The City of San Antonio on Monday asked the Texas Supreme Court to dismiss a case against it by the Hays Street Bridge Restoration Group that seeks to order the City to put all proceeds from a controversial East Side land sale into a fund for the bridge’s restoration.
The City asked the court to find the matter moot, saying it had already done what the group is asking it to do.
The appeal asked the court to instruct the City to put all proceeds from the sale of the lot at 803. N.Cherry into a fund for the historic bridge, City Attorney Andy Segovia told the Rivard Report on Monday, but the City did so in December 2014.
“The underlying controversy is gone,” Segovia said,” so the case should be dismissed.”
The appeal is part of a 2012 lawsuit that challenges the City’s sale of land adjacent to the historic Hays Street Bridge to the owner of a beer company for $291,522. The 1.7-acre property was supposed to become a public park, the group says. The parcel has since been sold to a local developer, Mitch Meyer, who now plans to build a controversial multistory, mixed-use apartment complex there. As property values and investments rise in the near East Side, some residents are concerned that the apartments‘ will contribute to gentrification of the area. There have been several protests at the property calling for the City to turn the land into a park.
The high court is set to hear oral arguments on the appeal on Thursday, Sept. 13. The court could choose to decide on the motion to dismiss before then or on that date.
A Bexar County district court jury agreed in 2014 that the City violated a memorandum of understanding when it sold the land, directing the City to compensate the restoration fund with the money it got from the sale. In 2017, an appeals court ruled that the City is immune to being sued for such a breach of contract, and the Restoration Group appealed to the Supreme Court in June 2017.
The Hays Street Restoration Group, which raised significant funds to turn the dilapidated bridge into a pedestrian and bike path, filed a motion in June to delay construction on the apartment complex, but that was denied by District Court Judge Laura Salinas.
The outcome of the case at the Supreme Court level would have no impact on the planned development, Segovia said. While reviewing the case for that hearing, he said, city attorneys found a case for dismissal.
There’s no mention of a park in the original memorandum of understanding between the group and the City, Segovia noted. The City never classified the land as a park.
It’s possible that the group could again sue in district court if it won its appeal, he said, but there’s a “99.9 percent chance it would be dismissed.”
The appeal making it to the Supreme Court was already a long shot, the group’s attorney Amy Kastely has said.
“All the odds were against us,” Kastely said in June when the court announced it would hear the case. “But we expected this.”
The 2014 jury already found that the land is not a park, Segovia said, that’s not what was appealed.
What was appealed was the city’s immunity to being compelled to a specific performance in response to a breach of contract.
Specific performance, such as directing a city to put funding in a certain fund, is fairly rare in breach-of-contract cases, Segovia said. More typically, it’s monetary damages. “While [City immunity] is an interesting question, it’s open for another case with an active controversy to resolve.”
“The underlying controversy is gone”? The community’s concerns are “moot”? This is tin-eared language for the city to use when talking about a decades-long effort to create an accessible space for all San Antonians.
Whatever you might think of the city’s efforts to put private development on this land, this is not the way to speak to people if you think of them as important constituents.
Constituents are not the target recipient of the motion to dismiss. The court is. This is exactly the way you speak when you file one.
So where did the money go? City’s sale of land adjacent to the historic Hays Street Bridge to the owner of a beer company for $291,522? No doubt the city did the citizens a disservice by selling it, but what about the persons who paid the city, or purchased it from the owner?
Remember to VOTE, your council person represents YOUR community.
“A Bexar County district court jury agreed in 2014 that the City violated a memorandum of understanding when it sold the land…”
Not exactly. The jury did not find the city violated the memorandum of understanding by selling the property. The judgment instead compelled the city to use the property to pay for the bridge project. The only way to do that was to sell the land. Basically, the city would have violated the memorandum of understanding (as interpreted by the jury) by not selling the property and applying the proceeds to the project costs.
Ironically, it’s hard to imagine a judgment that would have been more effective at preventing the property from ever becoming a park.
Okay, RR, I know you stand to gain by stoking the controversy here, but maybe we should all just focus on the facts:
1. The money from the land sale is going to bridge restoration (which is what the group wants).
2. The whole premise of the opposition is because they want the land to be a park, but fail to note that the nearest park is only 2 blocks away and is scheduled to get millions in improvements
3. The views of downtown from the bridge will be uninhibited by the apartments, since the development is north of the bridge
4. Because the land is vacant, no one is being displaced from their homes as a result of this development.
5. The property is not in the Dignowity Hill Historic District.
6. Apartments cannot simultaneously cause gentrification and hurt nearby property values. These two phenomena are contradictory.
7. Amy Kastely and Graciela Sanchez do not live in the neighborhood and do not necessarily speak for them.
Ok ray a few of those things may be true, but you probably don’t live in this area. Therefore it doesnt affect you. There has been three new complexes built in my area (pearl) and all it has brought is higher taxes (10% for the foreseeable future), more traffic and more trash. What nobody realizes is that effects our mailmen, the garbage men and people who have lived in the neighborhood for years. Now all these people wanna live in this area now that its nice but its misplacing others and thats not right. Im all for change and bettering our city but it’s hurting people who have been here through the bad, and now that its getting nice we aint good enough?? And the last time i saw the plans for this complex it does not a include a car garage, so where do you think all those cars are gonna park? We are polluting our world more than helping it but no one will realize until its too late…
This bridge looks like s*** and the neighborhood in which it’s located also looks like s***. Nobody in this neighborhood cares about keeping their properties looking decent. Anything built here would be an improvement over what exists.