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Council moves to rezoning process for five long‑dormant PDDs and explores LUE reservation fees
Summary
After lengthy debate on utility capacity and planning, council directed staff to initiate rezoning of five of the oldest PDDs to TR1 to free up LUEs that have been counted toward wastewater/water capacity; staff also recommended revising ordinances to remove LUE commitments from zoning and consider time-limited reservation fees for service agreements.
The Lago Vista City Council voted unanimously to direct staff to begin the process of rezoning five of the city’s oldest planned development districts (PDDs) back to base zoning (TR1) as a step to clarify and free up utility capacity that has been reserved under longstanding PDD concept plans.
City Attorney Brad outlined a two‑prong approach: begin rezoning the oldest, clearly inactive PDDs and, separately, revise the city’s ordinances so LUE (land‑use entitlement) or utility‑capacity commitments are not embedded in zoning documents but instead managed through service agreements and time‑limited reservation fees. "Those are typically done by service agreements," Brad said, explaining that developers could reserve LUEs for a fixed term (commonly two years) and pay a fee to extend the reservation if needed.
Councilors debated legal exposure and planning consequences. Questions included whether rezoning could prompt litigation by property owners and how reservation fees might interact with impact‑fee credits; staff and legal counsel said the rezoning process would follow standard notice and public‑hearing procedures and that developers who can demonstrate recent activity could retain entitlements through the normal ordinance process. Council directed staff to prepare memos and draft ordinance language and to send the five oldest PDDs through the Planning & Zoning rezoning process.
The action is intended to reduce uncertainty in capacity planning, align water/wastewater planning with realistic development prospects, and create a mechanism for developers to reserve capacity when they are actively progressing projects rather than allowing decades‑old entitlements to be counted against the city’s capacity.
