El Paso City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to release more than 2,000 acres of land near Eastlake Boulevard, clearing the way for neighboring Horizon City to annex the tract and impose its own building rules on whatever gets built there next.
The parcel, roughly 2,295.613 acres south of Eastlake Boulevard, sits within El Paso's five-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction, according to KVIA. KVIA places the tract's western edge at Darlington Road, though Citizen Portal spells it Darrington Road in its own account of a related 2,300-acre release approved earlier by the El Paso City Plan Commission.
City official Kevin Smith told KVIA that El Paso's reach into the land has long been limited. He described extraterritorial jurisdiction as the city's ability to regulate areas where a future annexation could eventually require developments to meet city requirements, but said the city holds no authority over this particular tract beyond subdivision control. Smith said he did not foresee any ability for El Paso to annex the land itself.
Why El Paso Is Stepping Back
Smith said the city does not tax the land, collect revenue from it, or provide it with city services, the station reports. In practice, that has left a stretch of unincorporated territory without a clear regulatory hand, since El Paso's authority stopped at subdivision control and Horizon City had no jurisdiction to annex it until the release.
Horizon City requested the release specifically so new developments on the tract would be forced to comply with Horizon regulations and laws, per the same account. Mayor Andres Renteria said Horizon plans to annex the land within a year of Tuesday's decision and has already started the process with the land's private owners.
What Horizon City Says It Will Fix
Renteria said Horizon is seeking controlled growth for the area. He told KVIA that some developments in the territory currently skip obtaining permits for certain buildings or structures, and that Horizon annexation would let the city inspect construction and make sure it is done correctly, both to protect residents and to help businesses access fire, police, and other necessities.
Under Texas Local Government Code Chapter 42, a municipality's governing body may add an area to its extraterritorial jurisdiction by resolution when that area sits within a releasing municipality's ETJ, the releasing municipality does not provide water, sewer service, and electricity to it, and owners of a majority of the land request the inclusion, according to the statute hosted by the Texas Legislative Council.
The move echoes a broader pattern of stalled development in eastern El Paso County. El Paso Inc. has reported that roughly 54,000 acres of county land in prime development spots sit without utility service, and about 91,000 plots of undeveloped or unattended land are blocking further modern expansion in the area.
For now, the Tuesday vote only releases El Paso's claim on the tract; Horizon City's annexation is described by Renteria as planned and already underway with private landowners, not yet finalized.
