The owners of a big-rig sales business got the green light from city council on Thursday to build a new dealership adjacent to a San Antonio neighborhood.
Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez, whose Eastside district is where the dealership will be built, expressed regret before voting to approve it.
“As I promised to my neighbors, I would like to convey the spirit of sadness and lost hope that they have expressed as I make this motion to approve these nasty little items,” he said.
Three rezoning and land use requests from Doggett Freightliner of Texas and Arkansas made it on the council agenda Thursday.
The first was to extend the San Antonio city limits by annexing 16.3 acres of Doggett’s total 35-acre property at Weichold Road and Interstate 10 East.
The second and third items approved by council resulted in an ordinance amending the IH-10 East Corridor Perimeter Plan, changing the land classification from “urban living” to “community commercial,” and a rezoning that allows for oversized vehicles sales, service and storage.
Paloma residents have fought the Doggett plan since the start, organizing with an apartment developer to oppose the dealership they said would make the area unsightly and possibly unsafe. They had hoped for the land to be developed into a mixed-use retail space that would provide amenities to the neighborhood.
Three-year Paloma resident said her biggest concern is the increased traffic the dealership will create in and around the neighborhood. She was disappointed in the council’s decision.
“The thing is, we’re an active neighborhood,” she said. “They’re not backing up to another business. They’re backing up to a functioning neighborhood and the city just let us down.”
The council’s approval came after months of talks and delays, and at least one surprise end-run.
In June, the Zoning Commission sided with the dozens of Paloma residents and an apartment developer who asked the city to deny the rezoning next to the subdivision.
When the commission’s recommendation went to council in October, McKee-Rodriguez had told Doggett’s representative, attorney Ken Brown, he would postpone it to later in the month.
Instead, to Brown’s surprise — and that of his colleagues on the council — the councilman called for a vote. “I had to make a decision that was going to benefit my constituents,” he said.
After Brown asked for a delay and a long discussion on the dais, the council voted to postpone the items to Nov. 21.
McKee-Rodriguez stepped in to mediate an agreement between the two sides, Brown said, that eventually eased the concerns of Paloma homeowners who had fought the dealership since last summer. The last of their meetings occurred the night before council voted.
“Much of the meeting was coming to terms with the fact that a budding neighborhood with a lot of promise is now placed in the position that much of my district is in,” McKee-Rodriguez said.
“They will exist in a food desert,” he added. “They will not have access to the retail restaurants or many other amenities that make neighborhoods feel like home. Their neighborhood will become an industrial hub.”
In the end, Paloma residents reluctantly agreed that the dealership would be preferable to Doggett’s alternate proposed use — a parking lot and storage for 18-wheelers.
“We worked with the residents to get as much out of the dealership as possible,” McKee-Rodriguez said.
The company has agreed not to allow its trucks on Weichold Road near the neighborhood, to increase buffers on the property lines from 15 feet to 50 feet and 25 feet and build a masonry fence.
The dealership’s operating hours will be limited to 13 hours on weekdays and nine hours on Saturdays.
The building will be situated at least 200 feet from abutting homes and the tree canopy within the buffer area will be maintained, according to McKee-Rodriguez. No liquid fuel storage is allowed on the site.
In addition, Doggett agreed to contribute $50,000 for improvements to a park space in the Paloma neighborhood.
“Lastly, by annexing the property, we will have an opportunity to hold them accountable in ways that we would not if they remained outside of city limits,” McKee-Rodriguez said.
Brown said Doggett would likely break ground on the project next year and open the dealership in 2026. The company’s existing dealership near Converse will be closed.
Doggett also owns another 24-acre parcel nearby, closer to Loop 1604, that Brown said will not be developed for any other purposes until after the dealership is built.
Scott Hardwick’s house backs up to the future dealership site. The decision to grant Doggett’s request baffles him.
“I never thought I would be a guy that was a ‘not in my backyard’ type of person, but going through this, I became that,” Hardwick said.
“I didn’t know anything about planning, zoning … before doing this,” he added. “But I don’t know how the city invested all this time, effort, taxpayer money, into this corridor plan, and then completely made a decision that doesn’t concern that plan at all, completely ignored their own zoning board that decided … not to support this [and] completely ignored all the residents.”
