Save Our Springs Alliance v. City of Austin

• Decision Date: 06 May 2004
• Docket Number: No. 03-03-00312-CV.,03-03-00312-CV.
• Citation: 149 S.W.3d 674
• Parties: SAVE OUR SPRINGS ALLIANCE and The Circle C Neighborhood Association, Appellants, v. The CITY OF AUSTIN; Circle C Land Corporation; and Stratus Properties, Inc., Appellees.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

149 S.W.3d 674

SAVE OUR SPRINGS ALLIANCE and The Circle C Neighborhood Association, Appellants, v. The CITY OF AUSTIN; Circle C Land Corporation; and Stratus Properties, Inc., Appellees.

No. 03-03-00312-CV.

Court of Appeals of Texas, Austin.

May 6, 2004.

Rehearing Overruled August 12, 2004.

Melanie Oberlin, William G. Bunch, Save Our Springs Alliance, Austin, for appellants.

Casey L. Dobson, Jane Webre, Scott, Douglass & McConnico, LLP, Max Renea Hicks, David Smith, Austin, for City of Austin.

John J. McKetta III, Robin A. Melvin, Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody, PC, Roy Q. Minton, John L. Foster, Minton, Burton, Foster & Collins P.C., Austin, for Circle C Land Development Corporation and Stratus Properties, Inc.

Before Chief Justice LAW, Justices PATTERSON and PURYEAR.

OPINION

W. KENNETH LAW, Chief Justice.

The Save Our Springs Alliance, a non-profit, public-interest organization, and the Circle C Neighborhood Association brought suit in district court in Travis County to prevent development in the Barton Springs Zone in Austin, alleging that the City of Austin was granting development permits in violation of a city ordinance. The City of Austin, the Circle C Land Corporation, and Stratus Properties filed a plea to the jurisdiction, which the district court granted. The Save Our Springs Alliance and the Circle C Neighborhood Association then brought this appeal, narrowly focusing on the proper application of the doctrines of mootness and ripeness and seeking, in the alternative, an opportunity to amend its petition. For the reasons stated below, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

BACKGROUND

The issues in this case come to us from a grant of a plea to the jurisdiction concerning the applicability of the City of Austin's Save Our Springs Ordinance (the "Ordinance") to various parcels of real property. The history of the Ordinance and disputes over its application are complex and lengthy. As well, the ordinance and statutes at issue in this case were amended at different points in the course of litigation, and the pleadings were amended twice. Thus, we begin with a comprehensive introduction to the parties and a review of the events that led to this appeal to provide the context from which these issues arose.

Circle C Land Corporation, a subsidiary of Stratus Properties, Inc. ("Stratus"), owns approximately 1200 acres of land divided into seventeen parcels within the geographic area containing watersheds that contribute to Barton Springs — Barton Creek, Barton Springs, and the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer ("Barton Springs watershed"). These parcels are part of a master-planned, mixed-use development known as "Circle C Ranch." Development of Circle C Ranch began in the early 1980s as a unified development project. The master plan included a land-use plan, a utility plan for the provision of water, wastewater, drainage and other utilities, a roadway and transportation plan, and a plan for schools, parks, and amenities.

In the early 1990s, a group of Austin citizens, frustrated by their perception that the Austin City Council was failing to adequately safeguard Barton Springs and the Barton Springs watershed, initiated the Ordinance and placed it on the Austin municipal ballot for a local referendum election. See Quick v. City of Austin, 7 S.W.3d 109, 112 (Tex.1998). After overwhelming approval of the Ordinance by Austin voters in August 1992, the Austin City Council enacted the Ordinance and incorporated it into the City Code. Id.

The "Declaration of Intent" states that the Ordinance seeks to insure water-quality control in the Barton Creek watershed. Thus, its provisions do not apply city-wide. The Ordinance contains the following provisions pertinent to this appeal: (1) it limits the percentage of a land tract devoted to "impervious," i.e., non-porous cover; (2) it requires that new developments be set back from streams and not contribute to an increase in the amount of pollution constituents commonly found in urban rainfall runoff water; (3) it prohibits construction in the "critical water quality zone" of the Barton Springs watershed; and (4) it provides for no waivers or exceptions except in limited circumstances necessary to avoid conflicting with state and federal laws. The Ordinance provides that it may only be amended by an affirmative vote of no fewer than six of the seven members of the Austin City Council.

