The San Marcos City Council is set to have its final vote on annexing and rezoning a tract of land for the SMART (San Marcos Air, Rail and Truck) Terminal industrial park, along with a vote on an economic development agreement with the owners. However, a group of residents opposed to the development’s location says there are too many unresolved issues — including the issue of whether the property up for annexation and rezoning belongs to San Marcos in the first place.
City staff has said that a part of the initial 934 acres up for annexation was in an area of the San Marcos ETJ that overlaps with the Martindale ETJ. Council is set to vote tonight on annexing and rezoning 734.6 acres, with the remaining 200 acres still under dispute with Martindale. However, SMARTER San Marcos, the group opposed to the development’s location on land situated near State Highway 80 and Farm to Market Road 1984, noted that a 2016 map from the Caldwell County Appraisal District shows that the entire tract slated for annexation tonight lies within Martindale’s ETJ.
In a letter dated Feb. 20, 2019, Martindale City Attorney Kent Wymore argued that the 2007 ordinance that San Marcos passed expanding its ETJ was a faulty one that overstated the population of the city of San Marcos. State law allows a city with a population of 50,000 to have an ETJ that extends 3.5 miles out from its city limits. The 2007 San Marcos resolution stated that the city’s population had grown by 5 percent per year since 2000. The U.S. Census in 2000 had the city’s population at 34,733. Wymore argues that if the city had achieved 5 percent growth each year through 2007, the population would have been 46,543 — and that if 5 percent growth continued through 2008, the city’s population would have been 49,000. The most recent U.S. Census, from 2010, shows a population of 44,894 for San Marcos.
