Lubbock has started plans to rezone nearly 1,000 parcels of land in the next six months.
In most cases, these are small procedural fixes many homeowners would not even notice. But not always.
On January 8, the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission considered 96 properties in City Council District 1. One of them on East 4th Street next door to Leprino Foods upset residents of North and East Lubbock – among them former councilwoman Sheila Patterson.
“I wasn’t going to say anything. I try not to even come to this building. But maybe some decisions that I may have been a part of are haunting me,” Patterson said at the commission meeting in city hall.
Patterson helped round up support for an industrial project in 2021 when Leprino announced its intention to bring 600 jobs to Lubbock.
The land next door ended up as residential zoning in 2023 – not industrial – due to a quirk in local ordinances. The Lubbock Economic Development Alliance (LEDA) which owns the land, would like to fix that now as part of the big rezoning project.
Patterson said some of the homes in that area are technically outside the city limits, but in her words, “There’s still people who live in those residential areas.”
“Shifting that to light or general industrial is a slap in the face for those citizens who live in that area,” Patterson said.
The commission agreed with Patterson – voting to recommend City Council approval of all the zoning changes except the one on East 4th Street.
John Osborne, LEDA’s CEO, said he’ll ask the City Council to reverse the commission’s decision.
LEDA bought land in the county – but then annexed it into the city – with Leprino in mind. But Leprino didn’t need all the land, and LEDA still planned for the land to be for commercial use.
Also, residents who protested at the commission meeting leaned on the city’s 2040 plan, which they interpret to mean no more industrial projects should go in certain parts of town.
How this began
Lubbock adopted a new form of zoning called the Uniform Development Code (UDC) more than three years ago. It was always part of the plan to come back and do “clean up” work.
The city hired a company called SAFEbuilt, LLC two years ago, which found and studied 1,250 parcels (out of nearly 105,000 total parcels in Lubbock) with recommendations to update zoning for more than 950 of them.
Timeline for zone changes
Instead of doing it all at once, the city’s Planning Department broke everything up by City Council district.
District 1
January 8: PZC Meeting
January 27: City Council 1st Reading
February 10: City Council 2nd Reading
District 2
February 5: PZC Meeting
February 24: City Council 1st Reading
March 10: City Council 2nd Reading
District 3
March 5: PZC Meeting
March 24: City Council 1st Reading
April 14: City Council 2nd Reading
District 4
April 2: PZC Meeting
April 28: City Council 1st Reading
May 12: City Council 2nd Reading
District 5
May 7: PZC Meeting
May 26: City Council 1st Reading
June 9: City Council 2nd Reading
District 6
June 4: PZC Meeting
June 23: City Council 1st Reading
July 14: City Council 2nd Reading
LEDA’s property in the 4600 block of 4th Street is caught among all the other sites because it was annexed about the same time the UDC came into effect. New annexations start as residential by default under the UDC.
Osborne told the commission, “Because it came in … during the change in the UDC code, it switched to single family residential. It was never meant to be single family residential.”
It was always meant to be industrial, Osborne said.
Opposition to some of the changes
Dora Cortez, a member of the North and East Lubbock Coalition, disagreed with Osborne.
“Residents and the North and East Lubbock Coalition have pressed the City Council to consider down-zoning plots of land owned by the city, LEDA and urban renewal before anything is built on these lots,” Cortez told the commission.
Folks who live near 2702 and 2704 North Quaker gave the city written opposition to making them light industrial (instead of residential). So did property owners near 3802 North Martin Luther King Boulevard (going from low and high density residential to industrial park).
Kristen Sager, Director of Planning, told the commission, “We sent out 798 letters. We received 16 in favor and nine in opposition.”
In addition to giving people a chance to put their objections in writing, the city had to also hold a public hearing, which is part of what the Planning and Zoning Commission did on January 8.
Kathyl Anderson used her time in the public hearing to quote previous public records (specifically the city’s 2040 plan). She said the city made commitments to preserve opportunities and culture in North and East Lubbock.
A portion of the 2040 plan said, “Lubbock has not yet seen the demand for redevelopment that has impacted many major cities in Texas, giving Lubbock the opportunity to preserve the culture of Eastern & Northern Lubbock as it plans for the future.”
The proposed rezoning, especially the LEDA property, falls short, Anderson said.
“That is going against the 2040 plan that was adopted by the City of Lubbock. We’ve already seen one where you reneged on the plan when you put Leprino on East 19th Street. There was not supposed to be any other industrial unit built over on the east and northern Lubbock. And that’s the reason why I’m against that,” Anderson said.
First time – something like this
Sager told the commission, “This is the first time we have done something like this.”
Even breaking it up by district, the project is still huge.
“We had to break this up into a few different maps because, like I said, about 96 different parcels total,” Sager said of the District 1 rezoning.
“There are a couple where the recommended zoning did not change from the current zoning,” Sager said.
But most did.
The zoning map analysis was completed in October. The process started before that in August with a town hall meeting and a survey.
“Unfortunately, we did not have anyone at the town hall nor respond to the survey,” Sager told the Lubbock City Council on September 23.
“We have not had anyone reach out to us,” Sager also told the council.
LubbockLights.com might have discovered a reason for minimal public participation early in the process.
The city scheduled a press release for August 11. Getting ready for this article, LubbockLights.com tried to find the press release in our emails, but it was missing. When we reached out to the city, we found out the press release coincided with a cyber security threat. A spokesperson for the city believes the press release possibly “fell through the cracks” because the city could not send emails through its normal system for several days.
“It may have caused us to not have as much participation,” Sager told LubbockLights.com on Tuesday upon hearing about the press release.
Notification letters to local residents near the District 1 zoning changes (within 400 feet) went out in December, Sager told the commission.
Explore the issue
Click the links in this section to explore the issue in depth.
What’s next for disputed properties?
The three properties we mentioned earlier with written opposition need a supermajority of City Council support on January 27, Sager said.
However, the LEDA property on East 4th Street only needs a simple majority – even though the commission voted it down, Sager said. That’s because there was not written opposition by nearby residents in response to the city’s official notification.
LEDA will ask the council to approve the zoning change, Osborne said.
“The site does have oil wells. … So, it’s not likely to be residential,” Osborne told LubbockLights.com.
“We think that it’d be good for a distribution center to go there,” Osborne said.
But if the council insists on keeping that area as residential, then LEDA is committed to finding someone who can develop it “in the right manner for that area,” Osborne added.
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