Sun City (TX) will remain seniors only

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Georgetown City Council developer's request to build a traditional neighborhood

By Kate Alexander

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Wednesday, November 27, 2002

GEORGETOWN -- The City Council rejected development changes for 2,500 acres north of Sun City Texas on Tuesday, throwing a wrench in the developer's plans to build a traditional neighborhood adjacent to the age-restricted community.

Before an auditorium full of adamant Sun City residents, the council voted 6-1 to prevent Del Webb Texas LP from moving forward on its plan for a 5,500-home subdivision on land originally slated for Sun City. Llorente Navarrette was the only council member to support the plan.

The other council members said they opposed Del Webb's proposal primarily because the development would not be age-restricted. Del Webb will need to come back to the city with another plan for the 2,500 acres, and council members indicated that they preferred an age-restricted development.

There were also questions about the effect that a traditional development of that size, with its commuter traffic, would have on Georgetown.

"Is this big development way out there the way we want to grow?" asked Council Member Doug Smith. "To me, it's just an example of suburban sprawl."

Rejecting the plan means that the city might have difficulty collecting the $5.8 million it says Del Webb owes for costs associated with the original development agreement struck in 1995. Del Webb representatives had said they would not agree to pay them unless the traditional neighborhood plan was approved. Gary Newman, general manager of Sun City, had no comment Tuesday night. With the rejection, the existing development agreement for the whole 5,400 acres remains in place.

For Sun City residents, however, the vote was not a total victory. The council also turned down the residents' pleas to waive a city regulation requiring that subdivisions have connecting roads. The residents had argued that their golf-cart community would be threatened by traffic from the traditional neighborhood. Although that vote is now moot because the plan was rejected, it indicates that connecting roads will continue to be an issue.

"I think we won the first battle, but this connectivity thing is not going away," said Jack Stroobandt, one of the Sun City residents who has been spearheading the opposition.

Mayor Gary Nelon agreed that the decision leaves open those concerns, and residents will have to remain vigilant to ensure that their interests are protected.

The initial Sun City proposal included plans for 10,500 homes for "active adults" ages 55 and over. But the homes have not sold as briskly as anticipated, and the developer wanted to whittle the number of homes to 5,000. The revamped plan for the northern 2,500 acres was for a master-planned community without any age restrictions. It would have had commercial development, schools, parks and four phases of homes to be completed by 2024.

Sun City residents, however, chided the developer for not fulfilling its promises to build plush amenities and foster a slow-paced retirement community.

Stroobandt said the residents' anger stemmed from feelings of betrayal.

Del Webb has "not indicated that they feel a responsibility to the Sun City and Georgetown residents who made a financial commitment to their original development plan," he said.

He added that the residents were attracted to Sun City because of "all these things that made God's waiting room seem real nice. Now the game has changed, and they're upset."

They collected more than 2,700 signatures in the 4,800-resident community opposing the development changes and the city's regulation requiring a road connection between adjacent subdivisions to facilitate traffic flow and provide access for emergency vehicles.

Council members said citizen response weighed heavily in their decision.

-- Anonymous, November 27, 2002


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