Keeping an eye on development, zoning bills

The final bills of the 2025 Texas Legislature are up for discussion with less than 25 days left in the session. 

Georgetown Mayor Josh Schroeder said this year the city has had a greater impact on legislative actions than in the past due to city staff ’s work with state representatives. Georgetown residents have also given more feedback to their elected officials. 

“We haven’t been able to win all the battles, but we’ve had some identifiable wins, and we’ve had tons of minor impacts where maybe we didn’t get this bill defeated, but we got it modified,” Mr. Schroeder said. 

Historically, Mr. Schroeder said the city has been on the defensive, but this session, officials have worked on proactive bills, such as raising the standards for wastewater package plants approved by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Georgetown has also partnered with entities — like the City of Prosper north of Dallas — to get mutually beneficial bills in front of state representatives. 

“We’ve seen that some cities just felt so beat down by the legislature that they’re kind of like, what’s the point,” the mayor said. “If we can work with other cities and be a resource, use their participation as leverage, and have another state rep or another state senator go ‘your city’s involved in this too,’ we think it’ll have an impact.” 

Many of the bills on the city’s watchlist relate to development and zoning. Mr. Schroeder said that the city worked to understand the motives behind the bills, most of which are not aimed at Georgetown specifically. When talking to those pushing for certain development or zoning initiatives, Georgetown is “not even on their radar.” 

“But, you see the impacts of that [bill] on our community, which is a completely different situation,” he said. 

Bills that are passed this session go into effect September 1. City staff are waiting to see what the end result is on some bills, but when the legislature ends, they start planning for the impact of newly implemented laws. 

“As soon as the session ends, we look at what we need to do internally,” Mr. Schroeder said. “Then we’re already thinking about next session, and getting a game plan together.” 

Bills further disannexation practices 

Two bills the city is monitoring — House Bill 2494 and Senate Bill 1509 — would, respectively, allow areas of the city to petition for disannexation if the applicant believes city services are not being provided, and would prohibit city regulation in the extraterritorial jurisdiction. 

These bills reflect similarities to a law passed in the 2023 legislative session, Senate Bill 2038, which allows portions of the city’s ETJ — land outside the city limits that receives limited city services — to disannex. 

“We were hoping for SB 2038 to get modified in a good way, and it really kind of looks like [the legislature] is going the opposite direction, allowing even folks already within the city limits to disannex in certain situations,” Mr. Schroeder said. 

The city’s main concern about HB 2494 is that Georgetown does not provide trash services directly; the city contracts with Texas Disposal Systems. Because the service is provided by a third party, city staff are concerned that residents might claim services are not being provided and seek to disannex, creating a patchwork of who is and isn’t within city limits. 

Intergovernmental Relations Manager Leah Clark said a companion bill to HB 2494 would include an amendment addressing many of the city’s concerns. Ms. Clark said representatives from Senator Charles Schwertner’s and Representative Terry Wilson’s offices called her to review the amendment language. 

“I think the communication is there, and that’s been really useful,” she said. “They know that we have a concern, and they’ve been more helpful and willing to kind of work with authors’ offices to make bills better.” 

Contesting zoning standards 

Senate Bill 3016 would allow the state to override city laws if the attorney general believes a city law conflicts with state law. 

This includes zoning regulations, where developers could argue that city standards conflict with state standards. Developers could use the legislation to build residential housing in areas zoned by the city for commercial use. 

“One of the hardest things that we have to do [as a city is] preserve commercial corridors,” Mr. Schroeder said. “We have to fight against those easier uses [of single and multifamily housing] and save these commercial spots. If there’s nowhere for commercial to go, it doesn’t come at all.” 

He said if commercial property is taken up by housing, there would be no commercial property tax base or sales tax. Ultimately, if developers succeed in overriding commercial with residential, and there is no land left for businesses, the costs typically covered by commercial property owners would shift to residents’ property taxes.

Budget bills 

Two bills affecting the city budget — House Bill 5267 and House Bill 19 — are also on staff’s radar. 

House Bill 5267 would cap the amount of revenue growth or expenditures in the city’s budget. Mr. Schroeder said that while the city opposes the bill, they would follow the law and any formulas it sets out. 

Mr. Schroeder called House Bill 19 — which would cap the city’s debt at 20 percent of total tax revenue — potentially “devastating” for Georgetown. 

“Every growing city in the State of Texas will be shut down on capital projects immediately,” he said. 

According to the mayor, many of the city’s major projects are more than a year from completion. If this bill becomes law, the city would have to decide if they stop capital projects — like the Southlake Water Treatment Plant or the downtown parking garage — in the middle of construction. 

The amount of property taxes that go toward city operation and maintenance, and how much goes toward debt is something the city looks at every year when making its budget. 

“We’re always watching that and right now, we wish [our debt] was lower,” he said. “We wish that we were putting more [property taxes] towards maintenance operations than we are to debt, but when you’re growing as fast as we’re growing there’s just too much that has to be done on the capital side.” 

Third-party review of development plans 

Senate Bill 2354 would allow developers to send infrastructure plans for future subdivisions to third-party engineers for review and approval. This could limit the city’s ability to verify that projects meet building codes. 

To reduce the bill’s impact, city staff worked with state representatives to include language making engineers who approve the plans responsible for any future issues. 

The city understands the concept, Mr. Schroeder said. With the volume of applications cities receive, it can be difficult to review them all in a timely manner. However, he said Georgetown has implemented a deadline system for reviewing submissions to address the concern internally. 

The mayor said most developers and engineers want to deliver high-quality projects and follow the code — because if they don’t, they could face lawsuits. 

“Most folks want to do it right,” he said. “We’ll continue to weigh in — whether this bill says we can legally stop them or not — and go ‘Hey, let’s make sure that we’re protecting people.’ ”