The developers of Creeks Edge are one step closer to making their vision a reality for the proposed Bee Caves Road community zoned to Eanes ISD.

Bee Cave City Council approved the preliminary plat Oct. 25 for the gated neighborhood zoned for single-family, rural residential use and slated to include 30 1-acre homes.

A 23.5-acre section of the approximately 59-acre property is located within Bee Cave’s city limits, and the remaining 35.3 acres is in Austin’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, an area that can be annexed by Austin but lacks city services and its residents are not required to pay municipal taxes.

Of the 23.5 acres located in Bee Cave, only 16.5 acres are developable, and out of the 30 single-family units scheduled, 14 units are in Bee Cave.

Although the community will lack sidewalks, City Council said it is planning to include trails, a tradeoff that council approved.

Who Rules?

In September 2008, the Creeks Edge tract was located in what was then the city of Bee Cave’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, or ETJ—an area that can be annexed by Bee Cave but receives no city services and its residents are not required to pay municipal taxes—as well as the city of Austin’s ETJ.

Bee Cave deferred to state law, Texas Government Code Sec. 212.006, now Sec. 212.007, which states that in the case of tracts being located in the ETJ of more than one city, the city with the greater population within the tract has the “sole authority over plat review,” unless the cities agree otherwise.