Stop Lowe's over the Aquifer!

Sunset Valley, a small municipality in Travis County, surrounded on three sides by the City of Austin, has found itself in the midst of the sort of development battle and targeted special interest legislation normally reserved for its larger neighbor. The battle is over a planned Lowe'­s Home Improvement Supercenter near Sunset Valley and over the recharge and contributing zones of the Edwards Aquifer - the source of not only beloved Barton Springs, but also 80% of the drinking water supply for Sunset Valley residents.

The plans for the Lowe'­s "big box" retail store are on a particularly sensitive portion of the aquifer, immediately upstream of the Dry Fork Sink that has been dye-traced by the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District to Barton Springs within thirty hours. That means pollution from the development could reach Barton Springs in little more than one day!

The dispute between Lowe'­s and Sunset Valley, and eventually the City of Austin as well, began when a previously planned apartment complex on Brodie Lane was recast as a proposed Lowe'­s Supercenter next to two Sunset Valley neighborhoods. Neighbors expressed concern about not only water quality degradation, but also increased traffic and flooding from the large development. The Sunset Valley City Council was also concerned about increased public safety costs and moved to de-annex the property-, which would put it instead under the authority of the City of Austin and the SOS Ordinance. When Lowe'­s heard about the impending de-annexation, they attempted to quickly file a permit application to grandfather their property under less restrictive regulations, but the application was rejected by Sunset Valley officials as administratively inadequate and incomplete. That'­s when the lawsuits began.

Lowe'­s sued the City of Austin, claiming to be grandfathered by the application filed in Sunset Valley and thus not subject to the city'­s SOS Ordinance. Sunset Valley intervened, claiming that not only was the application inadequate and incomplete, but that the municipality did not even have the application. Lowe'­s representatives had taken back the document after it was rejected and it has never been seen again.

Lowe'­s then took their claims to Senator Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio), and Wentworth added language (reportedly written by Lowe'­s lobbyists) to HB 1204 authored by Rep. Todd Baxter (R-Austin), that attempts to retroactively decide the ongoing dispute in Lowe'­s favor. This language, which was approved by the legislature, would theoretically allow the Lowe'­s to be built solely under county subdivision regulations. However, while the County does not regulate such things as impervious cover, it has also agreed, under the city and county combined subdivision regulations, to allow the City of Austin to apply the SOS Ordinance in the Austin'­s Extra Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ). This is why Lowe'­s is now claiming that the property is not in Austin'­s ETJ, even though the property is contiguous with Austin city limits, because if the land is determined to be Austin'­s ETJ, the County would likely agree that the SOS Ordinance should apply, HB 1204 notwithstanding.