A vote to repeal the city’s beleaguered Plano Tomorrow comprehensive plan is back on for July 22 after two council members insisted on holding the vote.
Plano City Council Members Anthony Ricciardelli and Rick Smith have called for the agenda item to vote to repeal the plan and replace it with the version that was in place before Plano Tomorrow was approved in 2015, city spokesperson Steve Stoler said.
The news represents the latest shift in a quickly changing landscape for the future of the city’s comprehensive development plan, which guides city staff’s recommendations on zoning and other issues.
Last week, the city said it had reached an agreement with a group of residents suing the city to repeal the plan and replace it with a compromise version. The compromise would essentially revert the city’s goals regarding land use to the pre-Plano Tomorrow standards while keeping the rest of the plan intact.
But by July 18, the city said the deal was off and the group suing the city was continuing its lawsuit. An attorney for the group disputed it had ever agreed to negotiate a compromise plan with city staff. That decision should be left to the council alone, he said.
“My clients’ view is we’re glad the meeting is going forward as promised, and we’ll obviously pay attention to the outcome of the meeting,” the group's attorney Jack Ternan said after the city announced July 19 the vote was back on the agenda.
He declined to comment further at the time.
But in an interview the previous day, Ternan said the lawsuit would likely be rendered moot if the plan were to be repealed.
To repeal the plan July 22, five of the eight members on Plano City Council would ultimately need to vote in favor of the measure.