Gainesville council gets pushback on overlay district

Apr. 6—Gainesville City Council is taking a second look at an overlay district plan after public pushback.

This district to be referred to as a major corridor overlay district would prohibit the building of new mini-storage facilities and energy farms along major Gainesville roads, including California Street, Grand Avenue, Interstate 35, Highway 82 and other major roads.

Already existing businesses can be grandfathered in and granted special permission due to being there before the ordinance. According to City Manager Barry Sullivan, as long as a grandfathered property is continuously in use and does not stop business for a period of more than six months, then said property can continue as is.

However, 10 business owners raised other concerns at the city council meeting Tuesday evening. Potential concerns raised involve a 1,000 foot easement being too large, how grandfathered properties will be affected on resale value and how prohibited facilities are defined.

"The problem with this ordinance is not being able to finish locations that we have on Highway 82 that has 82 frontage," said Todd Hollar, who owns Big Blue Storage with his brother. "And it's a property that's within the 1,000 foot easement."

Hollar spoke with Sullivan before the council meeting and was told he could ask for a variance, but there was no guarantee it would be granted.

"If you bought property expecting to be able to build upon your business, within the guidelines of the city, they're now having that taken away from them, and that, to me, seems like a violation of trust," said Debbie Hester. "A lot of us remember when you could not buy, giveaway, beg business into Gainesville because of the economic downturns, but we've been here to stay."

Other concerns that were brought up ahead of time to Sullivan led to the proposed ordinance to be revised, including FM 404 being removed from affected streets and warehouses no longer being impacted.

There was also concern about what this would mean for storage units on residential properties. However, Sullivan explained that properties in residential areas will not be affected.

"The ordinance specifically says if you're in a single family residential area, this will not impact what you do ... because you can't build commercial storage facilities on your location," said Sullivan. "I know the wording was harsh on the letter that went out to everybody; that was specific wording that the state of Texas, even how big and bold it was at the bottom and that specific font, the state of Texas said that we had to put it out with the letter."

Sullivan also explained how the ordinance will impact land use and growth in Gainesville.

"We're limited in the amount of land that the city can have; cities can't go out and annex land as easy as they used to," said Sullivan. "The amount of land we have is the amount of land we have, and it's going to be very hard to expand in the future, so we want to make sure we get the best use out of the land, and have the most valuable land used for the most valuable types of businesses that need that traffic off of these main roads to survive, because ultimately that will bring in more taxes, which allows us to keep taxes lower on everyone else."

The council ultimately decided to approve the first reading of the ordinance and have staff look over the language to see what changes need to be made, particularly in more clearly defining what types of storage facilities are and are not prohibited.

"I want to thank all of y'all for coming out tonight," said Mayor Tommy Moore. "This is how democracy works."