Council approves single-family lots for flood victims

Military veterans and longtime Blanco Gardens residents Maria and Glen Dean have spent seven years trapped inside a mold-infested home.

Maria shared her emotional testimony with the San Marcos City Council during Tuesday's meeting, recounting the floods that swept through their neighborhood in 2015.

In May 2015, the pair experienced “waist-high flooding” and “were able to evacuate, but our homes sustained damage,” Maria said.

However, when flooding struck a second time in October, the Deans were not able to evacuate.

“We stood on our front porch and watched helplessly as the water rose, overtaking both our vehicles and damaging our home again,” Maria recounted.

The Deans represent one of three families who will finally have a measure of relief, following the council's passage of Ordinance 2022-95, rezoning a half acre from “P” Public and Institutional to “SF-6” Single Family District-6, to build homes for 2015 flood victims using CDBG-DR funding, according to Amanda Hernandez, interim director of Planning and Development Services.

Three single-family homes are proposed for Lots 13 and 14, Block 18, Section A, located in the Sunset Acres Unit 3 Subdivision on Parkdale and Broadway. The homes will be elevated and equipped with backflow preventers to prevent damage in future flooding events.

Passing the ordinance required a super-majority vote after the Planning and Zoning Commission voted 6-2 to recommend its denial, based on Sunset Acres residents' concerns that the new lots could exacerbate the neighborhood's sewer system backup problem.

There are known drainage issues in Sunset Acres, due to "a large upstream drainage area, flat topography, and a lack of conveyance between these developments and the San Marcos River," according to Hernandez.

In response to these concerns, the city's Engineering and Capital Improvements Department devised three short, mid, and long-term solutions.

The short-term solution would be to improve the detention pond for Sunset Acres, and the long-term solution would be to replace the storm main and tap into the Texas Department of Transportation's larger drainage system.

Engineering and CIP also offered a midterm solution of replacing the wastewater main on Broadway and behind the homes on Parkdale.

Phase 1 of the project will cost approximately $16.5 million, and Phase 2 will cost $8.5 million. Both phases include storm, sanitary, and street improvements, with an estimated completion date of 2029.

Councilmembers Alyssa Garza, Maxfield Baker, and Mark Gleason thanked Sunset Acres residents for expressing their concerns at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting and expressed optimism for the future.

“I am hopeful that under the current leadership, we'll see long overdue progress,” Garza said.