SOS ALLIANCE v. City of Dripping Springs
| Decision Date | 12 February 2010 |
| Docket Number | No. 03-04-00683-CV.,03-04-00683-CV. |
| Citation | 304 SW 3d 871 |
| Parties | SAVE OUR SPRINGS ALLIANCE, INC., Appellant, v. CITY OF DRIPPING SPRINGS; Todd Purcell, in his Official Capacity as Mayor of the City of Dripping Springs; and Mak Foster Ranch, L.P., Appellees. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Brad Rockwell, Scanlon, Buckle & Young, Sarah Baker, Austin, for appellant.
Thomas W. Robertson, Baker & Associates, Dripping Springs, E. Lee Parsley, E. Lee Parsley, P.C., Howard S. Slobodin, Hazen & Terrell, P.C., Paul M. Terrill, III, The Terrill Law Firm, P.C., J. Bruce Scrafford, Jeffrey J. Hobbs, Armbrust & Brown, L.L.P., Austin, for appellee.
Before Chief Justice LAW, Justices PEMBERTON and WALDROP.
We withdraw the opinion and judgment issued July 3, 2009, and substitute the following opinion and judgment in their place. We deny appellant's motion for rehearing.
The City of Dripping Springs entered into agreements with two landowners in the City's extraterritorial jurisdiction, Cypress-Hays, L.P. and Mak Foster Ranch, L.P. The agreements contemplated the landowners' development of portions of their property for residential, commercial, and recreational use. The agreements were approved by the city council in public meetings during April 2001. Appellant Save Our Springs Alliance, Inc. ("SOS Alliance") filed suit alleging that the agreements would result in added pollution to the environmentally sensitive Edwards Aquifer. In its petition, SOS Alliance sought a declaration that the agreements violated the Texas Constitution, and alleged that the public notices regarding the city council's approval of the agreements did not sufficiently communicate the subject matter of the meetings as required by the Texas Open Meetings Act. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants on SOS Alliance's Open Meetings Act claim, granted the defendants' pleas to the jurisdiction on the remaining claims based on SOS Alliance's lack of standing, and awarded the defendants attorneys' fees. We affirm the judgment of the district court.
After notice and a public hearing on April 10, 2001, the City of Dripping Springs entered into a "Development Agreement" with Cypress-Hays, L.P. This agreement authorized development on approximately 2,724 acres of land owned by Cypress-Hays in the City's extraterritorial jurisdiction in Hays County. After notice and a public hearing on April 19, 2001, the City entered into a similar "Development Agreement" with Mak Foster Ranch, L.P. This agreement authorized development on approximately 1,611 acres of land owned by Mak Foster in the City's extraterritorial jurisdiction in Hays County. Both Development Agreements contemplated development of the land as master-planned, mixed-use communities with commercial and residential uses, as well as park and recreational facilities. Under the Agreements, Cypress-Hays and Mak Foster could develop the land according to agreed-upon standards, in exchange for the City's pledge that the standards would remain consistent for a period of 15 years (with up to two 5-year extensions).1
SOS Alliance is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to protecting the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards Aquifer, which is located almost entirely in Hays and Travis Counties. According to SOS Alliance, water from the aquifer's "contributing zone." in which the City of Dripping Springs is located, flows eastward on creeks into the "recharge zone," where the water moves underground through caves, sinkholes, and other openings to fill or "recharge" the aquifer. Most of the water from this segment of the aquifer emerges at Barton Springs in Austin, Texas, which is on the northeast corner of the two zones.
In November 2002, SOS Alliance filed suit against the City of Dripping Springs and Todd Purcell in his official capacity as mayor of the City of Dripping Springs (collectively, the "City"), challenging the municipality's authority to enter into the Development Agreements and the sufficiency of the information in the public notices for the meetings at which the Agreements were considered and approved.2 Four months later, SOS Alliance added Cypress-Hays and appellee Mak Foster as defendants in the lawsuit.
Although some authority existed for cities to enter into certain types of development agreements for land in their extraterritorial jurisdiction, see Tex. Loc. Gov't Code Ann. § 42.044 (West 2008), the legislature expanded cities' authority to enter into such agreements during the 2003 legislative session. See Act of May 24, 2003, 78th Leg., R.S., ch. 522, § 1, 2003 Tex. Gen. Laws 1788, 1788-89 (codified at Tex. Loc. Gov't Code Ann. §§ 212.171-.174 (West 2008)). The 2003 legislation included a provision that resulted in the retroactive validation of the Development Agreements. See Tex. Loc. Gov't Code Ann. § 212.172(h).
