Why Oppose PGA Village?

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ECONOMICS:

Taxing District -  Lobbyists convinced the Legislature to create a developer-controlled special district, called the Cibolo Canyon District. San Antonio City Council must now decide whether to approve this district which will allow Lumbermen's Development of Austin to:

  • Collect sales taxes, property taxes, and hotel occupancy taxes
  • Sell tax-exempt bonds, at rates usually reserved for cities
  • Require San Antonio to "assume all of the outstanding obligations of the district" if the development is annexed.

Tax Give-away - If approved the City would agree not to annex Lumbermen's property for 13 years, allowing an unprecedented $52 million dollars in property, sales and hotel taxes to flow to the developers. This incentive is 20 times greater than those allowed at La Cantera and Hill Country Resort.

Bad Deals - The City of San Antonio has a history of not being able to effectively draft or enforce contracts with private developers. BIH and Yanaguana are examples of how the city gets "out gunned" by developers looking for maximized income at tax payer expense.

Low Wage Jobs - PGA Village will generate mostly low wage jobs. Approval would be inconsistent with the City's call for "living wages." PGA Village golf course and hotels would be effectively inaccessible to many of those who need jobs the most. This project will amount to another tax give-away to our low-wage, dead-end-job tourist industry.

ENVIRONMENT:

Pollution - PGA Village would be located over some of the most vulnerable portions of the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone to be found in Bexar County. Our water will be subject to contamination from golf course pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides.

Cleanup Costs - If they contaminate the aquifer, Lumbermen's only guarantees to pay up to one million dollars cleanup costs. However, the cost of cleaning up the aquifer could easily be many millions of dollars. The citizens of San Antonio would have to make up the difference.

Sprawl - PGA Village would use our tax dollars to encourage suburban sprawl over the Edwards Recharge Zone, straining the city’s ability to provide adequate infrastructure and maintenance in older parts of our community.

Environmental Scofflaw - On December 11, 2001, the EPA proposed fining Lumberman's $137,500 for violations of the Clean Water Act in Travis County.

Drought Restrictions - The golf courses will not have to comply with Stages I, II, and III of the Critical Period Management Rules (drought restrictions). 

POLICY:

Blackmail - If the special tax district is not approved, Lumbermen's threatens to build as many as 9,000 homes and apartments; which they claim would result in more contamination than the PGA Village. However, the PGA Village plans call for building a 500 room hotel; 4000 homes, condos, and apartments; and 100,000 square feet of commercial office space. In addition “In a scene before the council vote that seemed to belong in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," Castro got Dawson (Lumberman’s engineer) to acknowledge the company never planned to build 9,000 single-family homes if the resort were not approved.” (Ex-News, 4/6/02).

Misrepresentation - Developers claim that their golf courses will consume less water than the 9,000 homes they threaten to build if the agreement is not approved. These golf courses will simply displace, not replace these homes and the associated water use. The truth is that the two golf courses alone would actually represent an overall water consumption increase of nearly 1.2 million gallons a day during the hot summer months.

Who Pays For the Water? - Strict limits govern the amount of water that can be pumped from the Edwards Aquifer. SAWS ratepayers are paying millions for conservation and development of new sources of water. Can we afford to subsidize the use of additional water for golf courses?

Higher Property Values - Voter approved Proposition 3 funds have been unable to purchase a single acre in the Cibolo Canyon area due to highly escalated property values. If approved the higher values resulting from speculation associated with the proposed PGA Village will continue to hamper the City of San Antonio's efforts to preserve land over the recharge zone.