The city of San Marcos is taking measures to ensure that valuable resources are saved from properties set for demolition.
The San Marcos City Council gave direction to staff regarding crafting a policy for recovery and reuse of personal property and building components associated with demolition permits.
San Marcos Mayor Jane Hughson discussed the importance of reusing items of value before demolition, emphasizing the need to reduce, reuse and recycle.
“If something does not have value to you or others, there’s somebody that could probably use some of those parts,” Hughson said. “This is not taking anything away from a property owner. This is going to be someone who has already said they’re going to demolish; they are finished with whatever they want to remove from structures, [and] we will come and make use of whatever we possibly can.”
With permission from the new property owner, the city shared many of the resources inside of the Pennington Funeral Home on Comanche Street with local nonprofits before its demolition. The city is looking to formalize that process.
Council Member Matthew Mendoza thanked the developers that bought the Pennington funeral home for allowing them to use the materials set for demolition.
“I was able to pull about 16 10-ft. steel pillars that were being destroyed, and about 68-69 bricks by themselves; I would have tried to get more if I had the chance to, but I helped two houses on Haynes Street be stable — their pathways and their overlays. So it’s little things like that, not just ACs, but little things like that really make a huge difference,” Mendoza said. “I hope the council does consider this also. It’s a huge step for us to really reuse.”
Hughson gave another example of the city salvaging soon-to-be-demolished resources in the building across from H-E-B, where it found filing cabinets and other resources that it shared with nonprofits.
“I just want to make sure that whenever someone wants to … demolish something, that we have this conversation in between the time that they’re through with it and the wrecking ball arrives,” she said.
Hughson asked if there was a way to incentivize participation, possibly with a discount on the demolition permit to which Assistant City Manager Joe Pantalion said it would “definitely be a consideration.”
Council Member Shane Scott brought up the need for insurance and the possibility of someone being injured.
Amy Thomaides, with San Marcos’ Community Enhancement department, said that when salvaging from the Pennington and Dr. Horton buildings, they worked with nonprofits who were already in housing rehab such as Mission Able and Operation Triage.
“These are organizations that probably have their own insurance anyway,” Thomaides said. “They’re sending in their people who are used to going in M and doing some demolition.”
Council Member Lorenzo Gonzalez said his one concern was that he did not want to put up any additional “red tape” for those looking to demolish.
“I know that some people have opinions about permitting processes in our city, so I don’t want to slow them down even more,” Gonzalez said. “Also, I don’t want to create more work for staff.”
Hughson said that she didn’t intend for this initiative to delay demolition.
The council agreed to let staff decide how to best implement the program, while considering all of the factors mentioned during discussion.
