The City of San Antonio is no longer considering six additional areas for annexation. It is, however, moving forward with five other areas.
In a city council work session Wednesday, John Dugan, director of city planning, told council members since the department received no direction and no funding for the areas, annexation was off the table.
Mayor Taylor, who requested the city slowdown its process of bringing new areas into San Antonio, sad she feels relieved. "I felt it was a little bit too much for us to take on right now especially since we have questions about the original five areas, I didn’t think it was prudent for us to move so hastily on that,” Taylor said.
The city is moving forward with the five other areas including west of I-10 outside Loop 1604, Highway 281 north of Loop 1604, Alamo Ranch, and the Camelot area between I-35 and I-10 in East Bexar County. If included
they would add 67 square miles and 120,000 people to the city. Dugan says San Antonio is one of the last large cities in the country without being surrounded by smaller cities and population in the county is expected to grow by 1 million people.
“If we allow all these little towns for those million persons it will be just like around Dallas where you have hundreds of thousands of people in competing cities and they’re going to try to get the new jobs," Dugan said. "They’re going try to get the new investment because they can offer the deals because they have cheaper land."
The city council will vote for the first area, I-10 on the Northwest side, on October 29th after several hearings this month.
