By One Vote, City Council Denies Hope Hill Annexation

The majority of the Hope Hill housing project will not become part of the La Grange city limits – at least not yet.

That decision to not annex the property into the city was the result of a tense 4-3 vote by La Grange city council members Monday that generated some heated discussion.

La Grange city manager Shawn Raborn said the day after the meeting, Tuesday morning, that developers indicated to him that despite the set back they plan to begin construction in the coming days, and will try for city annexation in the future.

For as long as the Hope Hill housing project has been proposed there have been opponents of the 23-acre development for Hurricane Harvey victims.

Monday’s vote, however, left the city with limited control over the future course of the 60-home development.

Only about five of the home lots along Horton St. are currently in the limits, but officials with Samaritan’s Purse, the humanitarian aid organization which has taken over the project, had sought to bring the entire complex into the city limits –something that offers the double-edged sword of city regulations and city services.

Council members John Eilert, John Cernosek and Kathy Weishuhn voted for annexation. But council members Bonnie Busch, Pat Janca, Ken Taylor and Violet Zbranek voted against annexation.

Councilmember Jan Dockery was absent. Had Dockery been in attendance there may have been a tie vote, in which case Mayor Janet Moerbe would have cast the deciding vote.

There’s no question how the mayor felt about the issue.

In the immediate aftermath of the vote, Moerbe turned to project developers Chris and Cindy Barton, who were in the audience and asked them if it was still their intent to build the development.

They answered ‘yes.’

“So now we have no jurisdiction or inspection rights,” the mayor said.

At that point the mayor turned to the group of council members who had voted against annexation.

“If the project is going to continue, I don’t see how we can shirk responsibility of oversight of the development,” Moerbe said. “I know it may not be popular, but to not have control is more detrimental.”

Taylor tried to explain his ‘no’ vote.

He said his questions about the title issues related to the property were not answered to his satisfaction

“I don’t think I got all the information, and I hate that because I think it should be controlled,” Taylor said.

The mayor responded: “Typically, when a development comes in we don’t have any say other than our codes and ordinances and we just left the door open for a pig farm in the Mabrys’ backyard because the county has no ordinance against pigs,” sad Moerbe, referring to the Mabry family, who live adjacent to Hope Hill, and have been among the most vocal against the project. Obviously, that was an exaggeration by the mayor. Samaritan’s Purse is only planning to build homes for flood victims on the site, but they will now not have to file building permits with the city.

Raborn said that since the Hope Hill property is within the city’s ETJ (Extraterritorial Jurisdiction) the city does have limited power to exercise authority over the Hope Hill area, even if it never becomes part of the city limits – though it appears they will try for annexation again, Raborn said.