NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas – The City of New Braunfels has experienced a long-term trend of population growth
Earlier this year, developer KB Homes presented a plan before the city’s Planning Commission to build 131 homes on a 38-acre property off Highway 46 on the West Side of the city.
But people who live in the Mission Hills Ranch community don’t want to see that greenspace sold and developed. Many of them spoke against the plan during the Planning Commission’s recent meeting against the zoning change, hoping to slow down or stop the sale.
Commissioners voted to approve it, and the issue now goes to New Braunfels City Council for a hearing and vote later in February.
The property is currently zoned as R1 and is an Agricultural Pre-Development District. The potential purchaser wants the zoning changed to all single-family homes.
Homeowners raise traffic, water concerns
During the planning commission hearing, homeowners raised issues about increased traffic, ongoing water and sewer issues in already existing communities and a hope that the city would preserve a green space in a part of the Hill Country that’s quickly being developed.
Sarah Venslaskis is one of several homeowners who met with KSAT in solidarity against the development outside her home at Mission Hills Ranch.
“I feel like the crime and the traffic will increase, and we have a lot of our amenities that are right there next to the new neighborhood that we just right now are struggling to take care of,” she said. “And so then we’ll have you know more use of that, and that the neighborhood that is coming has zero green space park space planned.”
Commissioner, mayoral candidate outspoken against project
One of the commission’s members, Angela Allen, is also a resident of the Mission Hills Ranch.
Allen has been very outspoken against the zoning change and development plans; she is also one of five mayoral candidates.
Community members have concerns about who will represent them in city council when the zoning change issue is voted on.
District 3 Councilman D. Lee Edwards, who represents the area where the project would be located, told KSAT he plans to recuse himself from the vote because he has represented the property owner for a decade.
Edwards also told KSAT that the property cannot be left undeveloped. “It can’t be nothing,” he said, and at some point, someone will purchase it.
Venslaskis and others hope a land conservancy group will purchase the property.
KSAT reached out to KB Homes for comment on community members’ concerns; however, a spokesperson said they cannot comment on property they do not own.
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