Pilot Point to grow by 1.3K homes with new project

By Basil Gist

Staff Writer

       The Pilot Point City Council approved a development agreement for over 1,000 new homes to be later annexed into the city at its Sept. 26 meeting.

       Mayor Pro Tem Andrew Ambrosio, who ran the meeting in Mayor Elisa Beasley’s absence, said he would prefer to table the matter at first.

       “I cannot personally vote for this because I didn’t have time to look over this development agreement,” Ambrosio said. “We got it like four hours before our meeting tonight, and I’m not comfortable with voting yes. My personal suggestion would be to table this till our next meeting, so we have to time look over this.”

       Council member Chad Major agreed, specifically asking for the Will Serve letter from Mustang water.

       City Manager Britt Lusk agreed council hadn’t had long enough with the agreement but spoke in favor of staff’s work on it.

       “We talked about this project two years ago when it was Broken Rock Ranch,” Lusk said. “It kind of faded away, and the next time we looked at it, it was a DR Horton project and it had 1,400 single family 40-foot lots on it with minimal amenities and trails.”

       The current plan incorporates a mix of 40-, 50- and 60-foot lots with several design restrictions including 80% masonry, a limit on repeating front facades, amenity centers that must be built on a given phase before moving into the next, public trails and a unique PID/TIRZ structure that buys down the PID over time thus decreasing affected homeowner’s PID bond assessments overtime.

       Civil Engineer Rob Daake further gave the council a presentation on the agreement’s current state.

        “The city staff takes their pound of flesh from us, however, it’s very reasonable, very give and take, and very sensitive to the market economics,” Daake said. “We try to be very sensitive to the issues that face the public sector as well.”

       Fifty-seven percent of the development sits in the ETJ, with the rest of it in the county, meaning without this agreement in place, the city would have nominal control.

       “There are immense architectural controls in this project,” Daake said. “Absent the development agreement, there is no control whatsoever.”

       Though the developer will be placing water and sewer infrastructure independently, the development’s water services will be provided by Mustang Special Utility District.

       Council member Elizabeth Jones asked Daake if he had any reservations about Mustang’s ability to supply water given current concerns.

       “It’s Texas—Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting,” Daake said. “We all wish we had more, but I think to some extent the water capacity issues are overstated. I think there is a sound reason for that. If we didn’t have people raising those issues well in advance, we wouldn’t get to where we always end up which is that we always have enough water.”

       After the presentation, council voiced several other follow-up questions and concerns.

       Council member Brian Heitzman repeatedly returned to the question of required minimal 20-foot driveways, which he said were not long enough for the regular size of resident vehicles.

       “I’m held on that setback,” Heitzman said. “Your four-door pickup is going to hang into the sidewalk with that bumper hitch to catch you in the knee.”

       Though Heitzman persisted in being displeased with the short driveways, he acquiesced, saying he understood the positive impact the rest of the positive negotiation points staff had secured.

       “Today, after we’ve worked through this development agreement and tried to get something that Pilot Point deserves in our city limits and ETJ, it’s a win-win in my eyes,” Lusk said.

       Before calling the vote, Ambrosio rescinded his initial concern.

       “After hearing the presentation, discussion was very thorough, ... I now do feel comfortable,” Ambrosio said.

      Council voted unanimously to approve the agreement after a motion and second from council members Ray Dane and Heitzman, who “bit his tongue on the 20 feet,” respectively.