In 1999, the legislature considered the problem that arises when a party has applied for a development permit under one set of land-use regulations when those regulations have changed after an application has been filed. It declared that in those situations regulatory agencies should consider development applications based, in part, on the ordinances "in effect at the time the original application for the permit is filed." Tex. Loc. Gov't Code Ann. § 245.002(a) (West Supp.2004). It also decided that "[p]reliminary plans and related subdivision plats, site plans, and all other development permits for land covered by the preliminary plans or subdivision plats are considered collectively to be one series of permits for a project." Id. § 245.002(b).¹ At the same time, the legislature provided that the grandfather clause "does not apply to regulations to prevent imminent destruction of property or injury to persons, including regulations effective only within a flood plain established by a federal flood-control program and enacted to prevent the flooding of buildings intended for public occupancy." Former section 245.004(9).²

On June 24, 2002, appellants Save Our Springs Alliance³ and the Circle C Neighborhood Association⁴ filed suit in district court. Basing their pleadings on chapter 245 of the local government code, they claimed that the City was "approving projects that fail to comply with" the Ordinance. In particular, they argued that the terms of former section 245.004(9) exempted Circle C Ranch from the grandfather clause, and so the City ought to apply the regulations found in the Ordinance to development applications for plats within Circle C Ranch rather than pre-Ordinance regulations. As a result, they sought mandamus and injunctive relief to bar the City from granting development permits for property in Circle C Ranch.⁵

At that time, Stratus and the City were in the midst of negotiations regarding the application of the Ordinance to Circle C Ranch in light of unanswered legal questions concerning the proper application of the grandfather clause and former section 245.004(9) to that land. Those parties reached a settlement determining development rights to Circle C Ranch and a procedure of review of development permits and applications (the "development agreement"). On August 1, 2002, the Austin City Council adopted the development agreement and fifteen additional ordinances as an amendment to the Ordinance, zoning Circle C Ranch by an affirmative vote of six of the seven council members, to be effective August 12, 2002.

On January 13, 2003, the City filed a plea to the jurisdiction, in which it argued that appellants' claims were moot with respect to Circle C Ranch because the development agreement, as an amendment to the Ordinance, controlled all development-permit applications for Circle C Ranch. It also argued appellants' claims regarding the enforceability of the Ordinance were not ripe because they were not based on the application of the Ordinance to any property or development permit. On January 21, appellants amended their pleading to argue that owners of property within the area regulated by the Ordinance, including Stratus, have asserted development rights under the grandfather clause. Appellants attempted to allege their claims with greater specificity and argued that the City maintains a permit procedure by which it reviews applications that claim to be grandfathered from the Ordinance. Finally, they claimed that the City had granted some development permits, not within Circle C Ranch, in violation of the Ordinance. On March 21, 2003, appellants further amended their pleadings in another attempt to allege with specificity permits issued by the City that appellants believed violated the Ordinance.⁶

In both their first and second amended petitions, appellants sought a declaration that the development agreement is invalid. They moved to sever that invalidation claim from this suit on May 1, which the trial court granted on May 7. They then non-suited that separate lawsuit on August 5, 2003.

On May 7, the district court granted the City's plea to the jurisdiction on the grounds of mootness, dismissing appellants' claims relating to Circle C Ranch. Because the ripeness claim concerned only non-Circle C Ranch property, claims of which only appeared in appellants' first and second amended pleadings, the court delayed ruling on the ripeness claim. On May 13, in a final judgment the court granted the City's plea to the jurisdiction on ripeness grounds for property not in Circle C Ranch. This appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

In three issues on appeal, appellants argue that the district court erred in granting the City's plea to the jurisdiction. We will address each argument in turn.

Subject-matter jurisdiction is essential to the authority of a court to decide a case. Mayhew v. Town of Sunnyvale, 964 S.W.2d 922, 928 (Tex.1998); Texas Ass'n of Bus. v. Texas Air Control Bd., 852 S.W.2d 440, 443 (Tex.1993). A plea to the jurisdiction challenges the trial court's authority to determine the subject matter of a specific cause of action. Texas State Employees Union/CWA Local 6184 v. Texas Workforce Comm'n, 16 S.W.3d 61, 65 (Tex.App.-Austin 2000, no pet.). In order to prevail, the party asserting the plea to the jurisdiction must show that even if all the allegations in the plaintiff's pleadings are taken as true, there is an incurable jurisdictional defect apparent from the face of the pleadings, rendering it impossible for the plaintiff's petition to confer...