By Megan Wehring
The Kyle Planning and Zoning Commission denied zoning for a new single family residential subdivision at its June 9 meeting. The property is located off E. Post Road, north of the Quail Ridge Subdivision.
By a one-vote majority, the request made by John H. Spooner Revocable Trust was denied. Approximately 179.33 acres of agricultural land was requested to be rezoned to single family residential. The San Marcos extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) runs east of the Spooner property, and within that ETJ is another subdivision known as the Waterstone Project. Approximately 7,600 residential units will be constructed within the Waterstone Project.
“Our roads in and around this are already terrible,” Kyle resident Herbert Bridges wrote in a letter to the planning department. “This would only make them worse. This is already adjacent to the controversial pipeline. We don’t need any more congestion.”
One commissioner, Paul Scheibmeir, raised a question about using the property for commercial and industrial developments. City planner William Atkinson clarified that office buildings are not in the market right now due to the COVID-19 virus.
“We would love to see a lot of commercial development,” Atkinson told the P&Z commissioners. “There’s also a need for housing too at the same time. It’s not getting cheaper. Because it’s somewhat off the beaten path, we believe it’s better suited for housing in this particular case.”
As the COVID-19 virus became a sudden crisis, Scheibmeir also questioned building residential spaces next to Interstate 35.
“Yes, everyone is working from home now,” Scheibmeir said. “That change happened overnight and we could have another change happen overnight that could take us in the complete opposite direction ... I’m just very concerned about us carving out those areas near the highway and continuing to make them more residential.”
Commissioner Alex Guerra is concerned about the quality of the roads near the property due to excess traffic from the Kinder Morgan Pipeline construction.
“The roads there are not great,” Guerra said. “I drove on 158 to get here tonight and a rock truck, I guess because of the pipeline, was going one direction. I had to get off the road to let the rock truck go by. Adding more housing into that is tough.”
