Residents, advocates urge delay and environmental review of 2,600-acre Dog's Head development agreement

Hundreds of residents and conservation advocates packed the Environmental Commission meeting Wednesday to press the panel on the Dog's Head annexation and development agreement, a 2,600-acre tract along the Colorado River that developers say will be reclaimed and made available for mixed uses.

Richard Settle, counsel for Endeavor Real Estate, described a history of mining on the site and said the company has entered a development agreement that will allow phased reclamation and a range of future uses. "We've entered into a development agreement, and we are now annexed and we are part of the city," Settle said, describing efforts to bring in clean fill and create trails and open space.

Speakers from neighborhood groups, environmental nonprofits and individual property owners urged the commission to recommend that City Council delay related votes (including a TIRZ/TIRS decision) until the city completes independent environmental analyses and meaningful community engagement. Many commenters pressed objections to language in the development agreement that they said would allow high levels of impervious cover and permit broad administrative authority over environmental variances.

"I do not trust the fox to guard the hen house," said Benjamin Gibbs, a public commenter who warned that contractual permissions for very high impervious cover would imperil river health and downstream neighborhoods. Several speakers pointed to recent floods and to endangered species in the area, including the Texas fat mucket mussel, as reasons for a full environmental impact assessment before major financial commitments are approved.

Endeavor representatives said some of the more alarming-sounding numbers in the printed agreement (for example, a 100% impervious-cover allocation) are an administrative starting point and that the company does not plan to develop every acre to the maximum allowed. "Starting out, including the open space and the trail, it would be less than 90 percent," an Endeavor representative quoted from earlier remarks, while also saying the project is being approached as a long-term, phased reclamation and restoration effort.

Watershed staff and the project's engineers told commissioners they are pursuing a FEMA letter of map revision (LOMR) to correct floodplain mapping that staff say was distorted by historical mining activity. Engineers said some interior mining pits now appear on FEMA maps as floodplain pockets and that correcting those maps could materially change the area currently mapped as floodplain.

Commissioners raised procedural concerns including the short public-notice window, the scope of code waivers in the agreement, and whether nondisclosure agreements signed by some city staff limited public transparency. City legal acknowledged NDAs exist for some city management conversations but said NDAs are not part of the development agreement itself and declined to identify third parties covered by those NDAs during the meeting.

Several neighborhood leaders urged the commission to formally recommend delaying the July council TIRZ/TIRS vote until the city completes comprehensive environmental review and opens a more meaningful community process. Commissioners signaled a mix of skepticism and interest in convening a work group to examine issues such as impervious cover accounting, heritage-tree surveys, extended river setbacks, and a more concrete open-space and trail delivery schedule.

The applicant and staff said more technical work remains and described the project as phased reclamation that will depend on staged fill deliveries and infrastructure investments; developers noted a minimum of 266 acres of public open space and a moving 6.5-mile trail easement that will be provided over time as reclamation progresses. The meeting closed with commissioners requesting further written clarifications on FEMA mapping, the precise definition and timing of the 10% open-space figure in the agreement, and details about NDAs and potential future uses.