issue. Calls came from developers against the moratorium and residents generally in favor of it, Powell said.

"There's been a lot of information coming in late," Powell said. "It's been a lot of information, especially in the last 24 hours, to digest. So the timing of the meeting is a little bit difficult."

Powell suggested City Council take another week to consider its next step. But after an executive session to privately discuss related legal issues, City Council returned and took no further action on the moratorium.

After the meeting, Councilmen Stephen Thomas, Place 1, and Mitch Fuller, Place 2, said they were pleased the moratorium would expire.

"Cedar Park, we are a pro-business city," Fuller said. "We pride ourselves on working with the private sector to create business and jobs. And a moratorium is not really conducive to that sort of process. Now that being said, I do support and will support the zoning change itself, [which would take] automotive sales out of general retail."

Thomas said he also supports the proposed general retail zoning change, but that he did not have enough information to favor extending the moratorium beyond 12 days.

"I'm glad that it's going to expire," Thomas said. "You can't rush to decisions that don't have the appearance of fairness."