Planning commission recommends light-industrial zoning for Port of Corpus Christi site after residents oppose heavy-industrial request

The City Planning Commission on the north side of Corpus Christi recommended changing the zoning of a roughly 7.9-acre site controlled by the Port of Corpus Christi from neighborhood commercial/multifamily to light industrial, rejecting the port's request for heavy-industrial zoning.

Staff and the port said the rezoning is intended to provide outdoor storage and laydown space—such as wind-turbine blades and military cargo—lost to the Harbor Bridge construction. Andrew Dimas, a Development Services planner, told commissioners the primary 7.9-acre tract is immediately south of larger port-owned property and that the request would make the parcel contiguous with other industrially zoned lands to the north. Dimas said 41 notices were mailed to properties within the statutorily required 200-foot boundary and that no responses were received from that immediate zone; six additional notices came from addresses outside the 200-foot area.

The matter drew lengthy public comment from more than two dozen speakers, most of whom urged commissioners to reject the…