BY AMIRA VAN LEEUWEN
What residents are saying
“Why isn’t there at least a test well at that corner that
During the Sept. 25 Comal County Commis- sioners Court meeting, Dolores Patterson, a Comal County Estates resident—which borders Purlsong—said she was opposed to the entire development. “The Texas Water [Company] may say they will provide water for this development, but they cannot adequately supply their existing custom- ers less than 2 miles away in Rockwell Ranch,” Patterson said. Purlsong’s platting timeline May 6: Platting application received by county 14: Technical review of platting application by county June 12: First disapproval of application from county July 29: Response from Chesmar Homes on application August 6: Disapproval of platting application 21: Response from Chesmar Homes on application 29: Minor changes to application from Chesmar Homes September 10: County receives nal plat package
Resident Leslie Campbell said putting a wastewater treatment plant “2 inches” outside a 100-year oodplain is too great a risk and that her well water comes up dirty after every rain event. “I understand you’re sitting there saying, ‘Well, we’re outside the 100-year oodplain’—do better. As an engineer, do better. As a developer, do better. Come on, y’all. You may not be living there, but other people are,” Campbell said.
gets ooded? Why am I the test well?” GLINDA MARCOS, RESIDENT
The catalyst
Final takeaways
Two bills passed by legislators helped to pave the way for the proposed development. Senate Bill 2038, passed by state lawmakers during the 88th legislative session in 2023, allows residents of an extraterritorial jurisdiction, or ETJ, to leave the city’s authority through a petition or election, as previously reported by Community Impact . ETJs were created by the Texas Legislature in 1963 and have allowed cities to invoke some regulatory authority over subdivisions outside of city limits to ensure those areas reect the city’s development standards, said Bennett Sandlin, executive director of the Texas Municipal League. During the 86th legislative session in 2019, the state legislature passed House Bill 3167, altering platting requirements for municipalities. The bill gives cities 30 calendar days to respond to plats, site plans and other development plans. These plans took 45-90 days to go through the approval process, according to previous reporting by Community Impact .
TCEQ will review all public comments and then send out a Response to Comment, or RTC, which will include instructions on how a complainant can request a contested case hearing, TCEQ Attorney Anthony Tatu said. “The commissioners of the TCEQ will take a look at all the requests for contested case hearing and make a determination on whether or not to forward this application to the state oce of administrative hearings for a formal hearing,” Tatu said. The city of New Braunfels also approved a contract with Freese & Nichols in September for the remapping of the DCC. The remapping would update the FEMA oodplain maps of the DCC and a portion of the Upper DCC. If the FEMA maps do get updated, the applicant will be responsible for providing that information to TCEQ, which they would then take into consideration, Martinez said.
SOURCE: COMAL COUNTYCOMMUNITY IMPACT
The municipality approves a plat unless it is disapproved within the periods set by the bill. “If Commissioners Court just said ‘We’re not [going to] take action on this,’ it would’ve been approved anyway because that’s the way Local Government Code 232 is written,” Boyd said.
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