A bill that would allow residents living in unincorporated areas of a city to vote on whether they wanted to be annexed has passed out of the Texas House. Texas Public Radio’s Ryan Poppe reports the bill is one step away from being sent to the governor’s desk.
Audio Transcript:
Much of the concern about this special session’s annexation reform bill has been how it would impact many of Texas’ military bases. Cities like the City of San Antonio annex land around military bases to protect them from encroaching development.
Houston-area Republican Dan Huberty his bill creates a five-mile buffer zone around military bases but still gives residents the right to vote if they were being annexation.
“So what will happen if they do annex them then what they do is implement a joint-land use study. So they kind of crafted it to make sure there are protections for both the counties, the cities and the citizens”
And that satisfied opponents of the bill like San Antonio State Rep. Roland Gutierrez, who remains opposed to annexation reform but voted for the bill.
“I don’t think this annexation proposal is great public policy for the State of Texas, that said my main goal was to protect our military installations, which we did”
Senate lawmakers will soon have once chance to review the bill to either agree with House’s changes to the bill or to send the bill to the governor’s desk.