Tuesday Morning the Texas Senate will vote on SB 848 (see this post and this one), a bill that will destroy local control of development by expanding the â??Grandfatheringâ?? laws. Wednesday the House of Representatives will vote on its version of the same bill, HB 1704.

These bills allow developers to submit defective and incomplete plans---as in a sketch on a cocktail napkin---and lock in development regulations for years and decades until the project is built.

PinkDome would say another way for developers to submit incomplete plans is when they write them on the back of a 'check.' Just sayin' is all.

In this way developers circumvent water quality and regional planning regulations that cities and counties have worked hard to enact. These bills serve no public purpose but allow developers to build at higher densities for higher profits than ever before. SB 848/HB 1704 are developer dream bills that destroy local control of development and water quality.

Your help is crucial to STOPPING these bills. Hereâ??s what you can do:

1)Call your State Senator Tuesday Morning before 11 a.m. That is the only way they will know you OPPOSE 848 before they go to the Senate floor.

2)Call your State Representative next and tell them you OPPOSE HB 1704.

3)Come to the GEAA press conference on these bills at the Capitol, E1.002 at Noon on Tuesday.

SB 848/HB 1704 allow developers to lock in the regulations that will apply to their project by mailing in an application, even though the application may be incomplete or defective.

These bills allow the postmark date to serve as the application date at which point all development regulations, including water quality regulations, will be locked in for years or decades until the project is built. These bills also provide for regulations to be locked in when a developer merely acquires a promise that utilities will be provided to the siteâ??a decision that doesnâ??t have anything to do with project density or design.

Changing the grandfathering laws will force cities to develop new methods for dealing with these applications, as well as implementing a complicated regulatory structure applying laws in effect at several different times, not to mention defending all those decisions in court. Cities will be forced to waste valuable taxpayer dollars figuring out how to implement these new laws---while they donâ??t serve any public purpose and only increase developer profits.