Bill Sponsors / Authors:

  Rep. Keith Bell
  R - Athens

 

Supporting Documents / Links:

•   Nicole Smothers HB 4215
  April 5, 2023

House Bill 4215 – Limiting the Size of a City’s ETJ

By Representative Keith Bell
Left Pending in House Committee

The State of Texas defines a city’s rights and responsibilities for properties within its boundaries and the area immediately surrounding (ETJ) within the Local Government Code.

For the City of Houston, its ETJ is about a 5-mile band around the City’s general-purpose boundary unless that area intersects with another municipality and/or its ETJ. Two important regulatory authorities that the City has over its ETJ is the development and subdivision of land as well as that the authority to consent to the creation and expansion of other governmental entities such as municipal utility districts (MUDs).

The City uses these two tools in order to ensure that new development going around the City is compatible to the requirements within the City so that the area maintain a high quality of health and safety and so if the area were to ever be annexed, that area would seamlessly work within the City limits.

HB 4215 would have limited a city’s ETJ to not exceed 50% of the gross acreage of the municipality. This bill does not take into account cities like the City of Houston that have a large area surrounding the city that is unincorporated. The City works on platting in the ETJ to ensure future transportation needs, and this bill would have limited the area that the city can help plan for future growth.

Additionally, this bill gave no information as to which areas of the ETJ are to be released if the ETJ was larger than 50% of the City’s gross acreage. This gap also leads to concerns for future planning and development purposes.

The bill did not passed out of the House Land & Resource Committee.