Attorneys organizing landowners in Taylor’s extraterritorial jurisdiction have placed a Friday, March 3, deadline to join up for legal representation in a potential mass action lawsuit over development limits the city.
On Monday, Feb. 27, attorney Chris Johns led an information session for about 70 ETJ landowners at the Taylor Public Library to see if more people would sign up for a deal he and another attorney have offered to landowners that requires a 3% commission from the gross sale of their property within the next decade to cover potential legal action or negotiations with the city.
“We have to figure out who is on the bus with us,” said Johns, a founder of the nonprofit group “Taylor Landowner Rights Coalition,” who specializes in eminent domain issues and has prevailed in a previous lawsuit against the city. “We have been working on the lawsuit, and we hope we don’t have to file it, that the city would be reasonable with us, but we have to know when we go to the city who it is that we are speaking on behalf of, so we have set a deadline.” The city has said due to the high cost of extending and maintaining infrastructure in the ETJ, intensive development in that area is not fiscally sustainable, and have put some limits on its development through in its Envision Taylor Comprehensive Plan by designating it as “Restricted Growth,” or in a more recent revision, a tiered “Future Growth Sector.”
According to Texas law, cities have the authority based on population size to manage growth patterns in their ETJ, which in Taylor’s case, is one mile out from the city limits, except for some areas that petitioned to be included.
“The big issue is whether or not the city is going to extend their infrastructure into that area of town, and cities extend infrastructure based on need,” said Stacey Osborne, Taylor’s public information officer. “The city’s comprehensive plan did not warrant a need for development in that area to accommodate future population growth based on the projections we have right now.”
But Johns is arguing that the city has an obligation to provide these services and is not following certain statutes.
“There are CCNs, which are certificates of convenience and necessity for Jonah, Manville and other water providers,” Johns said. “There are also CCNs that provide wastewater services, and my understanding is that for a lot of these folks, the city of Taylor has an obligation to serve the people that are in their CCN’s for water and wastewater but isn’t doing that.”
Johns said so far, about 50 landowners representing more than 2,000 acres have signed up for the deal, which has been presented at two previous information sessions held since January.
Brian Winkler, whose family owns about 500 acres near the Samsung Austin Semiconductor facility, said his mother was one of the landowners who signed up Monday night due to the hardships they have faced due to the development and the limits placed on their land, which he said has negatively affected its value.
“We are having to deal with all of the downsides, the excess traffic, the illegal dumping, the people trespassing on the land that have no respect for property rights,” he said. “That’s the stuff we are dealing with, and that’s (the comprehensive plan) is a 20-year plan … We have to wait 20 years for that land to be as valuable. I don’t want to deal with this mess.”
While Osborne said the city could not comment specifically on any potential litigation, she did say the plan was ultimately for the best interests of people in the city.
“A city makes plans for sustainable longterm growth to preserve the character and integrity of a city and ensure that it continues to be a desirable place to live, work and play long into the future,” she said. “The city of Taylor’s comprehensive plan is our roadmap for planning for future growth and development, including future expansion of our infrastructure
and city utilities. Our current comprehensive plan, which was created with community input and support between 2022 and adopted by City Council in November of 2021, takes into account projected population increases over time, and the city plans for infrastructure expansion based on those projections. Current population projections do not indicate a need for development that would require the expansion of our city utilities into that area of town.”
