By Moses Leos III

Discord over a site plan submitted for a proposed development in Old Town Kyle created a rift between the city and developer Comanche Holdings, LLC. 

Several factors made the city suspend the building permit for Comanche’s 10,000 square-foot mixed-use project at 225 Main Street. 

Phil Howry, partner with Comanche Holdings, said the city placed the developer in an “unfair situation” after following their rules. The city claims that the developer submitted incorrect information in its site plan. 

Last week, the city gave Commanche Holdings the green light to develop on the property by reinstating its building permit.  

The saga began when the project was submitted in September 2014. The site plan went through several levels of review by city officials, and was approved by the Planning Department, Planning and Zoning and the Kyle City Council. 

The developers were approved for a building permit in February. But problems between the two entities began when a wastewater line was discovered on the property. It kick-started a back and forth discussion between the city and developer over who should move the pipe.

Ultimately, the city chose to bear the cost for relocating the pipe. 

But according to City Manager Scott Sellers, discussions on relocating the line had the city research the property in-depth. 

It was then the city learned that the development was to be constructed over four parcels of land, as opposed to the one parcel that was presented in the site plan. 

Planning Director Howard Koontz said building over multiple parcels is allowed in the development’s node of Central Business District-2 

Koontz said the problem arose because building codes. Properties that straddle lot lines must have “fire rated walls that run concurrent to those property lines.”

As a result, the city suspended the building permit on June 30. In an email to Howry, Building Official Mario Perez wrote two options for the development, one of which was to re-plat the lot. 

The move would incur over $21,000 in water and wastewater impact fees for the developer. A second option was to keep the lot lines, but to add fire-resistant walls above the existing lot lines. 

The move to suspend the permit “caught us all by surprise” according to Howry, who claims he and his group have followed the city’s rules. 

Howry cited a January 2014 meeting with former Planning Director Sophia Nelson and current City Engineer Leon Barba. The meeting involved the project’s site plan, where he and his engineer were informed they would not have to re-plat the land. 

According to Howry, details in the site plan show their development on the four lots. 

Howry maintained his stance, citing the developer acted in “good faith” and completed its due diligence. In addition, he says the developer shouldn’t be forced to pay the impact fees, as the currently platted land doesn’t abide by the city’s impact fee schedule. 

Land platted before 1984 is not subject to impact fees by the city. 

“We didn’t try to hoodwink or mislead anyone about anything,” Howry said. “We asked questions and did what was required. We felt like we played by the rules.” 

But could the city have prevented such an issue from happening? 

While Koontz said “anything can happen,” he said he didn’t think it was “uncustomary to do a title search on every property that comes in for development.” 

“We had a reasonable reliance on [their] stamped plans, just like the development community has a reasonable reliance on us doing an accurate review,” Koontz said. “Any absence of there being good data coming in, you’re going to have the absence of good data coming out.” 

With the possibility of attorneys getting involved, both sides met on July 21 to hammer out the issues. According to Howry, Sellers gave the go-ahead as the plans had already gone through several levels of review.  

Howry lauded the city’s willingness to meet face-to-face and discuss the issue. He believes the development could add potential to Old Town. 

“We think it’s going to be a step in the redevelopment of that whole downtown square,” he said. “We have good intentions to be a catalyst to the redevelopment of downtown Kyle.”