HELOTES, Texas – Former San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg says the city can stop the Guajolote Ranch plan — and he’s not mincing words about the project.
The proposed development would require a wastewater treatment plant that would treat sewage and then dump it into Helotes Creek watershed, which feeds local aquifers.
That’s the water supply for San Antonio and 12 other counties.
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“I say hell no,” Nirenberg said. “When you have a developer who doesn’t even live here coming to build thousands of homes and trying to get taxpayer relief for building a wastewater treatment plant that would put treated wastewater into our water supplies, I say hell no.”
Neighbor Randy Neumman has been fighting this development for years.
“I always ask myself three questions,” Neumman said. “Who profits, who pays and who loses? In this case, the developer profits, the homebuyers pay and all the rest of us lose.”
The developer, Lennar Construction, has applied for a Public Improvement District with Bexar County, or a PID. It’s a mechanism that requires property owners to pay extra taxes for local improvements.
Residents keep asking: Can the county or city stop the project?
Nirenberg and Neumman say yes.
“It can actually happen,” Neumman said. “It is in the law. It’s codified in the law that they have the right to turn it down at both the county and the city, or if the county approves it, the city has the right to turn down.”
If the county or city don’t sign off on the Public Improvement District, the developer can appeal at the state level, which could take years.
“I can’t recall a PID or a municipal district that’s being created in a place that would compromise our drinking water,” Nirenberg said.
Nirenberg believes local leaders not only have the right to deny it, but are morally obligated to.
“If there is an action that is being requested that would harm the constituents of an elected official, that elected official has an obligation not to go along with it or to support it,” he said.
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