March 23rd, 2011
Aspen Heights will not require supermajority

STAFF REPORT

A petition opposing a rezoning case on the Aspen Heights apartment development has been deemed insufficient to require a six-vote supermajority of the city council at Thursday’s meeting.

Citing a 2008 state attorney ge eral opinion that property owned outside the city limits should not be included in determining the sufficiency of a zoning protest petition, City Attorney Michael Cosentino has advised city leaders that a petition received on the Aspen Heights case will not trigger a supermajority vote.

The 2008 AG’s opinion concluded that a signature on a protest petition is counted only if the land owned is located within the corporate limits of the city, Cosentino said.

The city council will hold a public hearing Thursday at 8 p.m. on a land use and zoning request located along Telluride Street west of Interstate 35. The request seeks a land use amendment on 8.38 acres from general commercial to multi-family (MF-12) and from high density residential to medium density residential and a zoning change from future development to multi-family (MF-12) for 9.87 acres.

Austin-based 90 San Marcos Ltd. is building 213 multi-family housing units with about 600 bedrooms as mixture of two-, three- and four-bedroom houses and duplexes, according to a 2010 conceptual plan approved by the planning & zoning commission. That panel approved the rezoning action 6-1 in February.

Residents of Briarwood Court, a large-lot subdivision outside the city limits to the north of the proposed development, submitted a petition opposing the zoning change on Feb. 22.

Initially staff certified the petition as sufficient, but the 2008 Attorney General’s opinion has reversed that determination. After city staff reexamined the petition in light of the attorney general’s opinion, they found that none of the properties identified in the petition lies within the city limits.