By Nathan Koppel
San Antonio is moving ahead with plans to annex as much as 66
square miles around it, a land grab that would add as many as
200,000 people to the city and potentially make it the nation's
fifth-largest metropolis.
The San Antonio City Council this month voted in favor of
conducting a fiscal analysis of the proposed annexation. The
process requires further council approval and the annexation would
take about four years to complete. City leaders say the move would
allow San Antonio, currently the nation's seventh-largest city with
1.4 million people, to better manage growth and remain economically
vibrant.
If the annexation occurs, San Antonio could break into the ranks
of the top five biggest U.S. cities, behind New York, Los Angeles,
Chicago and Houston and ahead of Philadelphia and Phoenix, now Nos.
5 and 6.
"Cities that do not grow run the risk of two things happening:
They will lose control over development outside their boundaries,
and they will lose control over their long-term finances," said San
Antonio City Councilman Joe Krier.
But some residents of the unincorporated areas in line to be
annexed are opposed, fearing they will be forced to pay higher
taxes and receive little in return.
"No one ever wants to pay more taxes," said Mamerto Luzarraga, a
47-year-old real estate professional who lives in Alamo Ranch, a
large community that could be swallowed up by the city. "One of the
selling points of this community is that you live close to city
amenities, but you get to pay reduced taxes."
Unlike many large U.S. cities ringed by smaller incorporated
towns, especially in the Northeast and Midwest, San Antonio has
room to expand, say urban planning experts.
It is already one of the nation's fastest-growing cities after
steadily increasing its population and area during the past
decades. San Antonio expanded from 262 square miles and 786,000
people in 1980 to 407 square miles and 1.1 million people by 2000.
Its current size is 486 square miles.
San Antonio "should consider itself lucky," said Andrew
Reschovsky, an annexation expert with the Lincoln Institute of Land
Policy in Cambridge, Mass. He said many big cities have been
weakened by losing affluent residents--and their taxes--to suburbs,
and noted that annexation can be a potent tool for cities to
effectively retain some of that population.
San Antonio's Department of Planning and Community Development
has recommended annexing five areas, which total 66 square miles
and are located to the north, east and west of the city limits.
Most of the areas are in Bexar County.
Within 20 years of being fully annexed, the communities would
cumulatively generate $77 million annually in added revenue for the
city, according to projections by San Antonio's planning agency. It
estimated whether tax revenue from the new residents would exceed
the cost of providing them with services, such as police and fire
protection.
Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, a former mayor of San Antonio,
said he supports the proposed annexation plan and wishes the city
would take in even more county land.
A majority of San Antonio's 10-member city council is expected
to vote in favor of annexing some or all of the targeted land,
council members and other city leaders said in interviews. The
council is tentatively scheduled to vote in December 2015 on
whether to annex three of the five targeted areas. It would vote in
2016 on the other two areas.
San Antonio's mayor also will get to cast a vote. Mayor Ivy
Taylor, who was appointed to fill the unexpired term of Julián
Castro after he left in July to become secretary of the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development, favors annexing all
the targeted land, a spokesman said. Ms. Taylor hasn't said whether
she plans to run in May's mayoral election.
City leaders who back the annexation plan say it is vital for
San Antonio to capture tax revenue from its high-growth suburbs and
to ensure those areas are developed in line with the city's
building, zoning and water-conservation regulations.
Ron Nirenberg, another council member who supports annexation,
said it is imperative that San Antonio centrally manage growth
given that the metro area is expanding so rapidly and already faces
challenges with traffic congestion and potential water
scarcity.
"We have a challenge in making sure we don't have unbridled
growth," he said. Earlier this year, Mr. Nirenberg was among the
majority of city officials who voted 9 to 1 in favor of a separate
annexation of 19 square miles.
The lone dissenting vote was cast by council member Shirley
Gonzales. She also opposes the current, proposed annexation,
believing San Antonio should focus instead on providing better
services to inner-city neighborhoods like the ones she represents.
"There are a finite amount of resources," she said. Still, she
conceded, "most of the council is supportive" of annexation.
Other council members note that the city could improve
inner-city services while absorbing new neighborhoods.
"I'm a big believer in healthy downtowns but one of the ways we
have paid for that is with property taxes from developments far
away from downtown," Mr. Krier said.
Stephen Klineberg, an urban planning expert at Rice University,
said many city planners view annexation as a means to advance their
inner-city goals. "When rich people go out into the suburbs that is
where the money is," he said. "You can use that tax revenue to
develop the urban core."
Write to Nathan Koppel at nathan.koppel@wsj.com