Bill Sponsors / Authors:
Rep. Cecil Bell, Jr.
R - Magnolia
Sen. Paul Bettencourt
R - Houston
Supporting Documents / Links:
Senate Bill 2038 - Removal of Territory in ETJ through Petition
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.
This bill will allow landowners to be released from the City’s ETJ in one of the following ways:
SB 2038 will likely lead to almost unilateral (by petition for election) removal of territory in the ETJ. These elections will likely be unplanned and uncoordinated with no logical pattern or linkage of infrastructure or jurisdictional controls. The protections in the ETJ ensure that new developments go into the area with adequate infrastructure like water, sewer, drainage facilities, streets, and electric/gas utilities.
The bill was signed by the Governor on May 19th and goes into effect September 1st.