DRIPPING SPRINGS — The city of Dripping Springs is releasing 14 properties from its extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ).

At its Jan. 16 regular meeting, the Dripping Springs City Council unanimously approved the release of the properties — residential and commercial — from the ETJ. This comes after Senate Bill 2038 was passed in May 2023, and went into effect in September 2023, that allows residents of an ETJ to leave the city’s authority through a petition or an election.

“Senate Bill 2038 that was passed by this last legislative session provided sort of a fast track process for a property [owner] to request and then the city would be required to release them from our ETJ,” said City of Dripping Springs Planning Director Tory Carpenter. “There was an exemption written in there that if you’re in a county, I don’t know the exact language, but essentially, if you are in a county of a certain size that has grown so much in the past 10 years and it was a voluntary annexation, so all those areas that came into our ETJ … are exempt from that bill. So those are areas that we don’t have to release.”

State code establishes a boundary around every city, known as the ETJ, and the distance beyond the city limits is dependent on the population size. Carpenter explained that the majority of the properties in Dripping Springs’ ETJ were voluntarily brought in.

“Back in the ’80s, when the city was established, the city of Austin started to plan their boundaries this direction, west [of] them. And the property owners didn’t want to be associated with the city of Austin [or] they didn’t care for the regulations … They opted to voluntarily be brought into the city of Dripping Springs ETJ,” he said. “So, if you look at our boundary, it goes well beyond one half mile, it goes up to 12 miles in some areas.”

The importance of the ETJ is that the city has some development regulatory control. Unlike the city limits, where there is zoning authority, the city can not regulate building heights or size: “The big things we can regulate are impervious cover on the site, site development standards, subdivision standards and parkland if they are a residential development,” Carpenter said.

Once a property is released from the ETJ, the city will update its map to indicate that property is no longer there. When a property owner wants to develop, they will now go through the county for permits.

“They don’t talk to us at all. In terms of regulatory authority, in terms of codes, the city is completely hands off,” Carpenter explained. “It’s as if it’s 20 miles away and unincorporated.”

There are very few downsides to the property owner being released from the ETJ, Carpenter said, as it really affects everyone around them.

“Since they don’t have to come in for a permit, they can build out the entire site. They can clear cut the site of all trees, which can cause drainage and erosion control issues. And it’s sort of an incompatibility of development in the area,” he said. “You’re on a residential lot out in the ETJ, your neighbor gets out, they can fully build out commercial property on that site without the city having any say in the matter.”

Along with neighboring residents of released ETJ properties, the city is also impacted. Because developers would no longer be required to go through the city for permitting, the city would not be able to install sidewalks in that area, according to Carpenter.

One of the taxes that Dripping Springs collects in the ETJ is Hotel Occupancy Tax, but that would no longer be collected if a property is released, thus creating an issue of revenue.

To learn more about the Dripping Springs ETJ, visit www.cityofdrippingsprings.com/planning-and-development-department.