Seven San Antonio City Council members voted Thursday in favor of land use changes that would allow an 84-unit affordable apartment complex to be built on the North Side. Four voted against it.
Typically the majority would win but in this case, the measure failed and the project — which would have been the first affordable housing complex in the city to offer on-site pre-K services — has been scrapped.
That’s because city code requires a supermajority (three-fourths) vote, or nine votes, of the council to approve when more than 20% of the property owners or residents within 200 feet of the land in question are opposed to the change in zoning.
In the case of Vista Park — adjacent to the Spring Creek neighborhood off the 14000 block of Nacogdoches Road near Comanche Lookout Park — 47 notices were mailed out. Nearly 30 came back in opposition and only one in favor.
Despite developers making several concessions and adjustments to the plan based on neighbor feedback, they remained opposed to the project.
Council members Marc Whyte (D10), whose district includes Spring Creek, Manny Paleaz (D8), Marina Alderete Gavito (D7) and Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6) voted against the measure.
Whyte, the lone conservative on the dais, said he was against the project because that area of town is already too crowded and the three-story structures would “tower” over the adjacent single-family homes.
“This is a dense area,” he said. “The quality of life for our neighborhoods must come first.”
He took issue with the insinuation that he and the neighbors were opposed to low-income people moving into the neighborhood.
“I don’t want the issue of affordability to cloud my main point, which is that this project, whether it’s an affordable housing project or not, is inappropriate for this specific area,” he said.
Pelaez and Cabello Havrda agreed. Alderete Gavito said she will continue to defer to the council member who represents the district on all zoning cases.
“I know my district better than any of my colleagues, and I know this logic rings true for every single council member up here,” Alderete Gavito said. “My vote today is not in opposition of affordable housing.”
But Councilman John Courage (D9) challenged that logic.
“I made an error in judgment about four years ago,” Courage said, when he voted against Vista at Interpark, one of OCI’s previous similar projects on the North Side near Wurzbach Parkway and Highway 281.
“My community was absolutely opposed to it, all the people around there were opposed to it,” he said. “And I made the mistake of saying: Okay, if you oppose it, I’ll oppose it. But you know what? The rest of my council had a broader perspective, and they approved it over my objection because they realized that affordable housing there was a value to the community.”
“… We support affordable housing when it’s convenient. We support affordable housing when we don’t hear too many complaints from the neighbors,” he added, using the acronym for not-in-my-backyard. “Are we NIMBYs ourselves?”
The land is currently zoned as “C-2”, which would allow all manner of more intense commercial uses, including vehicle repair, appliance sales and more, Mayor Ron Nirenberg noted.
“That means … more could be built on that site tomorrow, with zero intervention from the City Council,” Nirenberg said. “The proposal in front of us will enable housing to be built, which, to me, is far more important and fits far better with the character of the residential neighborhood, and would generate, as you’ve seen, far less traffic than the current commercial zoning use.”
The proposed Vista Park project — a public-private partnership between OCI Development, the San Antonio Housing Trust, the local Essence Preparatory Public Schools and Florida-based Atlantic Pacific Companies — was selected to receive the highly competitive tax credits from the state to the tune of $20 million.
The council unanimously approved a resolution of support of this project to get those tax credits earlier this year.
Monthly rents would have ranged from $310 to about $1,195, serving households whose annual income ranges from 20% to 60% of the area median income (that’s less than $12,500 and $37,200 for an individual, respectively). The cheapest public listing at the market rate apartments across Nacogdoches Road is about $1,100.
In addition to pre-K, Vista Park would have provided other supportive services for residents, including financial literacy, workforce readiness and health and wellness programming such as mental health peer support services, said Olivia Travieso, local co-founder and co-owner of OCI Group and OCI Development.
“We will start from scratch with a new development on a new site for the following tax credit application process in 2025 next year,” Travieso said. “We’re excited about the possibility of this model and San Antonio being one of the few cities in the state of Texas to have on-site pre-K paired with affordable housing.”
While Whyte claimed to have emails from the state confirming that the lucrative tax credits would remain in San Antonio, it’s unclear if that’s the case. His staff did not respond to a request to see those emails Thursday.
Pete Alanis, executive director of the city’s Housing Trust, said “there is absolutely no guarantee that those tax credits will be utilized in San Antonio.”
The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs will have to go through a meticulous process to reallocate that money, which could go to other area counties.
“I think my worry is really the long-term repercussions on how folks view the city, and the long-term opportunities that could be lost,” Alanis said. “What this did was signal to many in the development [industry] that we need to be looking in other communities or other places around Texas to spend our effort and time.”
“… At the end of the day, there’s still a lot of work to do,” he added. “There’s still a lot of work to educate the broader community and our policymakers about the long-term need, and we’re going to have to figure out long-term solutions.”
Nirenberg, who is serving his last term as mayor, warned against letting controversy stand in the way of progress.
“A denial, in my view, is the wrong thing to do, and if our standard for making the right decision is that there is no controversy, there will be paralysis moving forward on every big decision coming to this body,” he said.