Review of June 26, 2018 City Council Meeting
This week’s city council meeting mostly involves resolving issues that were not decided at the last meeting, namely the tree and sign plan for the Dermatology Office on FM 549 and the new zoning category for large lots. Additionally, the City Council will be authorizing the election regarding property tax caps for senior citizens as a result of the voter petition requesting such an election.
Because a petition was circulated and signed by more than 5% of the voters in Heath, in November there will be an election on whether there should be a ceiling on the City tax for citizens over 65 and those that are disabled. The proposition will be worded:
I think this is a dangerous proposal for two reasons. First, if the cap is voted in, it is then permanent, no matter the changes the City undergoes in the future. The City will not be able to modify or retract this tax cap, no matter the reason, if the proposal is adopted. That should be scary for long term residents of the city. According to the 2018 Comp Plan stats, around 14% of the residents were 65 or older. That number of citizens being capped would not affect the city’s financials very much. However, the largest population group is people aged 45–64 at almost 38%. That is a giant population bulge that will soon also be capped. That group has the potential to severely crimp the finances of the city within a short period of time, possibly a decade.
Second, the 65 year old age will soon be out of date. People are living and working longer, as seen how social security benefits don’t fully vest until 68, and this age will be incrementally increased in future years.
There are better ways to accomplish this same goal, namely by increasing the size of the senior citizen homestead exemption. Because it can be changed, the exemption can be fine-tuned to match the changing needs of the City’s changing population and finances. The city can adjust the size of the exemption to effectively keep the tax burden unchanged on the most vulnerable citizens by increasing the exemption to match the rise in housing values. This was recently done by the City Council, and is not a permanent, unchangeable anchor as the proposal would be.
There is little to say about forming a Farmers Market Committee with such little detail available. I do think that it highlights the need for a city center that can aesthetically host a Farmer’s Market and the need to incentivize local agricultural production.
The tree plan is once again before the Council. After the City insisted, the developer has submitted a landscaping and tree plan that actually meets the City’s tree ordinance by increasing the number of tree and replacing the non-approved trees with the required tree species.
The submitted tree plan is much improved. There is a large number of trees and a variety that should be attractive once they have grown in a few years. My main complaint, which has been my complaint the entire time with this plan, is that the sidewalks are not adequately shaded. The trees along the sidewalks could be shifted towards the sidewalk a few feet and effectively shade half of the sidewalk along the perimeter of the property. This is the primary benefit of having a treescape, a refuge from Texas’s sweltering sun.
The revised sign plans also meet the City’s requirements and do not seem objectionable.
The building remains uniquely unattractive, but I hope that the submitted tree plan will help to screen this building in a few years once the trees have grown in.
Finally, the City Council will continue to reexamine the SFE-3.0 large lot zoning district classification. I commented in depth on this for the last city council meeting, which can be read here. Those criticisms largely remain even with some edits since the last meeting. The requirement that the accessory buildings all match the main structure remains a significant obstacle to any developer utilizing the zoning district, and I doubt that it will be widely adopted as written.
Since the last meeting, the City Staff has amended the zoning requirements in a few locations.
The revised standards include some stricter setback requirements. These seem overly limiting. Once again, I think the building that the Nabors have been attempting to get for over a year would run afoul of the setback requirements. I think that proves that setback requirements are too high in the current draft, and should be lower as the Nabor proposal has been innocuous since it was first submitted.
The new garage width restrictions means that a garage is effectively capped at 36 feet of total garage door width, with no allowance for a fairly standard two car garage door. This again seems overly limiting for no good purpose. With the growth in car size, upscale homes now mostly feature 20 foot wide doors for double car garages to avoid the need to park cars nearly rubbing against each other. Anyone who has tried to park a full-sized truck next to an SUV in a tract home garage knows what I am talking about. In a city with premium housing, we should not force people to use tract home garage doors. Two 20 foot wide garage doors should definitely be allowed, but would not be allowed under the current wording. A better proposal would be “with a maximum garage door width not to exceed twenty (20) feet, and with no more than a total of 40 feet in total garage door width.” I think that strikes a good balance and still provides the luxury feel that we should be encouraging in large lot estate homes.
