At the Oct. 7 council meeting, Mayor Tom Maxwell broke a 3-3 tie on a motion to extend the agreements for five years, rather than annex the 148 acres and 13 properties.
Council members Bear Goolsby, Phil Vaughan and Bernard Rubal voted to extend the agreements, while Mayor Pro Tem Christina Fitzpatrick and council members Lori Putt and William Shelby voted against the motion.
The council's decision means that it is now up to each property owner to decide if they wish to extend the agreement or be annexed, City Manager Kim Turner told Community Impact.
The backstory
The nonannexation agreement process began in 2015, when Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, or JBSA, conducted a joint land use study and found concern in vacant property across the area encroaching on the base. In response, cities surrounding the base annexed the ETJ containing the properties to gain local control. Landowners were against annexation when the city met with them, leading to a 10-year nonannexation agreement term approved in January 2016, Turner said.
“It protected the property owners for 10 years, and it protected JBSA for 10 years. Our surrounding neighbors in Selma and Schertz—[they] did the same thing. They annexed their properties, so it’s not just about Universal City,” she said.
The options
With the initial agreements set to expire in January 2026, council had the options of annexation, no annexation and letting the agreements expire, or extending the agreements
Annexation would have given the land owners city services such as police and fire protection, emergency medical services and solid waste collection, according to agenda documents.
The debate
Fitzpatrick said the council has to consider “fiduciary responsibility,” pointing out recent investments at the creek and on utilities in the ETJ area were with annexation in mind.
“We’ve committed to this, we’ve agreed to this, we’ve kept our agreement, but we’ve also spent money keeping that agreement. We’ve put our money where our mouth is,” Fitzpatrick said.
Shelby said there were many changing factors to consider with the land over the next five years, which led to his “no” vote.
“I’m not besmirching the existing property owners, but we don’t know what you’re doing with your property over the next five to 10 years. You can decide that you’re going to sell it over the next five to 10 years, we don’t know ... I have to think about that possibility as well,” Shelby said.
Next steps
Turner told Community Impact that the city will reach out to the property owners in approximately two weeks to get their decision whether to remain in the nonannexation agreement or to be annexed. Turner said council will look to approve the decisions at a Dec. 16 meeting.
