The city’s Planning Commission on Wednesday signaled approval for a proposed land use plan that includes an industrial overlay surrounding the Toyota manufacturing plant on the South Side.
The commission gave a thumbs-up to the draft planning document, known as the Texas A&M-San Antonio Area Regional Center Plan, but only after softening the language around whether an industrial overlay would be implemented.
That move did not satisfy John Whitsett, a one-year member of the Zoning Commission, who has opposed the measure in public hearings and denounced it in multiple letters to officials at City Hall and executives at Toyota.
Whitsett said an industrial overlay would unfairly affect landowners in the area, limiting future development, including affordable housing, while favoring the automaker which should pay for the land it wants to control.
The city’s Planning Commission on Wednesday signaled approval for a proposed land use plan that includes an industrial overlay surrounding the Toyota manufacturing plant on the South Side.
“You don’t make 3,000 people suffer for a million-and-five in the city to pay for what you deem to be important, being Toyota,” Whitsett said.
A public input meeting focused on the issue is scheduled for Tuesday, July 2, from 4 to 6 p.m. on the Texas A&M-San Antonio campus. More information is available here.
The city’s planning department set up the meeting at the urging of the zoning commission after dozens of residents who opposed it showed up at its last meeting.
The Industrial Compatibility Overlay District (ICOD) is a planning and zoning tool intended “to limit potential health, safety, and welfare conflicts between heavy industrial uses and surrounding commercial and residential uses,” according to city documents.
It is similar to overlays restricting development near the River Walk, military installations and the airport.
As the first industrial overlay in San Antonio, the ICOD would encompass the Toyota plant at 1 Lone Star Pass and create a 2-mile buffer zone where only industrial development and uses would be permitted. All existing uses are not affected.
Overlay as tool
The proposed overlay is a component of the regional center plan that has been in development since 2018 and was offered as a “tool” the city could use to establish transitions between heavy industrial use in the area and residential and commercial development.
“It’s an example of something that could be used,” said Rudy Niño, assistant director of the city planning department.
He said including it in the plan addresses concerns the area stakeholders expressed in public input sessions and ensures the city is being transparent about what could happen with land use and zoning in the future.
But the ICOD is drawn as a circle extending beyond the boundaries of the regional plan, into areas where the city has yet to begin developing regional plans, including to the east and west.
Andrew Nicholas told commissioners his land sits within the proposed overlay, but not the plan boundaries; he said he did not receive a notice about two public meetings held in April.
“That’s really what I think everyone here today is really opposing, just the vagaries of language that extends beyond the plan boundary,” he said. “It may seem rather harmless, but the intent is to impact landowners who fall outside the boundaries of the plan.”
There’s no rush to make a recommendation, said Fermin Rajunov, a developer whose 34-acre property sits within a 3-mile Toyota buffer zone created through a 2003 Starbright Agreement. Rajunov has filed a lawsuit against the City and Toyota over the agreement.
At the hearing, the developer asked commissioners to table the item to allow more time for discussion, adding Toyota already announced it will invest another $500 million in upgrades at the plant.
Rajunov also said he and others have not received a notice about the July 2 meeting. City staff stated that 13,000 notices were mailed last week to landowners and tenants in the proposed overlay district and to those whose property abuts the district.
Ethics question
Whitsett, who brought to the hearing three oversized maps of the area, and other documents, also spoke to commissioners.
He pointed out that an overlay is not needed because the floodplain provides natural barriers to any kind of development south of the Toyota plant and he said the language in the plan was “feelings based,” using words like “appropriate” and “thoughtful.” “Who decides what appropriate is?” he asked.
Whitsett said the overlay will harm landowners, limiting any future development except for industrial, and he opposes the overlay as a “private citizen who happens to be a zoning commissioner.”
In an email he sent Tuesday to city attorneys, the mayor, city manager, councilmembers and others, Whitsett said that if San Antonio officials “will not defend these thousands of owners someone has to help and I would be as guilty as the city attorneys and city manager by ignoring the knowledge I had discovered while trying to do my job as a zoning commissioner.”
The commissioner also mailed a letter to Toyota President Susann Kazunas’ home address, asking to meet with her to “present the situation and some possible compromises.” An attorney representing Toyota said in a letter to the City of San Antonio that contacting the company’s employees using their personal addresses put them at risk of being publicly disclosed.
“I want to bring to your attention … questionable actions on the part of a representative of the City of San Antonio and member of the City’s Zoning Commission,” wrote attorney Frank Burney in the letter dated June 25. “[Toyota] employees are certainly entitled to privacy in their personal lives. I request the City’s support in ensuring that such privacy is respected and maintained.”
Whitsett’s actions led Deputy City Attorney Susan Guinn in May to advise the commissioner to remain impartial and unbiased or recuse himself during the zoning hearing. City code states that a commissioner “shall not vote or participate as a member in any matter before the commission if the member has any interest in this matter, whether such interest is direct or indirect, financial or otherwise.
Whitsett told the Report in an email that while he does not comment on any zoning cases that involve private property owners, he won’t stop in this case. “I see no restrictions and will continue to speak up on their behalf,” he said.
Activism has characterized Whitsett’s last few years since retiring from an oil company. In addition to serving on the San Antonio Housing Trust, in 2016-17, Whitsett pressed the City for months to remove a Google Fiber hut installed in a park in his neighborhood, Oak Park-Northwood. In the end, Google removed the hut saying it was no longer needed.
District 10 Councilman Marc Whyte appointed Whitsett to the commission last year.
“The fact that he’s showing up to Planning Commission and speaking out against this overlay, as far as I’m concerned, yes, he’s on the zoning commission, but he’s now doing that as a private citizen,” he said. “If it was brought to my attention he violated the ethics code, then I certainly would have to look at removing him as a zoning commissioner.”
Whyte also said that, while he does not direct the commissioner on zoning cases, if the industrial overlay had come before Council last week, he would have voted against it. “It looks like we’re taking away landowners’ rights here, and I don’t like that,” he said.
Intense zoning
At Tuesday’s Planning Commission, the 10-member panel agreed upon changes to the regional plan that left open the possibility of an overlay, but did not assure it. The commissioners also voted in favor of applying the ICOD only within the borders of the plan.
Even with those edits to the plan, the process to implement the ICOD is moving forward, Niño said.
Zoning will hear the case at their July 16 meeting, which starts at 1 p.m. at 1901 S. Alamo St. The zoning item will be delayed until 6 p.m.
Whitsett said he will attend that meeting and fight against what he said is destructive ICOD downzoning. “It is a waste of resources and is not needed except to fix the contract zoning issue associated with Starbright,” he said in an email to the Report.
Niño said the ICOD is unrelated to Starbright and more about a very large property with intense zoning.
“So just like with any other major industrial district, there are some safety concerns,” he said. “You want to make sure that public health and safety is number 1, and that we’re maintaining a vibrant, economically viable industrial district on the South Side.”
City Council has the final say on all planning and zoning matters.