After this legislation was enacted, on May 11, 2004, SOS Alliance filed its second amended petition—the live pleading in this case when judgment was entered—seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and attorneys' fees. In its petition, SOS Alliance alleged that the Development Agreements violate the Texas Constitution by impinging on the right of local self-government, impairing the preservation of a republican form of government, and contracting away legislative powers. SOS Alliance further alleged that the City violated the Texas Open Meetings Act by issuing public notices that insufficiently stated the subject of the Development Agreements.
The parties filed cross-motions for partial summary judgment, and the defendants also filed pleas to the jurisdiction challenging SOS Alliance's standing to pursue its claims. On July 26, 2004, the district court granted the defendants' pleas to the jurisdiction as to all of SOS Alliance's claims except the alleged violations of the Open Meetings Act and, after a hearing, granted summary judgment in favor of appellees as to the Open Meetings Act claim. The parties and the court agreed to try the remaining issue of attorneys' fees on written submission, and the court subsequently granted the defendants' requested fees. The district court entered a final judgment on November 29, 2004, incorporating all of its prior orders. SOS Alliance appeals.3
In its first and second points on appeal, SOS Alliance asserts that the district court's granting of appellees' pleas to the jurisdiction as to SOS Alliance's claims that do not relate to the Open Meetings Act was in error. A plea to the jurisdiction challenges the trial court's authority to determine the subject matter of a specific cause of action. See Texas Dep't of Parks & Wildlife v. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d 217, 225-26 (Tex.2004). We review de novo whether a court has subject-matter jurisdiction and whether the plaintiff has alleged facts that affirmatively demonstrate subject-matter jurisdiction. Id. at 226. In deciding a plea to the jurisdiction, we are not to consider the merits of the plaintiff's claims beyond the extent necessary to resolve the jurisdiction issue, but consider the plaintiff's pleadings, construed in the plaintiff's favor, and evidence pertinent to the jurisdictional inquiry. Id. at 227-28; County of Cameron v. Brown, 80 S.W.3d 549, 555 (Tex.2002). SOS Alliance contends that its pleadings and jurisdictional evidence are sufficient to establish jurisdiction.
Subject-matter jurisdiction is essential to the authority of a court to decide a case, and standing is a component of subject-matter jurisdiction. See Texas Ass'n of Bus. v. Texas Air Control Bd., 852 S.W.2d 440, 443-45 (Tex.1993). A plaintiff must have standing for the court to have subject-matter jurisdiction to decide the merits of the plaintiff's claims. See id.; Farmers Tex. County Mut. Ins. Co. v. Romo, 250 S.W.3d 527, 532 (Tex.App.-Austin 2008, no pet.). The plaintiff must allege facts that affirmatively demonstrate the court's jurisdiction to hear the cause. Texas Ass'n of Bus., 852 S.W.2d at 446. The general test for standing is whether there is a real controversy between the parties that will actually be determined by the judicial declaration sought. Id. Standing focuses on the question of who may bring a lawsuit. Patterson v. Planned Parenthood, 971 S.W.2d 439, 442 (Tex.1998).
SOS Alliance sues on behalf of its members. An association has standing to sue on behalf of its members when (1) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right, (2) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization's purpose, and (3) neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit. Texas Ass'n of Bus., 852 S.W.2d at 447 (quoting Hunt v. Washington State Apple Adver. Comm'n, 432 U.S. 333, 343, 97 S.Ct. 2434, 53 L.Ed.2d 383 (1977)). The first prong of associational standing may be satisfied if at least one of the organization's members would have standing individually. See Hays County v. Hays County Water Planning P'ship, 106 S.W.3d 349, 357 (Tex.App.-Austin 2003, no pet.). The Supreme Court has observed that the "irreducible constitutional minimum" of individual standing contains three elements: (1) the plaintiff must have suffered an "injury in fact," an invasion of a legally protected interest that is concrete and particularized, and that is actual or imminent rather than conjectural or hypothetical, (2) the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant and not the independent action of a third party not before the court, and (3) it must be likely that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, U.S. 555, 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992); see Brown v. Todd, 53 S.W.3d 297, 305 (Tex.2001) ().
SOS Alliance alleges several distinct...
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