Can San Antonio annex Schertz?

[sahomelocator]

Agreed!

[heimerswt]

Originally Posted by ocean2026

DOPO that's it - By surrounding themselves with Chinese Restaurants SA, every time it wanted to swallow up those towns - it got sidetracked and stuffed at the buffet- then got lazy.

But then an hour later it was hungry again.

[ChrisSA_wxatUIW]

Great Wall of New Braunfels? I don't understand...
and SA is kind of expanding that far anyway...

[TexasWeatherman]

Originally Posted by ChrisSA_wxatUIW

Great Wall of New Braunfels? I don't understand...
and SA is kind of expanding that far anyway...

That's the point of the wall. It prevents SA from expanding that far. In Texas a city has to be contiguous. So if Bulverde pushes east and New Braunfels pushes west, it creates a wall, preventing SA from annexing any further into Comal County. The country residents would prefer their tax dollars go to Bulverde or New Braunfels than to provide welfare to SA folks.

[imaterry78259]

Don't worry Schertz or NB, if SA wanted you bad enough they would find a way to take you.

[TexHwyMan]

Let's get this straight folks-- one municipality cannot unilaterally annex another. A municipality can only annex unincorporated territory-- that is, land not currently within the city limits of another municipality. Schertz is an incorporated municipality.

A city also cannot annex land within another city's extra-territorial jurisdiction (ETJ) unless that city approves the annexation. Two cities can make a deal where one city disannexes land and the other city annexes it; Schertz actually did this with San Antonio a couple of decades ago with the area that is now in Schertz along I-10 East (it was originally in San Antonio). As someone else mentioned, SA and Windcrest also did a similar deal lately with the land under and around the old Windsor Park Mall.

The "Great Wall of New Braunfels" is actually more commonly referred to as the "Boerne Wall" (a la the Berlin Wall). It is a series of "finger annexations" to connect the city limits and/or the associated ETJs of Boerne, Fair Oaks Ranch, Bulverde, and New Braunfels in such a way as to create a "firebreak" or "wall" that San Antonio could not annex into or through, thereby preventing San Antonio (the municipality) from growing any further north. There was a long court case over it between San Antonio and Boerne, first because of the timings of each city's actions (they were like a day apart), and also because the tracts that Boerne added to their ETJ (at the request of their owners) were not contiguous and so, to facilitiate the action, the Kendall County commissioners court requested that Boerne add the county roads in between to the ETJ as well. The Texas Supreme Court eventually ruled, IIRC, that the county did not have the authority to request that and sent it back to the lower courts. In the end, I think Boerne and SA came to a compromise that let the Boerne Wall essentially stand.

[TexHwyMan]

BTW, here is a map showing San Antonio's and surrounding cities' ETJs. Note that there are still two small gaps in the Boerne Wall that SA could annex into and through if they wanted, and in fact SA's ETJ (green dashed line) already extends into one. San Antonio could theoretically also annex around the western side of Boerne if they so desired.



Full map at http://www.sanantonio.gov/planning/p...d/0811GG09.pdf