Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
AUSTIN - • People who want to live in unincorporated areas testify in favor of state Rep. Anna Mowery's bill that would make it harder for cities to annex land.
Homeowners and farmers from North Texas, including a few dozen from Tarrant and surrounding counties, descended on Austin on Thursday to show support for proposed legislation that would restrict the annexation authority of cities.
They lobbied lawmakers on a bill drafted by Rep. Anna Mowery, R-Fort Worth, that would put proposed annexations to a vote.
House Bill 323 actually requires two votes: one by those living within the annexing city and a second by those who live in the area to be annexed.
"Texans deserve the right to vote on where they live," said Darlia Hobbs, president of Citizens Against Forced Annexation, a group formed three years ago when Fort Worth proposed annexing 55 square miles and 10,000 people. The city drastically scaled back its plan.
Hobbs, from the Eagle Mountain Lake area, and the others spent the afternoon listening and giving testimony on Mowery's bill and another, House Bill 1728, by David Leibowitz, D-San Antonio, that could make it easier to disannex from a city. The bills were considered by the House Land Resource and Management Committee.
Bill Stanford came from Burleson to protect the 80-acre family farm his father lives on.
Jerry Lueck, a wheat farmer and a former Wichita Falls mayor elected in 2000 on an anti-annexation platform, said he didn't get "water, sewer, fire or police protection" when the city annexed his 178 acres.
"People have had enough," Lueck said.
Cities have long argued they need to control areas just outside their limits to constrain land uses that don't meet municipal regulations -- such as landfills, some manufacturing or sexually oriented businesses.
"The current annexation protections in the law are adequate," said Scott Houston, director of legal services for the Texas Municipal League. Cities need to expand, he said, to increase their tax base to avoid decay in the inner city.
Denton Mayor Euline Brock spoke against Mowery's bill.
"It makes it difficult to annex, even if no one objects, because of the cost of an election," she said, adding that developers of new communities near Denton have said they want to be annexed.
Opponents called annexations "a land grab" and say cities enrich their coffers but don't provide needed services.
"If I wanted to be in the city, I would have bought in the city," said Rodger Ford, who faced annexation by Gun Barrel City. "We fight for our freedom overseas and give it up to little bitty dictatorships all over the state."
In February, Fort Worth adopted a comprehensive plan that includes an annexation program through 2009.
"The program sets out anticipated areas the city believes would be considered for annexation," said Bob Riley, city development director. Nearly all of those areas are north and northwest of Fort Worth and are enclaves of county land surrounded by the city, he said.
Mowery's bill is still before the committee, but the bill to ease disannexation rules was approved and sent to the full House for consideration.